LOCK DOWN THEATER NIGHT 49

This is getting to be a regular Lock Down Theater Film Festival around here. I had been seeing a link pop up in the sidebar at YouTube for The Wrecking Crew but every time I did a search, a thousand other short Wrecking Crew links popped up. Finally found the full thing. It's a documentary about the West coast studio musicians who played one everybody's records. At different times they were Monkees, Turtles, Beach Boys, Paul Revere and the Raiders and Byrds. Fans had no idea...then.

I'm not sure that it was a well kept secret or if the buying public just eventually became more interested in who actually played on what. The cat may have been let out of the bag with drummer Hal Blaine's 1990 memoir. That's also where the debate began about what the studio musicians actually referred to themselves as. Some of them backed up Hal Blaine, agreeing that they used to refer to themselves as "The Wrecking Crew", but bassist Carol Kaye one of the most used musicians of the bunch (so she ought to know) said they called themselves "The Clique", It's possible that neither were widely used back in the day because people back then didn't try to brand the fuck out of everything.

The free full length version at YouTube has ads but you know what to do. Just let roll, hit the head and stop by the fridge on the way back.

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Tonight's feature:
The Wrecking Crew at YouTube

MADE PERFECT RECORDS, COVERED THE VELVETS

Glen Campbell died today. I was prepared for it, I thought, I knew it was coming. Ever since he went public with his Alzheimers diagnosis, you knew it wasn't going to end pretty. Somehow it did, as pretty as it could have been. He managed, with the help of his band, his family and various caretakers, a final tour. He gave that to his fans, going on stage knowing that he would forget lyrics, play songs twice, and sometimes not know what city he was in. Everybody knew that there would be trying moments, but there would be moments between audience and performer that would never be forgotten. If this sounds like total corn to you, fuck off. Fuck off, because Glen Campbell was everything you could ask for in a musician. An excellent guitarist, and a great, great singer, and he carried with him an aura of humility that belied his talent.

Campbell's music was part of the soundtrack of my youth, via my Dad's radio in the garage. Back then, though my brothers and I were more interested in rock 'n' roll, there were parts of Campbell's output that we appreciated. There's no denying the craftsmanship of his Jimmy Webb penned hits, but our attention was more directed at parts of songs. Example: the guitar outro on "Galveston". It's so damn simple, so pure and the guitar tone so perfectly suited to the song that it still gives me goosebumps decades after hearing it from my Dad's tinny radio.

While Campbell was never seen as an entirely hip performer, he seemed so unconcerned with hip, he transcended the whole damn idea. He was a musician first and foremost, good enough that he was a member of the Wrecking Crew, the crack team of studio performers that played on a who's who of sixties chart toppers. In 1963 alone he played on sessions for over five hundred songs. He stood in for Brian Wilson when Wilson retreated from the road, and to repay him Wilson produced an early single, "Guess I'm Dumb". The hits would come, a TV show "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour", and a movie role in True Grit (with John Wayne).

All through it he continued recording, and he never really stopped. Even after his diagnosis, he released a couple albums. Here's just a smattering of songs. There's a few of the hits, all perfect parent pop records, a Jackson Browne cover, "These Days", and the aforementioned Wilson produced "Guess I'm Dumb" The real interesting oddball is Campbell covering a Velvet Underground song, "Jesus". No one ever told me about that one.

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Listen:
Glen Campbell - Galveston mp3 at Cold Splinters
Glen Campbell - Gentle On My Mind mp3 at Pretty Goes With Pretty
Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman (streaming) at YouTube
Glen Campbell - Guess I'm Dumb mp3 at Margauxville Produced by Brian Wilson
Glen Campbell - These Days mp3 at Rock Town Hall Jackson Browne cover
Glen Campbell - Jesus (streaming) at YouTube Velvet Underground cover

TO EXCELLENCE

Well, it's happened. Glen Campbell, who has been battling Alzheimer's for the last few years has been moved into a care facility. One can only hope that he's reminded by his family and friends how much his music means to so many people. You might classify it as parents music, particularly if you grew up in the age when you were a counter culture upstart rocking out, and Campbell's music was inescapable, pouring out of both Top 40 and easy listening radio stations. But, check it out as objectively as possible and what you hear is near perfection in terms of content, often aided by the songwriting of Jimmy Webb, and sound, with Campbell's insanely clean guitar, and frequent backing by his buddies from the Wrecking Crew, of which Campbell himself was a member.

Just his session dossier would be enough for any musician. As a member of the Wrecking Crew, he played on sessions for Ricky Nelson, Nat King Cole, the Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, and various Phil Spector sessions, not to mention the Beach Boys. He was actually a stand in for Brian Wilson when Wilson began sitting out the tours. As a way of thanking Campbell, Wilson wrote and produced his "Guess I'm Dumb" which sounds an awful lot like a Pet Sounds era outtake. (Link below). Campbell also hosted a variety show, the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, which had among it's regulars John Hartford (writer of his hit "Gentle On My Mind"), Anne Murray, Mel Tillis and Jerry Reed, who all would become household names from the exposure.

Even after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Campbell put out two more albums and had a farewell tour. He may never record or play publicly again, but no matter how long he is interned or what lies ahead for him, without an ounce of clichéd corniness intended (and I don't give a shit if that's how it comes off), his music will live.

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Listen:
Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman mp3 at Tsuru and the Bride Written by Jimmy Webb 
Glen Campbell - Galveston mp3 at Cold Splinters Written by Jimmy Webb
Glen Campbell - Gentle On My Mind mp3 at Rocky 52 Written by John Hartford
Glen Campbell - Guess I'm Dumb mp3 at Margauxville Written and produced by Brian Wilson 
Visit:
Glen Campbell Moved Into a Care Facility at Billboard.com 

THANK YOU MR. CAMPBELL

Glen Campbell is playing tonight, the last show of what may be his final tour. He has Alzheimers. You can imagine what challenges he faced on this tour.  Forgetting lyrics, starting songs that he'd just finished playing; things like that.  Those are little things compared to what lays in store.

Guess I'm Dumb, Shindig 1965, produced by Brian Wilson

He's done it all. He was a solo artist, a temporary Beach Boy, a member of the Wrecking Crew, he had his own TV variety show. Hell, he did "Witchita Lineman". That one song would be enough for anyone's legacy. Even just the guitar solo in that song...just the guitar tone on that solo.  Fucking all-time. From here on in, it's going to be very hard to hear Glen Campbell without being more appreciative.

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Listen:
Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman mp3 at Ca Va Cool
Glen Campbell - Galveston mp3 at Cold Splinters
Glen Campbell - Gentle On My Mind mp3 at Pretty Goes With Pretty
Glen Campbell - Guess I'm Dumb mp3 at Obscure Sound Produced by Brian Wilson
Glen Campbell - God Only Knows mp3 at Cover Me Beach Boys cover
Glen Campbell - These Days mp3 at Cover Me Jackson Browne cover
Glen Campbell - Rhinstone Cowboy mp3 at Review Stalker 
Oddball:
Radiohead - Rhinestone Cowboy (streaming) at Panic Manual
Visit:
Glen Campbell official site
Glen Campbell at Wikipedia

HOW WAS WORK TODAY?

A week or so ago, I went back and forth with a guy I know in the comments section of a recent post. He turned me on to a site about the Wrecking Crew, the elite crew of LA studio aces used in a whole lot of 60's hits, and a huge part of Spector's Wall of Sound. If it sounds like a boring subject, consider drummer Hal Blaine's quote, from the trailer of a recent documentary: "We came into the studio, with Levis and T-shirts, smoking cigarettes, and the older guys said 'They're going to wreck the music business'." They were upstarts, young studio hot shots, right at the time the music industry moved west. Just a partial list of Wrecking Crew members included Glen Campbell, Barney Kessel, Tommy Tedesco, Al Casey, Billy Strange, James Burton, Jerry Cole, Carol Kaye, Leon Russell, Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), Hal Blaine, Earl Palmer, and Jim Gordon.

Clockwise, from top left: Tommy Tedesco, Carol Kaye, Glen Campbell and Hal Blaine

They were on tons of records that you know well, very well. Everything from Sonny & Cher, all of Phil Spector's stuff, the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Herb Albert (they were the TJ Brass), the Monkees, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Sam Cooke, Davie Allan (!), the Mamas and Papas, the Association, and a bunch of faceless instrumental bands (among them, the Marketts, and the T-Bones), and that's just a few. Their discography is mindblowingly immense (for a sample, see bassist Carol Kaye's discography here). If you're at all into unsung musicians, the story of the Wrecking Crew is quite a different tack than the "born in a log cabin, died penniless" thing. Though rarely listed on album credits, they did more than alright. Carol Kaye said that one year she did so much session work, she pulled in more than the President of the United States. But you never heard of her, right? Now you have.



There's a few links below that go into detail about their entire history, and the one thing that's remarkable is that, to many of them, the hit making was just a job. Denny Tedesco, son of Wrecking Crew guitarist Tommy Tedesco, said that his dad would get a call from a producer and be off to the studio, without any fanfare. He had no idea the number of hits that his dad played on. And a clip at YouTube relates how guitarist Billy Strange got the call for the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" session, but had to pick up his kid. So, he picked up his kid, stopped by a music store to buy a twelve string that was needed, and showed up, kid in tow. After the session, Brian Wilson paid him $500 and paid for the guitar. A neat divergence is the "Behind the Sounds" channel at YouTube, where someone has posted annotated videos, describing the recording process of several of the cuts from the Beach Boy's Pet Sounds LP, with the Wrecking Crew. All sorts of oddball factoid text rolls while you listen to outtakes, including who played what, and who muffed what take. Pet Sounds was recorded at Western Recorders with Brian Wilson arranging and producing, while the rest of the Beach Boys were dilly-dallying on tour in Europe.

While most of the songs below are probably bordering on the overly familiar, you ought to listen to a few back to back, and dig how the faceless hit machine worked. Sure, Phil Spector, Jack Nitzsche, Brian Wilson and Lee Hazelwood (and other legendary producers and arrangers of the time) all heard sounds in their heads. But, would the string of hits have happened without the top notch talents of the Wrecking Crew? They were the consummate studio musicians. Frank Sinatra's "Strangers In the Night" was rehearsed 15 times before Sinatra showed up at the studio. Once Sinatra stepped up, there were only three takes recorded. And the first take was the one that became the hit. Yeah, just another day at the office.

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The Ronettes - Be My Baby mp3 at Love My Oldies

The Crystals - And Then He Kissed Me mp3 at The Cadillac of Winter

Sonny & Cher - The Beat Goes On mp3 at The Brother Love

The Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice mp3 at St Kilians1966

The Monkees - I'm A Believer mp3 at Songs You Need To Know

Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made For Walking mp3 at Beware of the Blog

Sam Cooke - Another Saturday Night mp3 at Sound Salvation Army

Elvis Presley - I Can't Help Falling In Love With You mp3 at North and Nadine

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass- Casino Royale mp3 at Time Travel Is Possible

The Fifth Dimension - Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In mp3 at KLG.CPS.com

The Mamas and Papas - California Dreamin' mp3 at Ock Stomping Meteorock

Frank Sinatra - Strangers In The Night mp3 at Blue Moon Bar

More info:

The Wrecking Crew - Documentary site

Excellent, lengthy feature at American Heritage

The Wrecking Crew at Wikipedia

The Forgotten 60's - Various Wrecking Crew anecdotes

Behind the Sounds channel at YouTube

Carol Kaye's discography as bassist

Other posts about studios & producers:

The Sound Of Studio One

Produced By Jack Nitzsche

Give The Producer Some

Don't Know Jim Dickinson?

Special thanks to Tim LaMadrid, for the nudge.