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The Wrecking Crew is the name of a 1969 motion picture, the fourth film adventure of secret agent Matt Helm and also the name of a 1999 motion picture staring Ice-T and Snoop Dogg. There is also a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System called Wrecking Crew.
Arguably the most successful "group" of studio musicians in music history, the "Wrecking Crew" was a collection of world-class session musicians, who typically had backgrounds in jazz or classical music. They worked a numbing work schedule (15 hour days were not unusual) although the rewards were great -- Carol Kaye has commented that during her peak as a session musician, she earned more per year than the President.
The talents of this group of 'first call' players were used on almost every style of recording including TV theme songs, film scores, advertising jingles and almost every genre of American popular music from The Monkees to Bing Crosby. The figures most often associated with the Wrecking Crew are producer Phil Spector, who used the Crew to create his trademark "Wall of Sound", and Beach Boy leader Brian Wilson, who utilized the Crew's talents on many of his mid-Sixties productions including "California Girls", the watershed album "Pet Sounds", and "Good Vibrations".
Although long overlooked, it is now known that members of The Wrecking Crew also performed on a number of major Motown hits of the 1960s. According to Carol Kaye, Motown often hired the L.A.-based session players to record alternative versions of backing tracks and several of these recordings (e.g. Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made To Love Her") feature members of The Wrecking Crew -- not Motown's "Funk Brothers" house band.
The best-known 'members' of this unofficial group are bassist Carol Kaye (one of the few women working in the top echelon level of the recording the industry at the time) and drummer Hal Blaine, who has played on tens of thousands of recording sessions, and is believed to be the most recorded drummer in history. Among his vast list of recordings, Blaine is credited with having played on at least forty U.S. #1 hits and more than 150 Top Ten records.
Notable members of 'The Wrecking Crew' included:
- guitar: Glen Campbell, Barney Kessell, Tommy Tedesco, Billy Strange
- saxophone: Steve Douglas, Jay Migliori
- keyboards: Leon Russell, Mac Rebennack (aka Dr John), Mike Melvoin, Don Randi, Larry Knechtel
- bass: Carol Kaye, Chuck Berghofer, Ray Pohlman
- drums: Hal Blaine
- percussion: Julius Wechter, Gary Coleman
NB: Mike Melvoin and Gary Coleman are the fathers of musicians Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, former members of Prince's backing band, The Revolution.
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