Tearing Down the Wall of Sound
The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector
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Narrated by:
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Ray Porter
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By:
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Mick Brown
About this listen
But the reign of the boy-man who owned pop music seemed doomed by the "British Invasion", and Spector spiraled into paranoid isolation and peculiar behavior. Though he seemed to improve for a time, and even returned to the recording studio to work, his renascence didn't last, and in 2003, the actress Lana Clarkson was found at his home, dead from a gunshot wound.
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- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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From the moment their hugely influential 1978 debut landed, Van Halen set a high bar for the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, creating an entirely new style of post-'60s hard rock and becoming the quintessential rock band of the 1980s. But the high-flying success was fraught with difficulty, as Eddie struggled with alcohol and drug addiction while simultaneously battling David Lee Roth over the musical direction of the band, eventually taking the band in an entirely new direction with Sammy Hagar and scaling new heights, before that iteration of Van Halen disintegrated.
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Please don't read other audible books
- By Mike on 02-01-22
By: Paul Brannigan
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Uncommon People
- The Rise and Fall of The Rock Stars
- By: David Hepworth
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. Like the cowboy, the idea of the rock star lives on in our imaginations. What did we see in them? Swagger. Recklessness. Sexual charisma. Damn-the-torpedoes self-belief. A certain way of carrying themselves. Good hair. Interesting shoes. Talent we wished we had. What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder many didn't stay the course.
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INSIGHTFULL!
- By CLAUDIA R KENNEDY on 02-18-18
By: David Hepworth
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Sing to Me
- My Story of Making Music, Finding Magic, and Searching for Who's Next
- By: LA Reid
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Legendary music producer LA Reid - the man behind artists such as Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, Kanye West, Rihanna, TLC, Outkast, Pink, Justin Bieber, and Usher - changed the music business forever. Now he tells his story, taking fans on an intimate tour of his life. Sing to Me is a fascinating journey from Reid's small-town R&B roots in Cincinnati, Ohio, and his work as a drummer to his fame as a Grammy Award-winning music producer and his gig as a judge on the hit reality show The X Factor.
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Wow!! What a journey!!!
- By Marty Cohn on 02-06-16
By: LA Reid
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Alice in Chains
- The Untold Story
- By: David de Sola
- Narrated by: Sebastian York
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Alice in Chains was the first of grunge's big four - ahead of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden - to get a gold record and achieve national recognition. With the charismatic Layne Staley behind the microphone, they became one of the most influential and successful bands to come out of the Seattle music scene. But as the band got bigger, so did its problems.
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Disappointing!!!!
- By Rob on 12-23-16
By: David de Sola
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Small Town Talk
- Bob Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Friends in the Wild Years of Woodstock
- By: Barney Hoskyns
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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When musicians in the New York folk scene of the 1960s grew tired of city life, they decided to "get it together in the country". They headed for Woodstock - not to the site of the infamous music festival of 1969 but to the Catskills, to Bearsville, to Woodstock proper. Counterculture revolutionaries like Janis Joplin, Richie Havens, and Paul Butterfield got "back to the land", turning the once sleepy hollow into a funky Shangri-La.
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Captured the era - too many mistakes
- By Frank Canino on 04-17-16
By: Barney Hoskyns
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Outlaw
- Waylon, Willie, Kris, and the Renegades of Nashville
- By: Michael Streissguth
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Waylon Jennings. Willie Nelson. Kris Kristofferson. Three renegade musicians. Three unexpected stars. Three men who changed Nashville and country music forever. Streissguth's new book brings to life an incredible chapter in musical history and reveals for the first time a surprising outlaw zeitgeist in Nashville. Based on extensive research and probing interviews with key players, what emerges is a fascinating glimpse into three of the most legendary artists of our times and the definitive story of how they changed music in Nashville and everywhere.
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Revealing little-known Details does Captivate!
- By Cody Meyer on 11-20-17
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Tammy Wynette
- Tragic Country Queen
- By: Jimmy McDonough
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling biographer Jimmy McDonough tells the story of the small-town girl who grew up to be the woman behind the microphone, whose meteoric rise led to a decades-long career full of tragedy and triumph. Through a high-profile marriage and divorce, her dreadful battle with addiction and illness, and the struggle to compete in a rapidly evolving Nashville, Tammy Wynette turned a brave smile toward the world and churned out masterful hit songs though her life resembled the most heartbreaking among them.
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Loved It!
- By Eileen on 03-19-10
By: Jimmy McDonough
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When Giants Walked the Earth
- A Biography of Led Zeppelin
- By: Mick Wall
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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They were the last great band of the '60s and the first great band of the '70s. They rose, somewhat unpromisingly, from the ashes of the Yardbirds to become one of the biggest-selling rock bands of all time - and eventually paid the price for it, with disaster, drug addiction, and death.
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Very annoying but tolerable for serious fans.
- By M. Allen on 08-14-19
By: Mick Wall
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Brian Jones
- The Making of the Rolling Stones
- By: Paul Trynka
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Brian Jones is a forensic, thrilling account of Jones' life, which for the first time details his pioneering achievements and messy unraveling. With more than 120 new interviews, Trynka offers countless new revelations and sets straight the tall tales that have long marred Jones' legacy. His story is a gripping battle between creativity and ambition, between self-sabotage and betrayal. It's all here: the girlfriends, the drugs, and some of the greatest music of all time.
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Great story, exceptionally well narrated
- By M. Graham on 11-17-15
By: Paul Trynka
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Fire and Rain
- The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY and the Lost Story of 1970
- By: David Browne
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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January 1970: the Beatles assemble one more time to put the finishing touches on Let It Be; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are wrapping up Déjà Vu; Simon and Garfunkel are unveiling Bridge Over Troubled Water; James Taylor is an upstart singer-songwriter who's just completed Sweet Baby James. Over the course of the next twelve months, their lives---and the world around them---will change irrevocably.
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Fascinating information, easy to listen
- By NCKitkat on 07-28-11
By: David Browne
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Iggy Pop
- Open Up and Bleed
- By: Paul Trynka
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Iggy Pop's legendary career has been tumultuous, reaching great heights with mega-hits and then hitting rock-bottom lows in jail and mental institutions. Along the way, he's become a cult-rock hero, an inspiration for dozens of other famous rockers, and has had a pretty good time of it, too. But the image of Iggy Pop versus the man behind that image, James Newell Osterberg, Jr., is surprisingly contradictory.
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Banal and Boring
- By Michael on 12-03-08
By: Paul Trynka
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Me, the Mob, and the Music
- One Helluva Ride with Tommy James and the Shondells
- By: Tommy James, Martin Fitzpatrick
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knows the hits: "Mony Mony," "I Think We're Alone Now," "Crimson and Clover," "Crystal Blue Persuasion." They are nuggets of rock and pop history. However, few know the unlikely story of how these hits came to be. Tommy James had been performing in rock bands in the Michigan area since the age of 12. Prompted to record a few songs by a local disc jockey in 1964, Tommy chose an obscurity titled "Hanky Panky," which became a minor local hit that came and went.
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What a ride - excellent story, well told
- By Dave on 03-25-10
By: Tommy James, and others
What listeners say about Tearing Down the Wall of Sound
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lucky
- 05-20-14
Terrific book, narration hit or miss
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
The narrator is irritating. The voices and accents are unnecessary. The bad accents are few enough to overlook, however... When the narrator is reading the part of a woman, they all sound like drag queen voices: overly feminized caricatures.Now that said, when the narrator is speaking about/for Phil Spector, the crazy is palpable. The pace is just shy of an uncontrolled gallop and it makes the book all the more effective in communicating Spector's decades-long descent into madness.
Any additional comments?
The book is terrific. The balance between Spector's musical life and personal life is excellent. I knew a good bit about him musically, but the subtext of his life in between the hits was really informative and helped me get a better, bigger picture of Phil Spector.
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3 people found this helpful
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- karltonwrites
- 07-02-12
A Long Strange Trip
Part Genius, part Madman. I enjoyed the parts with rock legends such as Brian Wilson, Tina Turner, the Ronettes, and John Lennon. The tabloid tragedy towards the end was too riveting to skip. Recommended to music lovers and true crime readers alike (but more for music lovers).
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- Marilyn Dockendorf
- 07-28-19
Recommended
This is a fine book. I found it excellently researched and presented. Go and enjoy it.
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- KaHef
- 07-27-07
Better than Fiction!
Wow, what an amazing life, timely or not. He made or knew anyone who was anyone in the early 60's. The guy was brilliant and knew it, but he had his problems and dealt with them as good as he knew how. A well written/well narrated story that will be enjoyed whether you knew all the music mentioned as I do or not. It's still an amazing story. Listen and Enjoy!
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3 people found this helpful
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- Rudy
- 05-12-11
Fascinating book; irritating narrator
Author Mick Brown does a mostly excellent job of capturing rock & roll's early days and the seminal role Phil Spector played (although Brown could have benefited from fact-checking, e.g., Amy Heckerling, not Cameron Crowe, directed "Fast Times at Ridgemont High;" Bobbie Gentry, not Jeannie C. Riley, had a hit with "Ode to Billy Joe.")
But the narrator, Ray Porter, drove me nuts! How can the narrator of a book about rock & roll consistently mispronounce Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner's first name (as though it's the lady's name, Jan)? Worse, he has stock accents and intonations for each character "type": Women are all read in a fast, high-pitched breathless tone; British musicians are all Cockney-accented; British and Irish non-musicians have indeterminate accents that come and go; and German musician and legendary Beatles sideman, Klaus Voorman, is given a flossy British accent (although, on second thought, perhaps it's better that Porter didn't attempt Voorman's German accent). Why do so many audio book narrators feel compelled to act up a storm rather than rely on their natural vocal gifts?
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Adrian
- 09-15-07
excellent
Clearly bonkers, but his life sadly echoes one of his favourite films, Citizen Kane.
The only thing that could have improved this reading would be to have the songs playing in the background as they are being described, so get yourself a copy of Back to Mono as you listen to this.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Been There Done That
- 07-03-13
three Fives!!!
What did you love best about Tearing Down the Wall of Sound?
Everything
What other book might you compare Tearing Down the Wall of Sound to and why?
There is no comparison as there is no other Phil Spector
What about Ray Porter’s performance did you like?
His voice, his delivery
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I ould have but it was too long.
Any additional comments?
Get it!!! Listen to it! A great history of rock and roll along with an inside look at the industry!! Too awesome!
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- Cookie,
- 12-23-18
Good book, crazy subject!
A detailed (very detailed) history of Phil Spector. But you will have to seek other sources for trail information, as this goes right up to when the trial was set to begin. I really wish he could have held off for the whole story—but it would have been years.
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- Shannon
- 02-08-08
Too technical to be compelling
I bought this book because I knew very little about Phil Spector and I was intrigued by his seeming peculiarity. I had heard about his trial and wanted to know something of the character of this alleged murderer. This book provides a modicum of information about his early life, a great deal (too much) information about his recordings, some good trivia about famous singers, and some very interesting information about the murder victim and the prosecution's case. While I enjoyed hearing (once) about the intricacies of setting up and conducting a recording session and Phil's unbelievable demands on the session participants, I got bored hearing essentially the same story over and over. It was interesting hearing tidbits about his dealings with such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Sonny and Cher, and Brian Wilson, and I loved the documentation of his many, many self-aggrandizing lies ("I produced Elvis".) I was unable to connect emotionally with any of the characters except Phil's monstrously neglected children and the murder victim, who was not discussed until the last hour of the book. The author seems to make the case that Phil Spector is unknowable. After about 18 hours of listening, I have to agree.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Doug Humphreys
- 07-26-17
Interesting!
As a baby boomer I was always familiar with the name Phil Spector and I always knew that he had been a major player and producer of early "Rock And Roll" music.
Seeing this biography, I thought it may provide some interesting information.
I throughly enjoyed listening to the history and detail of his tragic life. Very well written and researched by the author.
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