You may recall that last week Carol Kaye – living legend of bass playing and member of the so-called Wrecking Crew – turned down her invitation into the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame and expressed disdain at the term Wrecking Crew, claiming that she “was never a ‘wrecker’ at all”.
Now, the director of the definitive documentary of the esteemed group of LA session musicians has shed some light on Kaye’s decision and revealed the derivation of the Wrecking Crew name.
Denny Tedesco was the son of a Wrecking Crew member and worked on the film for the best part of two decades before it was finally released in 2015. He’s written a Facebook post that explains their puzzling name, which was a large part of the reason Kaye fell out with drummer Hal Blaine, who apparently coined the term. “Some might not know that Carol had fallen out with Hal Blaine in the early years of the film’s production,” he writes.
“I used to joke that it was like having divorced parents that you cared for but made sure to never mention them to each other. In 2008, when the film played the festival circuit, it all came to a head with Hal and Carol closing the door on each other once and for all.”
Kaye was always unhappy with Blaine about the Wrecking Crew name and the story of that name – which was never used until much later – is fascinating.
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“When my father, Hal, Carol, Leon Russell, Glen Campbell and the other musicians of the time tried to break into the studio scene, they would take any recording dates that the older and more established musicians would never take,” Tedesco writes.
“They took what they could get. Many of the early dates were non-union and rock & roll. If you were an older player and a movie call came up, you wouldn’t blow a week of work on that film for a $20 song demo.
"So, rumour has it, Hal heard one of the older guys say to another older musician, ‘These guys are going to wreck the business playing this rock & roll shit.’ And that is the genesis of the term.”
He continued: “Carol’s biggest complaint about my film was this name and the term in general. By the way, I agree with her 100%. I don’t think the name was ever used in the studios during the 1960s when they were recording, and I addressed this at the beginning of the film…
"In my voice-over (to the film) I set up the story and round table with this line: ‘On the first day of shooting, I brought four of LA’s greatest session players together.’ I didn’t say four Wrecking Crew members. Why? Because I didn’t want to upset Carol.
"Is it a negative term? I don’t think so unless you take it seriously and don’t understand the irony.”
So now we know, though whether it’ll be enough to persuade Kaye to change her mind on the RRHOF is another matter.
