Larry Levine

Larry Levine, the recording engineer who helped translate the grandiose sonic vision of record producer Phil Spector into some of the biggest-selling and most influential recordings of the rock era, died Thursday, on his 80th birthday, at his home in Encino.

If Spector was the visionary architect of the "Wall of Sound" that defined such 1960s hits as the Ronettes' "Be My Baby," the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" and the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," Levine was the nuts-and-bolts contractor charged with making it work.