Biography
Larry Levine, a recording engineer, captured producer Phil Spector’s expansive audio concepts onto tape, resulting in numerous groundbreaking and timeless pop singles. Following his birth on May 8, 1928, in New York City, Levine grew up in Los Angeles and completed U.S. Army service during the Korean War. Upon returning home, he joined his cousin Stan Ross at the newly established Hollywood facility Gold Star, acquiring hands-on knowledge of recording methods while on the job. Once Gold Star launched its second studio space in 1956, Levine fully mastered the mixing console’s potential, directing sessions for rockabilly icon Eddie Cochran that produced classics such as “Summertime Blues,” “Twenty Flight Rock,” and “C'mon Everybody.”
Levine encountered Spector for the first time in 1958 when the 18-year-old prodigy arrived at Gold Star with the Teddy Bears to cut the chart-topping ballad “To Know Him Is to Love Him”; although Ross handled that particular session, Levine took over when Spector came back in July 1962 to oversee “He's a Rebel,” the third release by his emerging girl group the Crystals. The track reached number one, and after linking again with Spector three weeks later on the follow-up single Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans’ “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” Levine was formally designated the producer’s preferred engineer.
Inside Gold Star’s celebrated Studio A, a room famous for its highly resonant echo chambers, Levine imparted clarity and unity to Spector’s expansive Wall of Sound, surrounding acts like the Ronettes and the Righteous Brothers with richly symphonic pop built from layered guitars, pianos, brass, percussion, and countless additional instruments. Collaborating with arranger Jack Nitzsche and the elite session players later known as the Wrecking Crew—including drummers Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer; guitarists Barney Kessel, Tommy Tedesco, and Bill Strange; bassists Carol Kaye and Larry Knechtel; and pianist Leon Russell—Levine functioned as both sounding board and interpreter for Spector, realizing the producer’s boldest and most original notions. “Phil wanted everything mono but he'd keep turning the volume up in the control room,” Levine later recounted. “So, what I did was record the same thing on two of the [Ampex machine's] three tracks just to reinforce the sound, and then I would erase one of those and replace it with the voice.” The resulting recordings stand on their own: singles such as the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron,” the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'” elevated rock & roll to the status of art. “[Levine] made Phil Spector a genius by applying the simple logic of using echo,” Stan Ross later declared. “I showed him how you work this echo chamber thing and he got into it and sure enough it worked...It gave [the music] dimension. It sounded like it was a football field.”
Levine’s Gold Star contributions extended well beyond Spector’s orbit: in 1965 he earned his sole Grammy Award when Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass’ “A Taste of Honey” received Best Engineered Recording, along with Record of the Year and Best Pop Arrangement. So essential was Levine to Alpert’s Latin jazz aesthetic that he was informally acknowledged as the eighth member of the Tijuana Brass; when Alpert and Jerry Moss began building a new Hollywood studio for their A&M Records label, they enlisted Levine to supervise the project in order to replicate Gold Star’s distinctive acoustics. He also engineered the Beach Boys’ landmark album Pet Sounds, a work deeply influenced by Spector’s innovations. Levine stayed closely connected to Spector throughout his career, even after the producer’s pop empire collapsed following Ike & Tina Turner’s 1966 single “River Deep, Mountain High,” both an artistic peak and a major commercial disappointment: Levine later reappeared on Spector-produced dates including Leonard Cohen’s 1977 LP Death of a Ladies' Man and the Ramones’ 1980 effort End of the Century. Levine and Spector also reconvened to digitally remaster their classic Gold Star-era collaborations for the 1991 box set Back to Mono. After an extended struggle with emphysema, Levine passed away at his Encino, CA, residence on May 8, 2008, his 80th birthday.
Levine encountered Spector for the first time in 1958 when the 18-year-old prodigy arrived at Gold Star with the Teddy Bears to cut the chart-topping ballad “To Know Him Is to Love Him”; although Ross handled that particular session, Levine took over when Spector came back in July 1962 to oversee “He's a Rebel,” the third release by his emerging girl group the Crystals. The track reached number one, and after linking again with Spector three weeks later on the follow-up single Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans’ “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” Levine was formally designated the producer’s preferred engineer.
Inside Gold Star’s celebrated Studio A, a room famous for its highly resonant echo chambers, Levine imparted clarity and unity to Spector’s expansive Wall of Sound, surrounding acts like the Ronettes and the Righteous Brothers with richly symphonic pop built from layered guitars, pianos, brass, percussion, and countless additional instruments. Collaborating with arranger Jack Nitzsche and the elite session players later known as the Wrecking Crew—including drummers Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer; guitarists Barney Kessel, Tommy Tedesco, and Bill Strange; bassists Carol Kaye and Larry Knechtel; and pianist Leon Russell—Levine functioned as both sounding board and interpreter for Spector, realizing the producer’s boldest and most original notions. “Phil wanted everything mono but he'd keep turning the volume up in the control room,” Levine later recounted. “So, what I did was record the same thing on two of the [Ampex machine's] three tracks just to reinforce the sound, and then I would erase one of those and replace it with the voice.” The resulting recordings stand on their own: singles such as the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron,” the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'” elevated rock & roll to the status of art. “[Levine] made Phil Spector a genius by applying the simple logic of using echo,” Stan Ross later declared. “I showed him how you work this echo chamber thing and he got into it and sure enough it worked...It gave [the music] dimension. It sounded like it was a football field.”
Levine’s Gold Star contributions extended well beyond Spector’s orbit: in 1965 he earned his sole Grammy Award when Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass’ “A Taste of Honey” received Best Engineered Recording, along with Record of the Year and Best Pop Arrangement. So essential was Levine to Alpert’s Latin jazz aesthetic that he was informally acknowledged as the eighth member of the Tijuana Brass; when Alpert and Jerry Moss began building a new Hollywood studio for their A&M Records label, they enlisted Levine to supervise the project in order to replicate Gold Star’s distinctive acoustics. He also engineered the Beach Boys’ landmark album Pet Sounds, a work deeply influenced by Spector’s innovations. Levine stayed closely connected to Spector throughout his career, even after the producer’s pop empire collapsed following Ike & Tina Turner’s 1966 single “River Deep, Mountain High,” both an artistic peak and a major commercial disappointment: Levine later reappeared on Spector-produced dates including Leonard Cohen’s 1977 LP Death of a Ladies' Man and the Ramones’ 1980 effort End of the Century. Levine and Spector also reconvened to digitally remaster their classic Gold Star-era collaborations for the 1991 box set Back to Mono. After an extended struggle with emphysema, Levine passed away at his Encino, CA, residence on May 8, 2008, his 80th birthday.