Celine Dion Phil Spector 1995 Unreleased Production Cassette Tape
This is the last of a handful of production studio work cassette tapes of Celine Dion singing music produced by Phil Spector.
They were created by I sold the first two production tapes for between seven and fifteen thousand dollars each back in 2020. This unusual unlabeled Sony HF cassette tape contains five takes of the infamous unreleased track "Is This What I Get For Lovin You?" sung by Celine Dion and produced by Phil Spector. Each of the takes is about six minutes long except for the instrumental version of "Is This What I Get For Lovin You?"
I am also including an actual two page 1995 receipt from the Ocean Way Recording Studio for remaining in standby mode in preparation for the recording sessions at which Phil Spector recorded Celine Dion.
Information from one of the other production tapes that actually had a hand written j card as well as other paperwork from the Ocean Way Recording Studio where the recording sessions happened indicates that this song was also known as "Phil Song #11"
There is an instrumental version of the song "Is This What I Get" on this cassette that was originally on only one other unreleased Philles Records studio cassette worktapes discovered so far.
In addition there are three versions of the song "Tonight I'll See The Morning With Him" sung by Celine Dion on this cassette tape. Only two or three of the Spector production tapes had different versions of the songs on the tape.
I tried to post a sonic sample from this cassette without success. There is another sample from another tape on You Tube right now, I have posted this ad in response to a request of a Celine Dion collector that remembered the first sales of these production tapes that at the time. I have other items from this collection posted on Ebay. This is the last Celine Dion production tape I have found from the collection of the former Philles Records employee that worked for Phil Spector at the time of these now historic recordings.
Less that ten of these production cassette worktapes that were created in the course of the 1995 Dion/Spector recording sessions have been located.
Of all of the never released recorded material that Phil Spector produced in his career the ill fated never released recording sessions with the talented vocalist Celine Dion this ranks as perhaps the most sought after recordings in the careers of both Phil Spector and Celine Dion.
In 1995 after having heard Celine Dion sing the song “River Deep Mountain High” on a late night television show, Phil Spector was moved to contact the management of Celine Dion with the offer to produce a few tracks for her next record album. An initial agreement was made between Spector, Ms. Dion’s husband and manager Rene and a representative of Sony Music who Dion was exclusively contracted to at the time.
Several recording sessions did occur with pop music giants such as Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys attending these recording sessions which were held at Ocean Way Recording Studios in Hollywood, California.
Unfortunately a major difference of opinion happened between Phil Spector and Dion’s management. The most circulated story is that both Celine's husband and RCA management were not at all fond of Spector's having Celine sing take after take of these songs until the wee hours of the morning in the recording studio. The discussions were so heated that the contractual recording agreement was blown up.
Since Phil Spector had paid for all of the recording expenses, all of the recordings belonged to Spector and he refused to sell them to Sony Music. This breakdown was widely covered in the entertainment news industry at the time because Spector had not had a major musical release in quite some time.
During these record studio production sessions, the limited number of cassette work tapes were created along with the master tapes in order to enable reviews of the various stages of the musical productions. In the mid 1990s cassette worktapes had largely replaced acetates as a review medium for record producers and other parties directly involved in the recording projects.
In the last twenty odd years after the recording of the now legendary 1995 Celine Dion / Phil Spector sessions only the handful of cassette worktapes from the Spector / Dion recording project appear to have survived. With the passing of Phil Spector it is unknown if the recordings from the original multi track master tapes will ever surface.
The recording of “Is This What I Get For Loving You” by Celine Dion is nothing like the recording of the same song done by the Ronettes in the 1960s. The Dion version has been slowed down to perhaps a third of the 1960s Ronettes version. The slowed down tempo gives Dion a chance to reveal the emotion of the song in a way that the faster Ronettes version does not.
This is probably a unique opportunity to own versions of these songs that not even Celine Dion has heard in 25 years.
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This is one selection out of a highly important collection of acetates, test pressings, standard production records, documents, contracts and entertainment awards from a media collection that ranges from the 1950s through the 1990s and was owned by a highly talented and diverse individual who served in a variety of jobs in the music and movie divisions of the entertainment industry most notably Director in the Promotions Department in the Beatles record company, Apple Records.
This individual also worked in the executive office of Phil Spector Productions in the early to mid 1970s. Most of the acetates and test pressings in this collection had standard record studio acetate and pressing plant test pressing labels but there are some from earlier in the audio review s tage of record production that have no labels at all. Unlabled reference acetates have to be listened to on a record player in order to determine what they are.
This particular contract was one of Phil Spector’s personal contracts.
As I said, The former Apple Records employee who owned this contract also worked with Phil Spector on a regular basis. I was told by this employee that Phil Spector would frequently discard record production materials such as acetates and test pressings, recording equipment and regular production records and contracts once he no longer needed those items.
This contract came from the same collection of records and acetates as the A&M Studio Label Alternate Acetates that I sold earlier on Ebay that were used in producing the “The Concert for Bangladesh” three record box on Apple Records featuring George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Billy Preston, Ringo Starr and Leon Russell.
Check my past and present listings for more rare Philles and Apple Records records, acetates and awards.
My name is Christopher Chatman of Beyond Records and I have been writing and dealing in test pressings, acetates, gold record awards and extremely rare music items since 1977.
I wrote in the 1990s an article called "What is an acetate and why do they cost so much money? The article was published in the 1990 book "Goldmine's Rock N' Roll 45 rpm Record Price"
