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"Studio Musicians"
Studio musicians were used extensively in LA from 1957 on past the time when I personally quit working (for various reasons) temporarily in the studios (end of '69 through 1st part of 1970) for various easons.Wanted to get my publishing co. off the ground (Gwyn Publishing), plus was tired of all the years of recording day and night in the 60s and not really having a life outside of work, plus a few other factors that happened in 1969. Our bunch kept working too after I went back to work in 1970 and later stopped again to play live jazz (middle 70s) and was later temporarily crippled up for a few years....others kept doing studio work altho' a decline began in the late 70s. From 1970 on, I took only select record dates and concentrated more on the TV films and movies I had done since mid-60s, plus the nice industrials and commercials. Anyway, our heydey was starting to dwindle somewhat in the late 70s, but some kept on working pretty well for awhile. But back to the studio musicians' credits. As I have posted in the past, the Musicians Federation (much like our Federal government governing over the many Musicians' Locals in various parts of the USA) didn't require record companies to have printed credits on the backs of record albums of the actual recording musicians who played on them, but by 1973 they encouraged the record co's to give studio musicians credits. There are thousands of Local 47 recording contracts (plus some of the NY contracts too) that are being written about by Russ Wapensky, a trusted author, who in his other capacity has helped save the files of contracts, and has EARNED the trust of the Federation/Unions. He's putting finishing touches on this book now which features the lists of all the studio musicians on the contracts of the top 20 records 1949-1969 - not known exactly when this important credits book will be out, hopefully soon. This is the first and only book of its kind which will dispel some myths. The public still mainly thinks that the musical groups played on their own dates. Of our clean-cut bunch of 350 or so studio musicians (coffee was our only problem, there wre no drugs allowed in 1960s studios anywhere, but there were some around in the 1970s record dates - none in the film studios at all. The 60s music was cut by our bunch just trying to stay awake on coffee, there was so much work cutting 3-4-5 tunes a date of 3 to 3-1/2 hours and we could do it fine technically, feel-wise and talent-wise. The trick was trying to stay awake and trying to find a parking place so you wouldn't be late to the date, plus always having a pencil to change, correct, or write some music in. Even most (if not all) the surf recordings were cut by our bunch of fine musicians (mostly the jazz-musicians who were very creative in rhythm sections), and if one hit, the company thereupon hired a bunch of nice-looking guys (if they didn't have a group already) who played a little music (they didn't have to be great musicians) to go on the road and "BE" that group - all true. The Beach Boys tracks have a good groove because of mostly the fine jazz musicians who were on that stuff. And that's Billy Strange ("Goldfinger" hit-maker in his own name, he's also arranger for the Nancy Sinatra and other big hits including Elvis Presley), and Glen Campbell co-soloing the fine guitar solo parts on the Beach Boys recordings (Carl did play some elec. 12-string rhythm in the booth 3-4 times, but the guitars you hear are the studio guitarists), but Brian did write all the parts (except for some of the rhythm guitar parts), those were his notes Brian wrote (I invented only one lick on "Calif. Girls"). I have heard from time to time how the touring band musicians of certain group acts that we recorded for expressed their disappointment about not being on the recordings, but recording musicians are a different group of highly-skilled creative and recording-studio musicians, our sole purpose was to record hits for everyone. As for the Association, of course I'm sure that the bassist probably could have cut those easy parts. But there's more to studio work than that. Hits was our business, we'd always say kiddingly, we did it every day and night of the week. We had the correct studio equipment, we had the fine heavy-handed CLEAN playing techniques that would record cleanly. And we all had years and years of fine experience in our past as both big band and jazz musicians, who grew up in the heavily popular "chordal era" where you had to play a ton of chords, know 100s of tunes which had a lot of chords, not the more easier rock and roll era....our backgrounds were very strict and self-disciplined. Plus, working back in the 50s was a tough procedure, you had to be "great" to earn a good living in music....these were the highly skilled and experienced-musicians who later cut the 60s hits. We could come up and invent some great lines, we had a perfect sense of time - an ingredient so needed for a fine hit record,, some recorded hits were even cut with a click-track - this is a very specialized business and only the most-experienced were allowed "in" to be reliable studio musicians, it was a very competitive business. This is not to take away from the fine show musicians, none of us would dare get up on stage and do that job, plus we did not want to be on road, away from our families, making a lot less monies than studio work. In the 50s the time when we all got our experiences, showmanship was not important like it is now, The list goes on and one as to why they would never hire the live musicians to do record dates in the 60s but that all changed in the 70s somewhat - playing live is a much-different venue than recording studios and requires different instruments too. I do think that the conglomerate bouncing of ideas we could do came from the quickness and spontaneous jazz improv most of us could do. Plus mixed in, there were the natural talents of Mac Rabbenac, Glen Campbell, Leon Russell etc. who added their special talents too. Looks and stage savvy were a total debit in the recording studios -- sounds and performance were EVERYTHING. They did try to use the musicians from the groups at one period (think it was around 1966-67), and it cost the record companies a lot of money wasted, they quickly got back to using our clique. Music groups & producers would fly in from Australia, from England, from all over to use our bunch. This is something that 30 yrs. later, most younger musicians probably don't know much about that. So that is a little of why they did not use the group musicians. Studio recording is a fine and experienced art, something that takes time to learn and hone well. You can't just jump right into it, no matter how "glamorous" it sounds, plus you had to be really self-disciplined, got along well with people, were reliable to be on time, and do your job just right - it was a strict business. Also, as a group of recording musicians, we liked to work with each other, it's fun to play even the easiest things when you are playing with excellent musicians, that is for sure. Plus we liked the challenge of taking a raw-song idea and improve it with licks, arranging ideas, dispersement (actually this is called orchestrating) of sounds and ideas, no matter if the singer was mostly just soso and help create a masterpiece hit of some kind with it. The icing on the cake was working for Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, other fine singers like that. We could instantly communicate musically, and come up with something good to frame the song and singer with according to what the producer wanted many of them had no idea what they wanted, but they wanted a hit, and as soon as they'd see us walking in the door they knew they'd get it -- most of the time. It was easier with fine talents of course, we bounced ideas around and didn't have to play extremely hard to get a singer across, so we were enjoying the better talents, but not to put anyone down...we were glad to get the work and create a hit record for anyone, it good work, a challenge. We paid our dues in years of nightclub, big-band, concert, combo, all kinds of gigs, all styles of music, and traveling, playing experiences, plus we could read if necessary. Increasingly in the 60s, it was necessary to sightread music once arrangers learned how to arrange for rock and roll which was a new music back then - hard to describe but it was kind of fun, even for us jazz musicians at first - rock was fresh. By late 60s it was practically all reading, but they still needed the "clique" to pad our parts adding to them with our ideas, making the parts swing, the arrangers were happy we'd add to the parts - it just part of the job. And, looking back on all that happened, we're all still amazed at the huge amount of work we all did, most of us being in good shape with usually no personal bad habits and physically fit - no drugs which is proof about being straight-arrow keeps you going. Drugs mess up your real feelings, and recordings get your real feelings on tape, the tape don't lie as we used to say. Part II: STUDIO WORK IN LA. I get the feeling from many many nice email messages that not too much is known in the world about our studio musician business in LA during the late 50s, 60s and on into the 70s. It was a very strict business. Most of the 350 or so studio musicians were highly experienced jazz or big-band musicians, for years on the road, and the jazz musicians spent years not only going on the road but playing almost every night, creating in nightclubs. We were all glad to be in the confines of the studios, creating for all recordings at first, and adding to the music when arranged (later). No-one really knew how to arrange rock music at first, altho' sometimes you'd see a good arrangement or so. We recorded ALL styles of music: blues, pop, rock, funky (called "soul" then), country (not much but there was some cut in LA), broadway show music, choral stuff, National Geographic music, TV music (live), TV show music (filmed, like Ironside, Kojak, Streets Of San Francisco, McCloud, Mission Impossible, MASH, Haw. 5-O and on and on), as well as the movies and commercials (radio and TV spot ads). The elite bunch was known as the "clique" then (Hal Blaine later dubbed some of us "wrecking crew", taken from the name of the band who backed up Darlene Love in the 80s in NY - we never heard of it until Hal brought out his book in 1990 and some just hate that false name (Jack Nitzche also told people Hal invented it about 1990, we never had that term...we were called the "Clique" if anything, all of us being independent free-lance studio musicians). We recorded for and "helped make" all the stars, whether it was Sam Cooke, Ritchie Valens, Righetous Bros., Bobby Darrin, Beach Boys (this was an exception with the natural talents of Brian, it was all him, we just played the music intensely), others like the Hondels, Marketts, Gary Lewis & Playboys, then on to Andy Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby Vinton, Spiral Staircase, Motown dates (a little of which was recorded in LA from '63 on), OJ's, Isley Bros., Osmonds (later of course), just on and on. Our bunch could record anyone and anybody. It wasn't a case of "we're lucky to play on so and so's hits", they had the hits because of the intense playing and talents of the studio musicians -- as you will note the end of the 60s came when most of us opted to just do movie and TV work -- the period sort of died down in the mid-70s. It wasn't just the studio musicians either who really made a difference - the arrangers learned how to write some good arrangements (early on, based off our early licks and creative lines - they got a lot of good ideas from us and went on to write some fine arrangements), the producers were great, creative with our contribution too, and there was a "fresh" feeling about the 60s as we all honed our recording crafts. But this era did stop, for a lot of different reasons, which finally saw the synthesizers took over. So it did change. The business was run like a business, start times and end times were dictated by our good strong Musician's Union, we got our breaks, things ran like a clock. And we loved it that way, very well-organized. The studio musicians were "free-lance" - all very independent -- and we all had phone exchanges with which to get our jobs with -- they called in weeks ahead of time to book the busiest, it all paid extremely well -- like doctor's pay, and we were highly respected by everyone in the city of LA -- "Studio Musicians" was a highly esteemed profession. If there was even a rumor that someone used pot or any kind of substance abuse or "drank", they simply were "dropped" and never hired - you never saw them again. Yes, we knew certain stars did that, but we never saw it in the working-studios (in the 60s). Because of our wonderful Musicians' Union/Federation, we now all have good pensions, some movie re-uses, etc. -- we never "partied" or acted like some people in the world are seeing on TV, simply wasn't done - LA was and still is a BUSINESS town.... The image was was that the 60s groups "cut their own records -- totally FALSE". We were not into "stardom" roles at all, we helped create the "stardom" thing -- none of us wanted to be stars, altho' a few among us later were: Glen Campbell, Leon Russell, Mac Rabbenec. And I sort of wonder if they'd be "stars" if they could read music well-enough to carry on as studio musicians, they sure were fine musicians in their own right. The rest of us kept going, doing movies and TV films shows mostly in the 70s and some are still doing that, and a few of us (inc. myself) are still doing an occasional record dates. Yes, we recorded a ton of music we didn't especially like to but your opinion didn't matter, it was a good business. They hired us to get hits, and that's what we gladly and gratefully did -- we worked hard day and night every day of the week, bringing home the bacon for our young families at that time. We were especially grateful for some nice recording times with the likes of Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, and many of the super talents, but we equally liked Nancy Sinatra, Sonny & Cher and their types of music -- the dates were always pleasant because we respected each other, and the job at hand. There truly was a great brotherhood amongst the independent Studio Musicians. Hal Blaine's book "The Wrecking Crew" describes some of this as will drummer Earl Palmer's book "Backbeat - Earl Palmer's Story" now out in paperback also (Smithsonian Press) , and mine is currently being written, and Russ Wapensky's meticulously put-together book on Studio Musician credits on top 20 hits (with special emphasis on the Beach Boy dates and others of special interest) 1949-1969 derived from Musician Union Studio Musician contracts is almost done. I think there is much illusion out there that will be proven false when the general public hears about us. Part III: Difference Between Studio Musicians and Road Musicians: This is something being discussed on a private board, tho't you'd like to read my answers to some things said: >>>>>>>>>Young people always want to perceive their music as very distinct from their parents'. (Whether it really is or not is completely irrelevant to that.) E.g. in the late '50s Elvis didn't put a sticker on his records saying "Your parents will enjoy this too because my pianist Dudley Brooks used to be Benny Goodman's pianistAs in every other decade, the way to market records to young people was to tell them what they wanted to hear. Young people generally wanted to hear about something vaguely like a counterculture" and all that good stuff. (These things never change.) Magazines such as Rolling Stone played into this. The rock groups played into this. Basically everybody played into this. As a result, the big >Who smoked more pot, Zappa or Simon? Gee, THAT can't be what makes music good, can it, whether the artists have an ingenuous, serious commitment to drugs? :-) Who hung out with Coltrane, Thiele or Joplin? Oh wait, never mind. :-)>>>Why do many people consider Donovan more hip than Mel Torme? Because he's YOUNGER. That's IT. (Note that Torme's cover of "Sunshine Superman," which is excellent, has been marketed on CD as camp,
CK: Well, now you're talking about vocal style phrasings too...Mel is jazz, always has been no matter if he's singing "Satisfaction" or "It Could Happen To You". I played bass on his hot-selling commercial albums in the 60s, early 70s...we kidded about those when I did a symphony show with him around 1986 in Denver...he told me that his "Games People Play" which I played bass on was his biggest money-making recording of all time. Funny thing, I predicted disaster as I played way too many notes on that trying to get the drummer going....but he loved it and it proved him right. It's just a matter of styles between Donovon and Mel Torme, depending upon the style of music you like here. Great post Joseph! You got the essence of what the 60s era was all about. Now maybe in time, the public will catch on.
Carol Kaye