The Teddy Bears

Long before Phil Spector was single-handedly constructing his "Wall of Sound" with stacked-up, single-track-mono teen symphonies, he too was a struggling vocalist and musician looking for a break. That break came in 1958 as songwriter, guitarist, and backup singer for the short-lived L.A-based trio, the Teddy Bears, who landed a left-field number one hit with Spector's first recorded composition, the elegiac and sepulchral ballad "To Know Him Is to Love Him," a tribute to his deceased father (who had committed suicide in 1949, during Spector's childhood). As a teenager, Spect...