My mom and my husband alerted me to the death of the mad genius, Phil Spector, who died in prison on Sunday at the age of 81. He was serving a sentence for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. Super creepy guy but such a huge influence on popular music. Here's one of the greatest songs he had a hand in, "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, featuring future wife Ronnie Spector. A perfect example of his "Wall of Sound."
This was another case of YouTube making a helpful suggestion on their homepage:
Composer David Del Tredici died the other day at the age of 86. He won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1980 for "In Memory of a Summer Day," part one of Child Alice. He wrote many pieces inspired by A
The Best Actress winner for 2000 was Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich. That performance was a beguiling mixture of diva and mensch so instead I'm going to focus on two other Best Acrtess nominees tha