The Phil Spector Trial: We Watch Court TV So You Don't Have To (06/28)

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY? The defense's first witness, forensic pathologist Vincent DiMaio, was back on the stand yesterday. It seemed like it was going to be a good day for Phil Spector. The morning showed DiMaio eloquently reasoning why, in his professional opinion, Lana Clarkson killed herself. But just when you thought, "Hey, maybe there is reasonable doubt here," prosecutor Alan Jackson cross-examined the witness, and it was all downhill from that point on for Spector. DiMaio, a statue in the morning, was reduced to a stammering, angry hired gun in the afternoon session as Jackson flustered the expert with questions pertaining to bias and scientific objectivity.

IS THIS GOOD OR BAD FOR SPECTOR? Bad. Jackson manhandled DiMaio, especially when the prosecutor queried DiMaio regarding his total pay thus far as a Spector witness. The answer of $26,400 shocked the jury.

HAIR & WARDROBE UPDATE: Spector, who didn't recognize his estranged adopted son when he walked into court, wore a black pinstripe suit, brown shirt and a tiger-print tie.

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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