Black Music Month 2023: Prelude

Not all of the reading was specifically about "Black" music. There was other media that had been on my list that related to music more generally.

For this post, I am going to focus on The Wrecking Crew. That means both the 2012 book by Kent Hartman and the 2008/2015 documentary by Danny Tedesco, both about the session musicians operating in Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s and collectively sometimes referred to as such.

If you are wondering about the two dates on the documentary, the filming was completed in 2008, but music licensing took a separate fundraiser. 

Danny Tedesco is the son of original Wrecking Crew member Tommy Tedesco. Originally, he filmed a conversation between his father and three other prominent members: Carol Kaye, Hal Blaine, and Plas Johnson. There kept being more interesting information, so he added background and interviews. I spent a long time watching DVD extras and it was enriching.

I don't think the book and movie had any official connection, but one of the extras has Lyle Ritz (I think) mentioning getting called up by someone clarifying that both he and Carol Kaye played bass on the same song. He used the anecdote to explain how they would stack musicians, and that it wasn't unusual to have a standing bass, electric bass, and maybe one other bass on the same song. I just knew that the call he had gotten was from Kent Hartman. 

The amount of time spent on the documentary made things like that likely, but it also meant that with an aging group there were losses along the way, including Tommy Tedesco himself. (I believe the initial filmed round table discussion was at least partially inspired by Tommy's cancer diagnosis.)

I had a lot of thoughts from watching this, and then the previews on the DVD had three other interesting looking documentaries. That included Muscle Shoals (2013), which I just finished, about the session musicians at FAME Studios and then Muscle Shoals Sound, in Alabama.

One thought with that is how much influence a place can have on a sound. There are indications that the river itself influences the sound there, where perhaps in Los Angeles it was more the scene, but that scene was at least partially created by being a place with a lot of work for musicians, meaning it could attract some of the best.

Prior to that, just with reading and watching The Wrecking Crew, I was thinking more about music creation. There is so much that goes into making music everything that it can be. Writing lyrics and melody matters, but then there is the arrangement for how it all comes together. What riffs and fills will you have? It deepened my appreciation.

I saw the Ramones documentary, End of the Century (2003), in theaters, but it was on the DVD extras that I saw them asking different members (separately) how much they had contributed to some songs. It was always 90%; that the song was mostly theirs. I kind of understood the self bias that might make you think that anyway, but I think I have a different perspective now of how you might see that the part you are playing is what is unique, and that was you.

I'd had no idea how common it was for musicians to not play on their own albums before. I understand how it worked, but also it did not work for some musicians, and it seems less common now. Of course, with multi-track recording and other technology changes, there is more room for different working styles anyway. I did hear in some of those voices how they missed those group sessions, even when they were still working but one at a time. I sympathize with that.

It helped me with one other thing.

Another book I read had me listening to a lot of jazz, which I still do not appreciate.

Well, a lot of the Wrecking Crew started as jazz musicians. Honestly, that ability to adapt and respond quickly to others is probably a huge part of their skill development.

A lot of them did not initially like rock and roll, though some of them learned to appreciate it later.

So from now on, when I feel unsophisticated because I am forcing myself to listen to jazz and gritting my teeth, I am deciding that is because I am too rock and roll.

But it does not rule out future appreciation.