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fingers flew effortlessly over the frets. Born in Oklahoma in 1923, Kessel was a child prodigy who had left home at fourteen to go on the road, playing with big bands, including those of Charlie Barnett and Benny Goodman. He went on to play with Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson, and with the paragons of the West Coast “cool school,” Chet Baker and Art Pepper, as well as recording a number of acclaimed albums under his own name. He was also one of the most respected session guitarists in Los Angeles. It was Kessel who provided the exquisite guitar accompaniment on Julie London’s 1955 hit “Cry Me a River.”
    Phil had found a new hero. He collected every Kessel recording he could find, and in an act of homage pinned a photograph of the guitarist on his bedroom wall, alongside the pictures of Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln. (When Kessel died in 2004, Spector would describe him to one friend as “the Quintessential. The greatest musician I’ve ever known; the greatest guitarist that ever lived—well ahead of Segovia whom many, wrongfully, think was the greatest.”)
    So impassioned was Spector about Kessel’s playing that when the jazz magazine
Down Beat
ran an interview with Sal Salvador, the guitarist in the Stan Kenton band, in which Salvador singled out his favorite guitarists but omitted to mention Kessel’s name, Spector wrote a letter in defense of his hero, saying he was “a little disappointed that when naming his favorite guitarists Salvador left out the name of Barney Kessel, who in my opinion holds the title of the greatest guitarist…Sure wish you would ease my pain and have a story about Barney in one of your future issues.”
    The letter appeared as the lead on the magazine’s letters page in the issue dated November 14, 1956, and its publication not only thrilled Spector, but also inspired his sister Shirley to act on his behalf. Tracking down Barney Kessel at the Contemporary recording studios in Hollywood, she explained that it was her younger brother who had written the letter to
Down Beat,
that he worshiped the guitarist and dreamed of following in his footsteps; would Kessel meet him to pass on some advice? Astonished to learn that the correspondent who had championed him so eloquently in
Down Beat
was just fifteen years old, Kessel readily agreed.
    A few days later Phil, Bertha and Shirley presented themselves at Du-par’s, a coffee shop on Vine Street, close by the Capitol Records building and much favored by musicians on a break from recording sessions, where Kessel was waiting. Spector spent most of the meeting dumbstruck in the presence of his idol, while his mother and sister belabored Kessel with questions about their son’s career prospects in the music industry.
    Kessel offered some surprising advice. It was one thing to love jazz and to play it, he told them, but he would not recommend a career as a jazz musician. Phillip should look at the big picture. Fashions in music were cyclical, and jazz was on the downswing; it was rock and roll that people wanted to listen to now. If Phillip wanted to make a career in music he should be thinking of becoming a songwriter or a record producer. (Kessel was true to his own advice; as well as working as a guitarist and bandleader, at the time of meeting Spector he was also working as a vice president for Verve Records, where he produced recordings by Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. Shortly after meeting Spector, Kessel would take Ricky Nelson, the sixteen-year-old star of the television program
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,
and produce his first record, a cover version of Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’,” which went on to sell more than one million copies. Kessel would go on to perform on countless pop sessions for artists including Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys, as well as working with Spector himself.)
    Kessel was obviously impressed by Spector’s