![]() | The Wrecking Crew (music) has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | |||||||||
| ||||||||||
![]() | A
fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the "
Did you know?" column on
October 4, 2016. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the
Wrecking Crew supplied the instrumental tracks on dozens of hits recorded in Los Angeles during the 1960s, including "
California Dreamin'", "
Mr. Tambourine Man", "
He's a Rebel", and "
Good Vibrations"? |
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
![]() | This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: was Howard Roberts not considered part of this clique? Fawcett5 20:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Needs fixing: The link to Max Bennet takes you to a list of ice hockey players (one of whom was named Max Bennet); different guy
Mike
12:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone have a timeline for these guys (and gals)? 83.180.128.192 23:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Leon Russell went on to some bit of fame himself. Besides Tightrope (a hit in the 70's), he made 2 or 3 country albums (Hank Wilson, I think he used as the stage name). He's also responsible for the musicians on Joe Coker's "tour de force" Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Bigrafa ( talk) 16:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
According to the Wrecking Crew documentary the album " Summer Days and Summer Nights" was the first album to use the personnel from the Wrecking Crew, although " The Beach Boys Today!" clearly uses session musicians as well. Beach Boy songs before " Help Me, Rhonda" should not be in this list, in my opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sinenomine cc ( talk • contribs) 06:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
"The Wrecking Crew" is a great name for a group! But how did this unusual name come about? Anybody know? Captain Quirk ( talk) 03:41, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I propose that Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew be merged into this article. The article about the book is short and of minor importance in itself, and has been tagged for improvement, because of multiple issues, since 2008. It should be covered in this article. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 07:14, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrecking_Crew_(music)#Members
Does such a person exist? I realize that the (007) part is bogus but I don't want to remove his name entirely from the article. Can anyone confirm?
146.201.162.145 ( talk) 18:35, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
The Musicians Hall of Fame induction of 2007 was deleted with the reasoning that it's not notable. I ran into this at the Glen Campbell article as well. The talk page comments I made at that article have been included here, since there are the same points and same argument for inclusion:
I thought about [the notability of the award] for a bit and decided to look into Wikipedia's definition notability in regard to stand alone lists (such as the now deleted sub-heading under "Awards"). I ran across the following here [1]. From what I can see, the Musicians Hall of Fame meets the criteria for notability for stand-alone lists and the General Notability Guideline (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#General_notability_guideline). In this manner, the Musicians Hall of Fame has received significant coverage in secondary reliable sources independent of the subject (I learned what all this means from the article linked above). Here is a list of links where you can find secondary source reporting of the MHOF induction online at what seem to be reliable sources: [2], [3], [4], [5]. The MHOF also has their own website here [6]. Since notability has been established, I'm going to put this back into the article. I'm not trying to start an edit war. But this is a legitimate award and item of interest that should be included in the article. It's now been included as a part of a new stand-alone list at the bottom of the article. Winkelvi ( talk) 05:04, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
that Strangers in the Night should be included in their discography (or whatever) here. Although several Crew members did play on the session there really was much more to it than just them. I say Remove it, how about you? Einar aka Carptrash ( talk) 19:16, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
with including Mother and Child Reunion by Paul Simon in the selected songs section. Check out the song, it looks as if the only WC member was Larry Knetchel who seems to have overdubbed some piano after the original recording session. However my attempt to remove it from the chart have not been successful, so how about you give it a try? If you agree with me. Carptrash ( talk) 19:57, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
There need to be some criteria adopted as to which recordings are listed in the table. I'm not sure what the original criteria were - I assume that the list comes from Hartman's book, but I am not sure what his criteria are. Does he state them? If so, the simplest solution would be just to state his criteria for inclusion in the text, and then require very exceptional circumstances for any additions to be made to the list. If he based his criteria on chart success, then I think it would be worthwhile including chart placings - but, without knowing his criteria, we do not know whether those listed were the highest-charting singles that they played on, or simply some sort of selection. Without knowing, it seems redundant and potentially misleading to include the chart placings - we are not necessarily saying they are the biggest hits that the musicians played on. There are already anomalies - " River Deep Mountain High" was a very minor hit in the US but a huge one in the UK, for instance, and I'm sure there were many other recordings that charted higher in the US that are not listed. So, we essentially need some referenced text to justify the list in the table, in my view. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 06:49, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
References
Just because someone is a reliable reference it does not mean we have to repeat his or her mistakes. I got in a big fight about that once when someone was quoting the Manchester Guardian whose reporter was ( opinion) too lazy to get the story straight, and another editor liked the mistake so it was a real hassle getting it right. Good work, GaragePunk. Carptrash ( talk) 02:32, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
The member list should be in this format:
etc...-- Ilovetopaint ( talk) 07:38, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
" Mother and Child Reunion" by Paul Simon is a bit of a stretch. Did you read the article? Carptrash ( talk) 02:20, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
I think that we should remove all the songs mentioned in this section that can not at all be linked to the WC. Nat King Cole's Route 66 is a great song but just because Irv Cottler played on it shouldn't be enough to get it into this article. If we want to tout Cottler, or anyone else, we should list songs by the WC that these folks played on. Carptrash ( talk) 16:01, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
I am inclined to go through the "Musicians" section and remove songs that are mentioned that can in no way be considered to be WC ventures. That Hal Blaine played on I Can't Help Falling In Love With You is irrelevant to the WC. There should be good examples of stuff that they played on that can be considered WC material, even though there is not a straight, even line between what is WC and what is not. Carptrash ( talk) 18:25, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
|"
The Way We Were"
|
Barbra Streisand
| 1
| 31
|-
it probably had Blaine & maybe Tadesco at the session but it was not a Wrecking Crew session. Those guys played all sorts of other dates too.
Carptrash (
talk)
00:15, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
@ Binksternet: and anyone else, from the article let us know of your intentions. There are sources to be had, please give us a chance to use them by alerting us to your intentions. Carptrash ( talk) 23:06, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I am not sure why this section is named like this. It makes it sound as if the Wrecking Crew was choosing producers instead of the producers choosing them. I think just Producers would be a better name. Carptrash ( talk) 23:22, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I think the notion that The Wrecking Crew was used on all the Los Angeles 60's records should be dispelled as false, because the biographies often overlook the fact that not all 60's Los Angeles based used The Wrecking Crew extensively at the expense of their studio rights (e.g. recording their own instrumentation, vocals and compositions, essentially the same rights as The Beatles), but rather there were many L.A. bands in the decade who were more than capable of being mostly self-contained in the studio such as The Doors, The Beach Boys, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Little Feat, Frank Zappa, The Byrds, Steppenwolf, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, Gary Lewis and The Playboys, Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass and Poco to name just a few. I don't see why producers should've been fearful of taking chances with bands who were new in the studio, because let's face it: it wasn't like they were playing Russian Roulette or endangering their lives. I think all bands and their managers should've back in the 1960's stipulated in their record contracts that they be allowed the same rights as The Beatles, as I mentioned earlier.
There is a possibility that the cause of the exaggerated contributions of The Wrecking Crew was the fact that The Beach Boys were almost always credited with vocals only on their recordings, not instrumentation, and it can't always be verified by studio documentation or logs. Carol Kaye says that she played bass on "Bernadette" by The Four Tops, "I Was Made to Love Her" by Stevie Wonder and "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley, but that isn't true and her memory is not always reliable and there are cases of misremembering or faulty memories because of the passage of time, senior citizen age and many years causing recollections to fade, hence that official studio documentation and session tapes are handy, but in fairness to Carol and other former Wrecking Crew members, you can't expect an 80 something year-old musician, retired, semi-retired or active, to have an infallible memory of all the sessions they played on, considering the huge workload.
Roger McGuinn says that The Wrecking Crew could get a song done in approximately three takes whereas The Byrds took 78 takes to get a single song right, but where is the studio documentation and session tapes to prove it? It could be a case of misremembering, but if what he says is true, then why did he work with Chris Hillman, Michael Clarke, David Crosby, Gene Clark, Kevin Kelley, Gram Parsons, Clarence White, Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram), John York and Skip Battin in the studio and on tour for as long as he did during The Byrds' career? I mean, Clarence White and Gene Parsons did session work, didn't they? I've listened to The Byrds' songs on which they actually played on and I cannot detect any faults with their playing, let alone Michael Clarke's drumming.
Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against The Wrecking Crew, because I agree that they were top-rate fantastic musicians from Los Angeles, but I just don't believe it was a good idea of them to be working nonstop at the expense of not just the health of the musicians, but also (by their own self-admitted regret) their family quality time and the rights of the L.A. bands who naturally wanted to be self-contained in the studio. Remember: don't believe everything you read. 115.64.25.61 ( talk) 05:20, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
I never insinuated that, but what I meant with the stipulation of being allowed to play on their own recordings, I meant in general and only hire studio players if and when needed and The Beatles are a prime example of this. I meant the tone of the article appeared to insinuate that no 60's band played on their own recordings, which contrary to what journalists or propagandists try to write, is absolutely untrue. I've read that according to David Crosby, management pressurized Columbia Records to let The Byrds play on the remaining 10 tracks on their first album.
If bands didn't get to stipulate anything in their contracts, then The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, Vanilla Fudge, The Mothers of Invention, Buffalo Springfield, The Turtles, The Byrds, The Move, The Doors, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd would never have played on their own records and if record labels or managers were screwing them, then they wouldn't have been able to live comfortable lifestyles and buy all the nice things they had. I speak from my own observations of these anecdotes and I'm sure the 60-78 takes was probably an exaggeration, because that is an insane amount of takes, even for the 60's, and The Beatles had no trouble getting through songs in a number of takes, but they rarely did as many as 100 takes. I mean The Beatles were capable of recording some of their songs in one solitary take and The Velvet Underground recorded "Sister Ray" in one take. My point is that I'm frustrated with how many journalists try to give the impression that lots of 60's bands (e.g. The Beach Boys) were replaced in the studio by studio professionals as if they were incapable of playing on their own records and The Beach Boys have fallen victim to this misconception as have Paul Revere and The Raiders (Phil Volk denies that The Wrecking Crew exclusively filled in for them, but rather they were only hired as augmenting musicians, as does Gary Lewis). A common misconception is that Dennis Wilson was replaced exclusively by studio drummers, but that is again untrue and if you want further proof, read interviews with musicians who deny the myths and Jon Stebbins' FAQ book about The Beach Boys as well as Craig Slowinski, because he is a very reliable source with The Beach Boys.
I probably did exaggerate my words a bit, but I was saying these things to make a point, and in regards to the aforementioned stipulation, Hartmann says in his book that perhaps because of The Monkees and The Grass Roots, bands began to stipulate that they be allowed to play their own instruments in the studio. For purposes of clarification, he probably means in general and again, I never suggested meaning that session musicians should be eliminated from their individual recording methods altogether.
203.221.15.210 ( talk) 00:30, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
It says that the musicians were not publicly recognized in their own time, but that is not entirely true, because if you look at Discogs, you'll see that individual members, including Hal Blaine, got credited for their work on album sleeves as early as 1963 and Joe Osborn even got credited on Ricky Nelson's album sleeves before he was a part of The Wrecking Crew.
For purposes of clarification, I'm talking about album credits in general and again, I'm not saying that The Wrecking Crew were collectively credited as such in album sleeves, but rather, I mean musicians getting individual credits. 115.64.244.198 ( talk) 23:57, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
I am looking at Leonard Cohen's Death of a Ladies' Man, produced by Phil Spector, drums by Hal Blaine and Jim Keltner, bass Ray Pohlman, guitar Ray Pohlman, keyboards, Don Randi, Steve Douglas, sax & flute, and Nino Tempo is all over it, even Larry Levine in the engineer. So can this be added to the discography or do I need to find a source saying that this is the WC? Carptrash ( talk) 19:34, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
The PSWoSO is not the same as the Wrecking Crew. It is just another configuration that some of the members played in, like all the other band's albums and singles that they played on. It is like saying (writing) the WC was occasionally credited as The Byrds, or The Grass Roots, or The Carpenters, etc. This might belong in the article somewhere but not in the lede as an alternate name. Carptrash ( talk) 18:54, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
So, @ Ilovetopaint:, we are back at it. Could you at least supply a referenced list of who plays in the the Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra? Carptrash ( talk) 18:23, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
I think there is too much ink devoted to the non-Wrecking Crew work of the musicians. So I would like to removes things such as "Years later, in 1978, Douglas played on Bob Dylan's 1978 " Street-Legal" album and accompanied Dylan on tour that year as part of his eight piece backing band. [1] [2] " from the text. And a lot more. Steve Douglas is not any more impressive ( opinion) because 15 years after playing in the WC he played with Dylan. Pretty much all of these musicians have their own articles if folks want more of them. What's your take on this? Carptrash ( talk) 01:11, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Rock Hall (Douglas)
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).and moved it here to be discussed.
I am not sure if the reference will show up here but I went to it and there is no mention of the "Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra" anywhere in the piece. I will beat this dead horse a bit more and say that the "Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra" was NOT an AKA for the Crew, as the "Clique" and the "First Call Gang" (Bunch?) was. Those are generic names and can be applied to anything that these folks played on. The "Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra" can only be used on tracks that use those words on the label. Carptrash ( talk) 16:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
The photo caption lists Carol Kaye as bassist and, though she was indeed a bassist for the Wrencking Crew and perhaps the most badass bass player in the biz, inspection of that particular photo reveals the person holding a bass guitar (image right) is a brunette male not a blond female (which Kaye is). Also, the face shape is wrong for Kaye. I don't know what Wiki people do when they find such errors but I thought I'd point it out and hope someone who can either replace the image or fix the caption (hopefully without delisting Kaye entirely). CoveArts ( talk) 04:24, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
These bands aren't notable for being backing bands in the same sense as the rest of the bands listed in the " see also" section. That said, I'm gonna replace them with the Nashville A-Team and the Salsoul Orchestra. 2601:153:881:3D60:20CF:5F56:F5FB:33BD ( talk) 12:42, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Couldn't the article (being so short) of the recently deceased Cipriano be merged with this article? Editrite! ( talk) 09:45, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello. I started a page for Gary L. Coleman the wrecking crew’s percussionist. It has been nominated for deletion for lacking notable citations. Anyone out there who can help edit or discuss why he shouldnt be deleted? Renatak ( talk) 04:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
![]() | The Wrecking Crew (music) has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | |||||||||
| ||||||||||
![]() | A
fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the "
Did you know?" column on
October 4, 2016. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the
Wrecking Crew supplied the instrumental tracks on dozens of hits recorded in Los Angeles during the 1960s, including "
California Dreamin'", "
Mr. Tambourine Man", "
He's a Rebel", and "
Good Vibrations"? |
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
![]() | This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Question: was Howard Roberts not considered part of this clique? Fawcett5 20:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Needs fixing: The link to Max Bennet takes you to a list of ice hockey players (one of whom was named Max Bennet); different guy
Mike
12:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone have a timeline for these guys (and gals)? 83.180.128.192 23:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Leon Russell went on to some bit of fame himself. Besides Tightrope (a hit in the 70's), he made 2 or 3 country albums (Hank Wilson, I think he used as the stage name). He's also responsible for the musicians on Joe Coker's "tour de force" Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Bigrafa ( talk) 16:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
According to the Wrecking Crew documentary the album " Summer Days and Summer Nights" was the first album to use the personnel from the Wrecking Crew, although " The Beach Boys Today!" clearly uses session musicians as well. Beach Boy songs before " Help Me, Rhonda" should not be in this list, in my opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sinenomine cc ( talk • contribs) 06:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
"The Wrecking Crew" is a great name for a group! But how did this unusual name come about? Anybody know? Captain Quirk ( talk) 03:41, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I propose that Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew be merged into this article. The article about the book is short and of minor importance in itself, and has been tagged for improvement, because of multiple issues, since 2008. It should be covered in this article. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 07:14, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrecking_Crew_(music)#Members
Does such a person exist? I realize that the (007) part is bogus but I don't want to remove his name entirely from the article. Can anyone confirm?
146.201.162.145 ( talk) 18:35, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
The Musicians Hall of Fame induction of 2007 was deleted with the reasoning that it's not notable. I ran into this at the Glen Campbell article as well. The talk page comments I made at that article have been included here, since there are the same points and same argument for inclusion:
I thought about [the notability of the award] for a bit and decided to look into Wikipedia's definition notability in regard to stand alone lists (such as the now deleted sub-heading under "Awards"). I ran across the following here [1]. From what I can see, the Musicians Hall of Fame meets the criteria for notability for stand-alone lists and the General Notability Guideline (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#General_notability_guideline). In this manner, the Musicians Hall of Fame has received significant coverage in secondary reliable sources independent of the subject (I learned what all this means from the article linked above). Here is a list of links where you can find secondary source reporting of the MHOF induction online at what seem to be reliable sources: [2], [3], [4], [5]. The MHOF also has their own website here [6]. Since notability has been established, I'm going to put this back into the article. I'm not trying to start an edit war. But this is a legitimate award and item of interest that should be included in the article. It's now been included as a part of a new stand-alone list at the bottom of the article. Winkelvi ( talk) 05:04, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
that Strangers in the Night should be included in their discography (or whatever) here. Although several Crew members did play on the session there really was much more to it than just them. I say Remove it, how about you? Einar aka Carptrash ( talk) 19:16, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
with including Mother and Child Reunion by Paul Simon in the selected songs section. Check out the song, it looks as if the only WC member was Larry Knetchel who seems to have overdubbed some piano after the original recording session. However my attempt to remove it from the chart have not been successful, so how about you give it a try? If you agree with me. Carptrash ( talk) 19:57, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
There need to be some criteria adopted as to which recordings are listed in the table. I'm not sure what the original criteria were - I assume that the list comes from Hartman's book, but I am not sure what his criteria are. Does he state them? If so, the simplest solution would be just to state his criteria for inclusion in the text, and then require very exceptional circumstances for any additions to be made to the list. If he based his criteria on chart success, then I think it would be worthwhile including chart placings - but, without knowing his criteria, we do not know whether those listed were the highest-charting singles that they played on, or simply some sort of selection. Without knowing, it seems redundant and potentially misleading to include the chart placings - we are not necessarily saying they are the biggest hits that the musicians played on. There are already anomalies - " River Deep Mountain High" was a very minor hit in the US but a huge one in the UK, for instance, and I'm sure there were many other recordings that charted higher in the US that are not listed. So, we essentially need some referenced text to justify the list in the table, in my view. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 06:49, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
References
Just because someone is a reliable reference it does not mean we have to repeat his or her mistakes. I got in a big fight about that once when someone was quoting the Manchester Guardian whose reporter was ( opinion) too lazy to get the story straight, and another editor liked the mistake so it was a real hassle getting it right. Good work, GaragePunk. Carptrash ( talk) 02:32, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
The member list should be in this format:
etc...-- Ilovetopaint ( talk) 07:38, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
" Mother and Child Reunion" by Paul Simon is a bit of a stretch. Did you read the article? Carptrash ( talk) 02:20, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
I think that we should remove all the songs mentioned in this section that can not at all be linked to the WC. Nat King Cole's Route 66 is a great song but just because Irv Cottler played on it shouldn't be enough to get it into this article. If we want to tout Cottler, or anyone else, we should list songs by the WC that these folks played on. Carptrash ( talk) 16:01, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
I am inclined to go through the "Musicians" section and remove songs that are mentioned that can in no way be considered to be WC ventures. That Hal Blaine played on I Can't Help Falling In Love With You is irrelevant to the WC. There should be good examples of stuff that they played on that can be considered WC material, even though there is not a straight, even line between what is WC and what is not. Carptrash ( talk) 18:25, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
|"
The Way We Were"
|
Barbra Streisand
| 1
| 31
|-
it probably had Blaine & maybe Tadesco at the session but it was not a Wrecking Crew session. Those guys played all sorts of other dates too.
Carptrash (
talk)
00:15, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
@ Binksternet: and anyone else, from the article let us know of your intentions. There are sources to be had, please give us a chance to use them by alerting us to your intentions. Carptrash ( talk) 23:06, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I am not sure why this section is named like this. It makes it sound as if the Wrecking Crew was choosing producers instead of the producers choosing them. I think just Producers would be a better name. Carptrash ( talk) 23:22, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I think the notion that The Wrecking Crew was used on all the Los Angeles 60's records should be dispelled as false, because the biographies often overlook the fact that not all 60's Los Angeles based used The Wrecking Crew extensively at the expense of their studio rights (e.g. recording their own instrumentation, vocals and compositions, essentially the same rights as The Beatles), but rather there were many L.A. bands in the decade who were more than capable of being mostly self-contained in the studio such as The Doors, The Beach Boys, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Little Feat, Frank Zappa, The Byrds, Steppenwolf, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, Gary Lewis and The Playboys, Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass and Poco to name just a few. I don't see why producers should've been fearful of taking chances with bands who were new in the studio, because let's face it: it wasn't like they were playing Russian Roulette or endangering their lives. I think all bands and their managers should've back in the 1960's stipulated in their record contracts that they be allowed the same rights as The Beatles, as I mentioned earlier.
There is a possibility that the cause of the exaggerated contributions of The Wrecking Crew was the fact that The Beach Boys were almost always credited with vocals only on their recordings, not instrumentation, and it can't always be verified by studio documentation or logs. Carol Kaye says that she played bass on "Bernadette" by The Four Tops, "I Was Made to Love Her" by Stevie Wonder and "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley, but that isn't true and her memory is not always reliable and there are cases of misremembering or faulty memories because of the passage of time, senior citizen age and many years causing recollections to fade, hence that official studio documentation and session tapes are handy, but in fairness to Carol and other former Wrecking Crew members, you can't expect an 80 something year-old musician, retired, semi-retired or active, to have an infallible memory of all the sessions they played on, considering the huge workload.
Roger McGuinn says that The Wrecking Crew could get a song done in approximately three takes whereas The Byrds took 78 takes to get a single song right, but where is the studio documentation and session tapes to prove it? It could be a case of misremembering, but if what he says is true, then why did he work with Chris Hillman, Michael Clarke, David Crosby, Gene Clark, Kevin Kelley, Gram Parsons, Clarence White, Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram), John York and Skip Battin in the studio and on tour for as long as he did during The Byrds' career? I mean, Clarence White and Gene Parsons did session work, didn't they? I've listened to The Byrds' songs on which they actually played on and I cannot detect any faults with their playing, let alone Michael Clarke's drumming.
Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against The Wrecking Crew, because I agree that they were top-rate fantastic musicians from Los Angeles, but I just don't believe it was a good idea of them to be working nonstop at the expense of not just the health of the musicians, but also (by their own self-admitted regret) their family quality time and the rights of the L.A. bands who naturally wanted to be self-contained in the studio. Remember: don't believe everything you read. 115.64.25.61 ( talk) 05:20, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
I never insinuated that, but what I meant with the stipulation of being allowed to play on their own recordings, I meant in general and only hire studio players if and when needed and The Beatles are a prime example of this. I meant the tone of the article appeared to insinuate that no 60's band played on their own recordings, which contrary to what journalists or propagandists try to write, is absolutely untrue. I've read that according to David Crosby, management pressurized Columbia Records to let The Byrds play on the remaining 10 tracks on their first album.
If bands didn't get to stipulate anything in their contracts, then The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, Vanilla Fudge, The Mothers of Invention, Buffalo Springfield, The Turtles, The Byrds, The Move, The Doors, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd would never have played on their own records and if record labels or managers were screwing them, then they wouldn't have been able to live comfortable lifestyles and buy all the nice things they had. I speak from my own observations of these anecdotes and I'm sure the 60-78 takes was probably an exaggeration, because that is an insane amount of takes, even for the 60's, and The Beatles had no trouble getting through songs in a number of takes, but they rarely did as many as 100 takes. I mean The Beatles were capable of recording some of their songs in one solitary take and The Velvet Underground recorded "Sister Ray" in one take. My point is that I'm frustrated with how many journalists try to give the impression that lots of 60's bands (e.g. The Beach Boys) were replaced in the studio by studio professionals as if they were incapable of playing on their own records and The Beach Boys have fallen victim to this misconception as have Paul Revere and The Raiders (Phil Volk denies that The Wrecking Crew exclusively filled in for them, but rather they were only hired as augmenting musicians, as does Gary Lewis). A common misconception is that Dennis Wilson was replaced exclusively by studio drummers, but that is again untrue and if you want further proof, read interviews with musicians who deny the myths and Jon Stebbins' FAQ book about The Beach Boys as well as Craig Slowinski, because he is a very reliable source with The Beach Boys.
I probably did exaggerate my words a bit, but I was saying these things to make a point, and in regards to the aforementioned stipulation, Hartmann says in his book that perhaps because of The Monkees and The Grass Roots, bands began to stipulate that they be allowed to play their own instruments in the studio. For purposes of clarification, he probably means in general and again, I never suggested meaning that session musicians should be eliminated from their individual recording methods altogether.
203.221.15.210 ( talk) 00:30, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
It says that the musicians were not publicly recognized in their own time, but that is not entirely true, because if you look at Discogs, you'll see that individual members, including Hal Blaine, got credited for their work on album sleeves as early as 1963 and Joe Osborn even got credited on Ricky Nelson's album sleeves before he was a part of The Wrecking Crew.
For purposes of clarification, I'm talking about album credits in general and again, I'm not saying that The Wrecking Crew were collectively credited as such in album sleeves, but rather, I mean musicians getting individual credits. 115.64.244.198 ( talk) 23:57, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
I am looking at Leonard Cohen's Death of a Ladies' Man, produced by Phil Spector, drums by Hal Blaine and Jim Keltner, bass Ray Pohlman, guitar Ray Pohlman, keyboards, Don Randi, Steve Douglas, sax & flute, and Nino Tempo is all over it, even Larry Levine in the engineer. So can this be added to the discography or do I need to find a source saying that this is the WC? Carptrash ( talk) 19:34, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
The PSWoSO is not the same as the Wrecking Crew. It is just another configuration that some of the members played in, like all the other band's albums and singles that they played on. It is like saying (writing) the WC was occasionally credited as The Byrds, or The Grass Roots, or The Carpenters, etc. This might belong in the article somewhere but not in the lede as an alternate name. Carptrash ( talk) 18:54, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
So, @ Ilovetopaint:, we are back at it. Could you at least supply a referenced list of who plays in the the Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra? Carptrash ( talk) 18:23, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
I think there is too much ink devoted to the non-Wrecking Crew work of the musicians. So I would like to removes things such as "Years later, in 1978, Douglas played on Bob Dylan's 1978 " Street-Legal" album and accompanied Dylan on tour that year as part of his eight piece backing band. [1] [2] " from the text. And a lot more. Steve Douglas is not any more impressive ( opinion) because 15 years after playing in the WC he played with Dylan. Pretty much all of these musicians have their own articles if folks want more of them. What's your take on this? Carptrash ( talk) 01:11, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Rock Hall (Douglas)
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).and moved it here to be discussed.
I am not sure if the reference will show up here but I went to it and there is no mention of the "Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra" anywhere in the piece. I will beat this dead horse a bit more and say that the "Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra" was NOT an AKA for the Crew, as the "Clique" and the "First Call Gang" (Bunch?) was. Those are generic names and can be applied to anything that these folks played on. The "Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra" can only be used on tracks that use those words on the label. Carptrash ( talk) 16:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
The photo caption lists Carol Kaye as bassist and, though she was indeed a bassist for the Wrencking Crew and perhaps the most badass bass player in the biz, inspection of that particular photo reveals the person holding a bass guitar (image right) is a brunette male not a blond female (which Kaye is). Also, the face shape is wrong for Kaye. I don't know what Wiki people do when they find such errors but I thought I'd point it out and hope someone who can either replace the image or fix the caption (hopefully without delisting Kaye entirely). CoveArts ( talk) 04:24, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
These bands aren't notable for being backing bands in the same sense as the rest of the bands listed in the " see also" section. That said, I'm gonna replace them with the Nashville A-Team and the Salsoul Orchestra. 2601:153:881:3D60:20CF:5F56:F5FB:33BD ( talk) 12:42, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Couldn't the article (being so short) of the recently deceased Cipriano be merged with this article? Editrite! ( talk) 09:45, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello. I started a page for Gary L. Coleman the wrecking crew’s percussionist. It has been nominated for deletion for lacking notable citations. Anyone out there who can help edit or discuss why he shouldnt be deleted? Renatak ( talk) 04:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)