Producer Phil Spector His Quest For Innovation Changed The Way The World Heard Music.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)

Byline: Gerry Miriello

Phil Spector was full of emotion. And the best way to deal with it, he figured, was to use it.

As a teen, Spector sat and played his guitar in his room for hours, sometimes all night. He tapped into his feelings and spilled them onto his fret board, using them as inspiration while he practiced.

He listened intently to every form of music, from jazz and soul to Bach and Wagner, and then filtered it through his own fingers. At 16, he wrote, produced and co-performed his first hit, "To Know Him Is to Love Him."

The song, commonly thought to be an ode to teen romance, was really inspired by the epitaph on the gravestone of his father, who killed himself when Spector was 8.

The harsh vision of that tomb pushed Spector from half-sleep one spring night in 1957. Picking up the guitar at his side, he played for hours until the despair and pain subsided. The result? A song full of the longing for love he rarely spoke about. It reached No. 1 on the charts.

Spector's effect on music has been vast. He recast the record producer as an artist. Before Spector, record producers were only promotion men and deal makers. After him, they could aspire to be craftsmen.