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his wife, Belle, and he could not have been more dissimilar to Phil. Marshall was tall, muscular, and swarthy, as outgoing and popular as Phil was meek and insulated. But both boys were artistically inclined, they liked the same music, and they took their first guitar lessons together, from a session guitarist named Burdell Mathis across the street from a huge music emporium in Hollywood called Herb Wallace’s Music City. Unlike many parents in the neighborhood who thought Spector was weird, Leonard and Belle Lieb more than abided him, and even thought he could be a positive influence on their son.
    â€œMy parents liked him. They didn’t feel he was any kind of threat,” Lieb explained. “In those days, most of the kids in the neighborhood wanted to be bad guys, gangster types, as opposed to collegiate types. There were certain looks that we liked emulating that were less than Ivy League. So then Phillip comes along and he’s not real macho he-man, not visibly the troublemaker type, whereas I had more of that look.”
    But Spector did have a problem with his mouth, and it could get him into trouble, Lieb mentioned. “Someone would say something to Phillip and he’d mouth right back. That would instigate a problem, and then it would be, ‘Marsh!’ and I’d have to turn around from what I was doing and go bail him out. I had a history of having a few little tussles from time to time, but I didn’t carry a chip on my shoulder like he did. He had a way about his answers that antagonizedpeople. One time this guy in school was going to kick his butt, no matter what. A big ring of people got in there, Phil’s in the middle with this guy, and this guy’s gonna beat him to shreds, and he just sort of gave me his little kitten eyes, to help him, so I came to his rescue and got the thing broken up. I was really his first bodyguard, when you think about it.”
    Family strife intensified in the Spector household during Phil’s high school years, when Bertha moved with her son to a smaller flat seven blocks away at 726 N. Hayworth Avenue—Shirley having moved out on her own, was in an apartment nearby—just north of Melrose Avenue and a block from Fairfax High School. It was there that an older, somewhat emboldened Phil became embroiled in arguments with his mother.
    â€œAs I remember, Phillip would have trouble with whatever her suggestions would be,” Lieb said. “It would be opposite of what he’d think. It was like ‘Can I go out?’ ‘No, you gotta stay home!’ And as soon as she’d leave, he’d be gone. A couple of times she hit him with her purse. He’d open a mouth on her and she would answer that and they would go back and forth. And she’d have some answer that he’d
never
agree with. I can remember times when she’d be chasing him around the apartment and he’d be hiding in places, like under his bed. I got phone calls in the middle of the night—‘Come over and help!’ And I would go over and sort of break the mood that was going on. Someone had to answer the door and stop shouting.”
    But even when peace was restored, it was an uneasy truce. “The most vivid memories I have of them was just a lot of bitterness, a lot of intolerant conversation,” Lieb said. “I didn’t see a lot of endearment. I never really had a feeling of any kind of togetherness among the three of them.”
    Spector never told anyone of his inner suffering. Unfamiliar with the feel of human warmth—the Spectors were not the hugging kind of family since Ben’s death—he shied away when he thought someone would touch him. But Spector was not a shut-in. He was drawn to the crowds of teenagers who cruised the wide strip of Fairfax Avenue, and the aromatic corridor of ethnic food shops along the avenue had a romantic appeal for him. He and Lieb were regular denizens at Canter’s