Phil Spector Appeal Shot Down by California Supreme Court

The California Supreme Court have turned down an appeal filed by Phil Spector's attorneys requesting a review of the legendary producer's 2009 murder conviction.

This is the second time this year that Spector's attorneys have been rejected in their attempt to overturn his conviction. In May, his lawyers argued that his conviction resulted from a prejudiced trial in which jurors heard testimony from five women who claimed that he had threatened them with a gun years before actress Lana Clarkson was found shot dead in the foyer of Spector's mansion in 2003.

Photos: Phil Spector Before the Fall

Spector's attorneys ultimately hope to grant their client a third trial. His first trial, back in 2007, was declared a mistrial after jurors deadlocked.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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