The Wrecking Crew
In the 1960s, session musicians in Nashville, Detroit, and Memphis (and other cities with active recording studios) could always find regular work — and if a city became known for a particular sound, those musicians could get a lot of work — but usually, only from one or two studios. (I’ve been cataloging quite a few of these groups.)
New York is obviously different; at one time or another everyone recorded in New York.
Through the second half of the 20th Century, that was even more true in L.A.
[wikipedia]
The Wrecking Crew’s members were musically versatile but typically had formal backgrounds in jazz or classical music. The talents of this group of ‘first call’ players were used on almost every style of recording including television theme songs, film scores, advertising jingles and almost every genre of American popular music, from The Monkees to Bing Crosby. Notable artists employing the Wrecking Crew’s talents included Nancy Sinatra, Bobby Vee, The Partridge Family, The Mamas & the Papas, The Carpenters, The 5th Dimension, John Denver, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, and Nat King Cole. They were among the inaugural ‘Sidemen’ inductees to the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2000 (specifically, drummer Hal Blaine).The figures most often associated with the Wrecking Crew are: producer Phil Spector, who used the Crew to create his trademark “Wall of Sound”; and Beach Boys member and songwriter Brian Wilson, who used the Crew’s talents on many of his mid-1960s productions including the songs “Good Vibrations”, “California Girls”, Pet Sounds, and the original recordings for Smile. Members of the Wrecking Crew played on the first Byrds single recording, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, because Columbia Records did not trust the skills of Byrd musicians except for Roger McGuinn. Spector used the Wrecking Crew on Leonard Cohen’s fifth album, Death of a Ladies’ Man.
According to Blaine, the name ‘The Wrecking Crew’ was derived from the impression that he and the younger studio musicians made on the business’s older generation, who felt that they were going to wreck the music industry. Prior to that, in the late 1950s the small group headed by Ray Pohlman was often referred to as ‘The First Call Gang,’ since they were the musicians many record producers would call first. With home base being Hollywood’s ‘General Service Studios’, this early group consisted of talented musicians such as Earl Palmer, Mel Pollen, Bill Aken, Barney Kessel, and Al Casey. Many historians consider this small group to be the actual origin of ‘The Wrecking Crew’, or ‘The Clique’ as they were sometimes called.
[/wikipedia]
The impact of ‘the wrecking crew’ is more pervasive than any of the other groups I’ve highlighted so far, but also much harder to pin down. While we all know The Funk Brothers from Motown and the Swampers from Muscle Shoals, there wasn’t a single studio or record label in L.A. — there was no “L.A. Sound”
…or at least, the “L.A. sound” is hard to pin down because it conformed so utterly to the mainstream Pop sound — it formed the Pop sound; it was the Pop sound
There was Elvis (starting as early as ’56, but only gaining steam after he left the army in ’60) — and then there was Surf Rock, which was native to Southern California and was “the thing” up until February 1964, and it could be argued that America’s Pop response to the British Invasion, post ’64, was still California: The Grateful Dead, the Mamas and the Papas, The Doors — but that would be a gross oversimplification, even if (from a critical standpoint) Brian Wilson’s late efforts with the Beach Boys happened to be the only serious response, and contender, to the Lennon/McCartney canon.
The plastic exuberance of the Elvis musicals was filtered through 60s counter-culture, then forged in Monterey in 1967, tempered in Altamont in 1969, and supported throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s by a relocated music industry. The ‘brand names’ in music — Capitol, A&M, Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia — were all in Los Angeles. The eventual fall-out was 80s Hair Metal which was almost exclusively an L.A. export.
So… the L.A. scene is much harder to pin down and ‘stereotype’ into a single genre or style. So let’s talk about musicians:
Carol Kaye: “Carol Kaye (born March 24, 1935) is an American musician, best known as one of the most prolific and widely heard bass guitarists in history, playing on an estimated 10,000 recording sessions in a 55-year career.
“As a session musician, Kaye was the bassist on many Phil Spector and Brian Wilson productions in the 1960s and 1970s. She played guitar on Ritchie Valens’ ‘La Bamba’ and is credited with the bass tracks on several Simon & Garfunkel hits and many film scores by Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin. One of the most popular albums Carol contributed to was the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.”
Glen Campbell: “During this period he played on recordings by Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Phil Spector.
“From December 1964 to early March 1965, Campbell was a touring member of the Beach Boys, filling in for Brian Wilson. He also played guitar on the group’s Pet Sounds album, among other recordings. On tour, he played bass guitar and sang falsetto harmonies.”
Tommy Tedesco: “Tedesco’s credits include the iconic brand-burning accompaniment theme from television’s Bonanza, The Twilight Zone, Vic Mizzy’s iconic theme from Green Acres, M*A*S*H, Batman, and Elvis Presley’s ’68 Comeback Special. He was shown on-camera for a number of game and comedy shows, and played ex-con guitarist Tommy Marinucci, a member of Happy Kyne’s Mirth-Makers, in the talk-show spoof Fernwood 2 Night.”
René Hall: “In the mid-1950s, Hall moved to Los Angeles, California, and began doing session work with famed saxophone player, Plas Johnson, and drummer, Earl Palmer. The trio recorded for many of the emerging rock and roll and R&B artists on such labels as Aladdin, Rendezvous, and Specialty Records. In 1958, he recorded the electric bass track using a Danelectro 6-string bass guitar on the Ritchie Valens smash hit, La Bamba, with Buddy Clarke on the upright acoustic bass.
“Throughout his career, Hall was the featured guitarist on such tracks as Number 000 (Otis Blackwell), That’s It (Babette Bain), Cincinnati Fireball (Johnny Burnette), Chattanooga Choo Choo (Ernie Fields), In The Mood (Ernie Fields), Hippy Hippy Shake (Chan Romero), and Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Larry Williams). He also released numerous recordings as both René Hall and the René Hall Orchestra.
“Hall arranged some of Sam Cooke’s best-known recordings including the 1964 song, A Change Is Gonna Come, in which Hall devised a dramatic arrangement with a symphonic overture for strings, kettledrum, and French horn. He also prepared arrangements for many of Motown’s most successful artists including The Impressions and Marvin Gaye. Rene also was an advocate for up and coming new groups. He came into Bill Withers Tiki Studios in San Jose and worked out the arrangements for two of San Francisco’s own Cordial Band. He arranged Wave and A Special Love written by Raymond Coats and Danny Dinio. He also plays lead guitar on Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On”
Leon Russell: “As a first call studio musician in Los Angeles, Russell played on many of the most popular songs of the 1960s, including some by The Byrds, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett, and Herb Alpert. He can be seen in 1964’s T.A.M.I. Show, playing piano with ‘The Wrecking Crew’ (an informal name for the top L.A. session musicians of the 1960s), sporting short, dark, slicked-back hair, in contrast to his later look. Soon after, he was hired as Snuff Garrett’s assistant/creative developer, playing on numerous #1 singles, including ‘This Diamond Ring’ by Gary Lewis and the Playboys. He wrote or co-wrote two hit songs for Gary Lewis and Playboys: ‘Everybody Loves a Clown’ (which hit the Billboard Top 40 on October 9, 1965, remaining on the chart for eight weeks and rising to number 4) and ‘She’s Just My Style’ (which hit Billboard′s Top 40 on December 18, 1965, and rose to number 3). He played xylophone and bells on the 1966 single ‘The Joker Went Wild’, sung by Brian Hyland and penned by Bobby Russell (no relation to Leon). He also worked sessions with Dorsey Burnette and Glen Campbell on Campbell’s 1967 album Gentle on My Mind, where he was credited as ‘Russell Bridges’ on piano, and arranged and conducted the 1966 easy listening album Rhapsodies for Young Lovers by the Midnight String Quartet.
“Russell’s first commercial success as a songwriter came when Joe Cocker recorded the song ‘Delta Lady’ for his 1969 album, Joe Cocker. The album, produced and arranged by Russell, reached #11 on the Billboard 200. Russell went on to organize and perform in the 1970 Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour in support of the album. ‘Superstar’, co-written by Russell, Delaney Bramlett and Bonnie Bramlett, was sung by Rita Coolidge on that tour and later proved a success for The Carpenters, Luther Vandross, Sonic Youth and other performers.”
How deep into one of these music posts can I go without linking to any music?
“The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Best-Kept Secret” is a book and also a 2008 documentary [which then had to go to Kickstarter in 2013, because rights clearances are expensive.] see also: http://wreckingcrew.tv/
If Only for their contributions to the Beach Boys records, the Wrecking Crew needs recognition.
