http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wre ... ck-and-rol

2 weeks. Gonna back this one.

I thought this was already complete?? Or is this a new one?

Movie is done. They're trying to get music clearances.

fyi i was surfin the Willard's Wormholes blog - there's a fan-made 4 CD collection of Wrecking Crew-backed songs. Looks awesome.

I am getting the DVD ($30 pledge) if it gets funded. But the deadline is down to 7 days, and they still haven't made their goal. I hope they make it - I'm looking forward to seeing this.

I did the same thing, and I think they'll make it.

Funded and then some with four days to go.

Maybe get yourself a dvd or a download.

I went to a screening of this at the Grammy Museum last night. Denny Tedesco, Hal Blaine and Don Randi did a Q&A after the showing.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, its an interesting story that deserves to be told. However, I didn't really love the movie. In fairness, its a hard story to tell. There really is no comprehensive list of all the recording sessions they played on or even list of all the musicians who were part of the wrecking crew. The film itself acknowledges this at the very beginning with a bunch of interviewees all giving different answers to how many musicians were part of it. If you look at the wikipedia entry for the wrecking crew it lists over 60 musicians as being part of it. Most of the interviewees suggested 20-25 members. Even that was more than I would have guessed. With that many members, it really seems more like a big list of session musicians than a cohesive backing band. The large number of musicians also really forces Denny Tedesco to have to pick and choose the story he wanted to tell, the musicians to focus on, what interviews to include and what music to include. It is simply too big a story to tell in a 100 minute documentary and do justice to everyone. Apparently, Carol Kaye hates the documentary, regrets her participation and thinks that it is far too slanted to Tommy Tedesco and Hal Blaine. She didn't like how some of the musicians were portrayed and complained that many important members weren't even included. She even disputes that they were ever called "the wrecking crew," saying it was a name that Blaine created after the fact in a very self serving way. I'm not sure what to think of all that. It would have been impossible to really cover everyone and the interviews included were mostly interesting.

The biggest surprise to me was how much of the music was stuff I just didn't like. Gary Lewis and the Playboys, The Association, Captain and Tennille, the Partridge Family, Frankie Valli and Annette Funicello, Sonny & Cher, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, etc. A ton of dreck. For every good song included (a lot of Phil Spector stuff, Byrds, Glen Campbell/Jimmy Webb, Frank Sinatra, etc), there was something equally terrible. I guess that is part of the story though...they played on a ton of stuff and didn't turn down many requests provided that they weren't already booked.

I'm almost done with the book and Carol Kaye hates that too...

I'll still see it at some point.

There was some brouhaha in the bass playing community maybe fifteen years back disputing tracks Carol Kaye had claimed to play on, and as far as the other documentaries in this vein (standing in the shadows of motown, muscle shoals), all of those groups of musicians were very loose and large in number, as sometimes players were on tour or otherwise booked. That's just the nature of session work, although there are always a core group of people who make it happen. James Jamerson being the notable one in Motown and Hal Blaine apparently the eye of the storm in the wrecking crew by most accounts as he was one of the older players.

Regardless, I can sympathize with Carol's and others spotty memories. I have no idea how many albums I played on last year. I'd be hard pressed to tell you how many albums I've played on in 2015. So much of the time you're just hanging around a studio or running an errand to a studio and someone asks you to jump on a track, and you do. Often there's no vocal so you might not know the title, and it's just too hard to keep it all straight. Add to this the weakening of the music unions even in big towns and the fact that technology has allowed more and more people to cross pollinate and create and I think it'll be really doubtful that there is a ever really a scene like those that could even hope to be documented in the future.

I mean, I think I'm carving one out here, through my studio, you know... minus any hits, but still it's one of a few who's who cliques in austin. Still I'd be hard pressed to name everyone that we use.

Still looking forward to seeing this doc.

Any other kickstarter backers see this yet and spot our names in the credits?

It wasn't my intention to try to talk anyone out of seeing it. There was a lot of interesting interviews that were part of it. And for anyone who is a much bigger Phil Spector and Brian Wilson fan than I am, the parts on Pet Sounds and the Phil Spector/Wall of Sound recordings alone would make it well worth seeing. I just expected to like it more than I did. In large part, I was disappointed in how much of the music was stuff that I thought was dreck. I think he made a decision to focus on the music that was most successful commercially and won the most awards. A lot of that was terrible stuff though. I can understand the decision and in telling the story maybe it was the right decision but it did lessen my enjoyment.

And to your points here:



I get the general point you are making but I think there's a big difference between the session guys tied to one label or studio like the Funk Brothers/MG's/Barkays/Muscle Shoals guys and the Wrecking Crew. They are much smaller groups playing a much more homogenous, identifiable sound. I don't think there is much debate who was part of those crews or who the main players were. There is much less clarity about who was part of the Wrecking Crew, all that they played on, and because they would take any session work they could get across tons of different genres, there is less of identifiable sound (not saying that individual musicians didn't have recognizable styles). Also, the Wrecking Crew is far from the first group of session musicians who played on a lot of music. They might be the last but they certainly weren't the first. The generation before the Wrecking Crew were apparently known as something like the 'first call crew.' None of this is to take anything away from the great careers of Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco et al. Their individual stories are fascinating on their own. I can understand though Kaye's criticism that when they wrapped the story in the blanket of the whole Wrecking Crew and all the recordings they collectively were on and then focused disproportionately on a couple members whether intentional or not, the effect is to slight the roles of many of the other members while capitalizing on the greater marketability of the Wrecking Crew name. It would be hard to do justice to all the members in 100 minutes though and its hardly surprising that Denny Tedesco would focus so much on his father though and Hal Blaine, but I can understand Kaye's point.

It also speaks to documentaries having to have a cohesive vision, somebody's vision, or else its just folks sitting on barstools telling stories. (The thing that immediately popped in my head was the ESPN 30 for 30 on the Fab Five that was very much Jalen Rose's project and vision and consequentially was dismissed by Chris Weber.