Even with some of his best-known artists, Phil Spector was known to use session musicians to record the songs and use the named musicians to take them on the road. In this case, they probably were just the session singers, for whom the name “The Creations” was particularly appropriate. Phil Spector was closely involved with Jamie Records from the period after he had his hit, “To Know Him Is To Love Him” through the period of the great success of Philles Records, which Jamie/Guyden distributed nationally from its inception.This was where Spector created his unique sound and had a string of hits with the Ronettes, the Crystals, Bob B. Soxx and the Bluejeans, Darlene Love and the Righteous Brothers.
The relationship between Phil Spector and Jamie arose through Lester Sill, who, as co-producer of Duane Eddy with Lee Hazlewood, was intimately involved in the early days of Jamie. Hazlewood worked the studio but Sill worked the business with skill that equaled Hazlewood in the studio. It was Sill who though Jamie would be right for Duane Eddy because it was in Philadelphia and American Bandstand had just ignited the music industry from Philadelphia. Sill also offered Duane Eddy to Dick Clark to manage, a brilliant move that worked so well that Dick Clark named one of his children Duane, after Duane Eddy.
Phil Spector got so close to Lester Sill that Spector lived for a time in Sill’s home. Philles Records stands for Phil and Les. One of their labels was called Les-Phil. Sill took Spector under his wing, a move that alienated Hazlewood when Spector haunted the Phoenix studio where Duane Eddy was cutting his records and Spector peppered Hazlewood with questions. Eventually Hazlewood and Sill broke up. Duane Eddy reunited with Hazlewood when Duane went to RCA Records. Sill went off with Phil Spector and created the “wall of sound” and made a killing with Spector with Philles Records. “The Bells” by the Creations came in that period between the end of Sill-Hazlewood productions and the beginning of Philles Records when Phil Spector was perfecting the sound that would mesmerize the music business in the early 1960s.
