Phil Spector had some of his earliest productions released by Jamie Records, thanks to Duane Eddy, Lee Hazlewood and Lester Sill. The Creations' "The Bells" and "Shang Shang" is the second recording after the Ducanes' "I'm So Happy" (on Golddisc Records) with the legend, "A Phil-Les Production." This was the partnership between Phil Spector and Lester Sill that had begun while Lester Sill and Lee Hazlewood were riding high with the success of Duane Eddy as a major artist on Jamie Records. Phil Spector met Lester Sill and Lee Hazlewood after Spector's legendary start as artist-writer-singer on the Teddy Bears' "To Know Him Is To Love Him," a title taken from the words on the grave of his father, who died when Phil was still a child (the headstone actually said, “To Know Him Was to Love Him”).
But failing to follow up with any hits for the Teddy Bears, Phil allied himself with music veteran Lester Sill and even lived for a while in Sill's home, sharing a room with Sill's sons. Sill took Phil down to Phoenix for Duane Eddy sessions, where Phil first heard the echoey sound Hazlewood produced from an old oil drum on the roof of the Audio Recorders studio for Duane’s monster Jamie instrumental hits. Lee Hazlewood found Phil Spector an annoyance at the studio and meantime Duane split with Lee. Eventually loyalties were rearranged, as described by Lester Sill in Rob Finnis’s liner notes to the Ace CD, Phil Spector: The Early Productions (CDCHD 1253): “It was because of Phil that Lee and I split. Lee was pissed. He confronted me at Gold Star [studio in Los Angeles] one day and said he was going back with Duane. We kept Gregmark going but at the same time I started POhilles Records in September 1961.” The Creations single had been released by Jamie just a couple of months before, on June 28, 1961.
