To go back to the original post - I'm going to play spoiler here...

Other than pointing the hapless pilot towards VFR Wx (which he should
have known before departing) after the pilot recovered the aircraft,
what did ATC contribute? Did the controller reach out and fly the
airplane?

As I hear the recording, after all the pilots screaming into the mike,
the controller's reply was soothing but that was all... By the time the
pilot replied without screaming, he had already seen a tower go by,
figured out where down was, corrected his attitude, and the airplane
was upright and in visual conditions (or at least semi visual)... ATC
then instructed him to climb back into hard IMC so they could document
the crash coordinates on radar!!!

While that pilot may believe that ATC saved his bacon I have a
different take on it... They held his hand on the radio which is
certainly to their credit (99.9% of controllers are good folks)... But
putting a VFR pilot back into the clouds was not the way to go...
Clouds rarely go all the way to the ground... The fact that he could
climb the airplane back into hard IMC and maintain control while
changing headings, etc.., means he is a better pilot than given credit
for... If he had climbed back into the clag and then yanked the wings
off, ATC would have been answering hard questions to his wife's
lawyers...

He was lucky to survive his error resulting in a spiral (complete rolls
unlikely, just a confused inner ear)... ATC was lucky to survive their
error in climbing a vfr pilot back into imc...

denny