Wall of Sound Goes "Boom"

Two people have talked to me about record producer Phil Spector's affiliation with guns. A photographer who once took photos of John Lennon (and sold me an autographed Lennon album) told me a story 13 years ago about how Spector and Lennon got into an argument in the studio and Spector pulled out a gun. He told me Lennon responded, "You always pull out the gun. Well, do something with it or put it away already!"

More recently, on May 13, while I walked through Horton Plaza, I saw musician John Prine. I knew Spector had produced some songs on one of his albums, so I asked Prine about Spector's situation. Prine said, "Isn't that such a strange thing? It's a crazy situation, but it's not hard to see how something like that happened."

I asked if Spector ever pulled a gun on him. He said, "He always, always had guns on him."

"Yeah, but did he ever pull one on you?"

Prine paused, then looked up, smiling. After a few seconds of silence, he said, "Let me say this again: he always had guns with him."