Members of the Wrecking Crew employed for a session at Gold Star Studios in the 1960s. Seated left to right: Don Randi, Al De Lory, Carol Kaye, Bill Pitman, Tommy Tedesco, Irving Rubins, Roy Caton, Jay Migliori, Hal Blaine, Steve Douglas, and Ray Pohlman.
The Wrecking Crew
Also known as
The First Call Gang
The Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra
The Clique
Origin Los Angeles, California
Genres Pop, rock, R&B
Years active 1960s–1970s
The Wrecking Crew (sometimes called the Clique or the First Call Gang, occasionally credited as the Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra) was a loose-knit circle of Los Angeles’ top studio session musicians whose services were constantly in demand during their heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s. Usually playing collectively in varying configurations, often anonymously, they backed dozens of popular acts on numerous top-selling hits of the era. They are now widely considered one of the most successful session recording units in music history.
The group’s ranks began to materialize in the late 1950s, but in the early 1960s they fully coalesced into what became their most recognizable form when they became the de facto house band for Phil Spector, playing on many of the hits that he produced at the time, and contributing to the development of his Wall of Sound production methods. After the initial success of Spector’s records, they became the most requested session musicians in Los Angeles, playing behind many popular recording artists such as Jan & Dean, Sonny & Cher, Barry McGuire, the Mamas & the Papas, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy Sinatra. They were sometimes used as “ghost players” on recordings credited to rock groups, such as the Byrds’ debut hit rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” (1965), as well as the first two albums by the Monkees, and the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds (1966).
Though they had no official moniker during their active years, the nickname “the Wrecking Crew” was later popularized by drummer and member Hal Blaine in his 1990 memoir, in which he attributed the origin of the term to disparaging comments made about them in the early 1960s by older musicians who were critical of their embrace of rock & roll. The Wrecking Crew’s contributions on so many hit recordings of the era went largely unnoticed until the publication of Blaine’s memoir and the subsequent attention that followed.
Keyboardist Leon Russell and guitarist Glen Campbell later became popular solo acts, while Blaine is reputed to have played on over 140 top ten hits (including approximately 40 number one hits). Other musicians that constituted the unit’s ranks were drummer Earl Palmer, saxophonist Steve Douglas, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, guitarist and bassist Carol Kaye, as well as keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist Larry Knechtel (later a member of Bread). Two of their members, Blaine and Palmer, were among the inaugural “sidemen” inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, while the entire Wrecking Crew was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2008, they were the subject of the documentary The Wrecking Crew.
The name “Wrecking Crew” was popularized by drummer and member Hal Blaine in his 1990 memoir, Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew. Though the unit did not have an official moniker during their years of activity, Blaine has stated that the term was sometimes used disparagingly in the early 1960s by members of the industry’s old guard of “coat and tie” session players, who felt that, with their penchant for wearing “t-shirts and jeans” to sessions and their embrace of rock and roll, they were going to “wreck” the music industry. According to biographer Kent Hartman, “Some of the studio musicians I interviewed swear they heard it applied to themselves as early as 1963; others say it was later. One says it was never used at all”. Blaine’s memoirs, and the attention that followed, cast new light on the Wrecking Crew’s role in many famous recordings.
Guitarist and bassist Carol Kaye has disputed Blaine’s account of the name and stated, “We were never known as that. Sometimes we were called ‘the Clique’, but [the Wrecking Crew is] a Hal Blaine invented name for his own self-promotion in 1990 …” Regarding the matter, Songfacts stated: “We couldn’t find any references to ‘The Wrecking Crew’ in any publications from the era.” In response to Kaye’s contention that Blaine invented the moniker to sell his book, Blaine denied that anyone had ever heard the name “The Clique”. Earlier, in the late 1950s, an embryonic version of the group was headed by Ray Pohlman that was sometimes referred to as “the First Call Gang”, since they were the musicians many record producers would call first.
In the era when the Wrecking Crew was in demand, session players were usually active in local recording scenes concentrated in places such as New York City, Nashville, Memphis, Detroit, and Muscle Shoals, as well as Los Angeles, the Wrecking Crew’s base of operations. Each local scene had its circle of “A-list” session musicians, such as The Nashville A-Team that played on numerous country and rock hits of the era, the two groups of musicians in Memphis, both the Memphis Boys and the musicians who backed Stax/Volt recordings, and the Funk Brothers in Detroit, who played on many Motown recordings. and The Swampers in Muscle Shoals.
At the time, multi-tracking equipment, though common, was less elaborate, and instrumental backing tracks were often recorded “hot” with an ensemble playing live in the studio. Musicians had to be available “on call” when producers needed a part to fill a last-minute time slot. Los Angeles was then considered the top recording destination in the United States—consequently studios were constantly booked around the clock, and session time was highly sought after and expensive. Songs had to be recorded quickly in the fewest possible takes. In this environment, Los Angeles producers and record executives had little patience for needless expense or wasted time and depended on the service of reliable standby musicians who could be counted on to record in a variety of styles with minimal practice or takes, and deliver hits on short order. The Wrecking Crew were the “go to” session musicians in Los Angeles during this era. The Wrecking Crew’s members were musically versatile but typically had formal backgrounds in jazz or classical music, and were exceptional at sight reading. 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.
Several of the Los Angeles recording studios in which the Wrecking Crew regularly appeared were Gold Star Studios, United Western Recorders built by Bill Putnam, Capitol Records’ studios located at their tower on Vine Street, Columbia Records’ Los Angeles complex, and the RCA recording facility, which was located on Sunset Boulevard near Wallichs Music City, a music store that often supplied instruments for L.A. session players. Like all session musicians who worked in Los Angeles, the Wrecking Crew’s members belonged to the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), Local 47, which represented their interests in areas such as pay scale and enforcement of regulations.
The origins of the Wrecking Crew can be traced to the late 1950s with a group headed by bassist and guitarist Ray Pohlman, sometimes referred to as “the First Call Gang”. Pohlman became perhaps the first session musician in Los Angeles to use an electric bass in recordings, and by the early 1960s became highly sought after in rock recordings, playing on many of the records by acts such as Jan and Dean and early records by the Beach Boys. Earl Palmer was originally from New Orleans and had recorded on many of the Crescent City rhythm and blues classics, such as with Fats Domino, often recorded at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studio. He moved to Los Angeles in the late 1950s and in the 1960s would play on hit records by a vast array of artists such as Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Glen Campbell, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Paul Anka, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, the Ronettes, the Everly Brothers, Willie Nelson, Sonny & Cher, and Neil Young. Along with Pohlman and Palmer, some of the early members of the unit in the late 1950s were Barney Kessel, Mel Pollen, Bill Aken (aka Zane Ashton), and Al Casey.[8] Their home base at the time was Hollywood’s General Service Studio.
In 1962, Spector started a new label, Philles Records, and set about recording the song “He’s a Rebel”, which would be credited to the Crystals.[26] He enlisted the aid of his high-school friend, saxophonist Steve Douglas, who was also working as a consultant paid to recruit session personnel for studios. Douglas helped him corral the backing unit, which included Pohlman, guitarists Howard Roberts, Bill Aken, and Tommy Tedesco, pianist Al De Lory, upright bassist Jimmy Bond, and Hal Blaine on drums. They booked Studio A at Gold Star Studios, known for its deeply reverberant echo chambers, which became the preferred recording facility for Spector.
Spector’s records backed by the Wrecking Crew usually featured arrangements by Jack Nitzsche. For Spector the unit operated under the name “the Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra” and was an essential component in creating his “Wall of Sound” style starting with “He’s a Rebel” and a series of several more hits by the Crystals (“Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Then He Kissed Me”) and other girl groups, such as the Ronettes (“Be My Baby” and “Baby, I Love You. It was on these recordings that the Wrecking Crew emerged in their most recognizable form and became the most coveted session players in Los Angeles’ thriving recording scene. With them, Spector went on to produce other records by the Righteous Brothers (“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”, “Ebb Tide”, and “Unchained Melody”) and Ike and Tina Turner (“River Deep – Mountain High”).
The Wrecking Crew proceeded to work with dozens of other producers, such as Brian Wilson, Terry Melcher, Lou Adler, Bones Howe, Jimmy Bowen, and Mike Post.[28] As side players, they were teamed with artists as diverse as Jan & Dean, Bobby Vee, Nancy Sinatra, the Grass Roots, Simon & Garfunkel, Glen Campbell, the Partridge Family, David Cassidy (in his solo work), the Carpenters, John Denver and Nat King Cole.[29] During this heady period the unit worked long hours—15-hour days were not unusual—but they were paid exceedingly well. Carol Kaye commented, “I was making more money than the President”.
The Wrecking Crew’s level of success could not be maintained indefinitely, and their collective services eventually fell out of demand. Biographer Kent Harman cites several factors in the Wrecking Crew’s demise, beginning even as far back as 1968 when the unit was at their peak of popularity: “By the middle of 1968, popular music was changing once again. In fact it was getting downright heavy. In the aftermath of the recent Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. slayings, the bloody Tet Offensive in Viet Nam, and the ever-growing level of campus unrest at universities around the country, Top 40 radio gradually began to lose step with the times”. Hartman mentions that the runaway success that year of Richard Harris’ elaborate seven-minute epic hit, “MacArthur Park”, written by Jimmy Webb and featuring the Wrecking Crew’s intricate backing, might have been another early seed in their eventual decline:
Legacy
The Wrecking Crew backed dozens of popular acts and were one of the most successful groups of studio musicians in music history. According to Kent Hartman, “… if a rock-and-roll song came out of an L.A. recording studio from between about 1962 and 1972, the odds are good that some combination of the Wrecking Crew played the instruments. No single group of musicians has ever played on more hits in support of more stars than this superbly talented—yet virtually anonymous group of men (and one woman)”. According to The New Yorker, “The Wrecking Crew passed into a history that it largely created, imperfectly acknowledged but perfectly present in hundreds of American pop songs known to all”.[88] In 2008, the Wrecking Crew were featured in the documentary film The Wrecking Crew, directed by Tommy Tedesco’s son, Denny Tedesco. In 2014, its musicians were depicted in the Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy.Two of their members, drummers Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer, were among the inaugural “sidemen” inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, and the entire Wrecking Crew was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2007.In 2010, Blaine was elected into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame.
List of members by instrument
Sources: Kent Hartman (The Wrecking Crew) and Robert Lloyd (“Time of the Session”; LA Weekly)
Electric bass: Max Bennett, Red Callender, Carol Kaye, Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborn, Bill Pitman, Ray Pohlman, Bob West
Double bass (upright bass): Chuck Berghofer, Jimmy Bond, Lyle Ritz
Conductor and arranger: Jack Nitzsche
Drums: Hal Blaine, John Clauder, Joe Porcaro, Jim Gordon, Jim Keltner, Earl Palmer
Guitar: Bill Aken, Doug Bartenfeld, Dennis Budimir, James Burton, Glen Campbell, Al Casey, David Cohen, Jerry Cole, Mike Deasy, John Goldthwaite, Rene Hall, Carol Kaye, Barney Kessel, Lou Morrell, Don Peake, Bill Pitman, Ray Pohlman, Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), Howard Roberts, Irv Rubins, Louie Shelton, Billy Strange, Tommy Tedesco, Al Vescovo, Vinnie Bell, P.F. Sloan
Harmonica: Tommy Morgan
Keyboards: Al De Lory, Larry Knechtel, Mike Melvoin, Don Randi, Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), Mike (Michel) Rubini, Leon Russell
Percussion: Larry Bunker, Frank Capp, Gary L. Coleman, Gene Estes, Victor Feldman, Milt Holland, Joe Porcaro, Julius Wechter – Note: though not usually mentioned as an actual member of the Wrecking Crew, Sonny Bono contributed percussion to some of their sessions for Phil Spector.[137] Max Weinberg in his book “The Big Beat” does include Bono in a list of members of the Wrecking Crew as “percussion” and Bono appears in the photograph labeled, “The Wreckng Crew” on p. 79 of the book,[138]
Saxophone: Allan Buetler, Gene Cipriano, Steve Douglas, Bill Green, Jim Horn, Plas Johnson, Jackie Kelso, John Lowe, Jay Migliori, Nino Tempo
Trombone: Richard “Slyde” Hyde, Lew McCreary, Dick Nash
Trumpet: Bud Brisbois, Roy Caton, Chuck Findley, Ollie Mitchell, Tony Terran
Flute: Jim Horn
Vocals: Ron Hicklin Singers often performed backup vocals on many of the same songs on which the Wrecking Crew had played instrumental tracks.