The Wrecking Crew (36 page)

In the fall of 1973, Lennon asked Spector to come aboard one more time. Obligated to quickly cut an album as part of a legal settlement (to be called
Rock 'n' Roll
), the former Beatle wanted to record a bunch of his favorite oldies from the late Fifties and early Sixties. And, he reasoned, who better to head the project than the man who put now-vintage acts like the Ronettes, the Crystals, and the Righteous Brothers on the musical map? With Spector's favorite engineer, Larry Levine, having moved over to A&M Studios in the late Sixties at the request of Herb Alpert, the producer decided to use that facility instead of the tried-and-true Gold Star or EMI's Abbey Road in London, the Beatles' usual recording home.

Aside from booking the studio, Spector also had one more task at hand. He needed to hire the Wrecking Crew. Calls went out to people like Hal Blaine, Dennis Budimir, Gary Coleman, Leon Russell (who, though now a star, couldn't resist playing with Lennon), Nino Tempo, and others from the old gang who were still around town and available for playing some rock and roll. The word was out: Phil was back. It was going to be just like old times.

Only it wasn't.

One of the Wrecking Crew keyboard players hired to be part of the massive group of musicians was Mike Melvoin. An Ivy Leaguer from Dartmouth with a degree in English literature, Melvoin was a longtime, classically trained, first-call pianist (and organist) in the LA studios who had played on everything from the Beach Boys'
Pet Sounds
to all the music for the Partridge Family (which he also arranged) to many earlier Spector dates. Melvoin had learned to play rock and roll by teaching his left hand to do whatever the drummer Earl Palmer's bass drum did while his right mimicked Palmer's work on the snare. Highly intelligent, with an innate sense of fairness, Melvoin was also an unyieldingly principled man, something that soon would prove to be oil to Spector's water.

As the session got under way on the evening that they were to cut what was expected to be the album's first single, “Stand by Me,” it became clear that things were altogether different; yet in some ways, they seemed very much the same. With a huge entourage and a couple of beefy bodyguards on hand, Spector had a vastly different attitude this time around. And he was drinking in the studio, something that rarely, if ever, occurred a decade prior. Maybe it was the presence of Lennon. Or maybe it was the added pressure of trying to re-create history on Spector's home turf. Whatever the reason, the musicians sensed a different vibe. They also found themselves playing the one song over and over for three hours, just like back at Gold Star. That part hadn't changed.

As they cruised into overtime, closing in on the four-hour mark, Spector finally came out of the booth and said, “I'd like to make this a double session. Is that okay with everybody?”

A double session meant having back-to-back three-hour blocks of time, payable at the regular union rate. Overtime, which producers tried to avoid, paid time and a half starting with the first minute beyond three hours.

As the gathered musicians all said, “Sure, Phil,” a lone voice of dissent rang out in the room. It was that of Mike Melvoin.

“You mean starting now, right?”

Spector stared.

“No, it started at the end of hour three.”

“Phil, if you'd like to start a double session right now, that's fine,” Melvoin replied. “But you can't ask my permission to do something you already did almost an hour ago. Union rules prohibit that.”

Like the mythological Prometheus stealing fire from the all-powerful Zeus and then giving it back to mere mortals, Spector was accustomed to divining a record from the studio heavens and then grandly presenting it to the adoring masses. He was not, however, used to being challenged in front of others, especially on such an important night.

“You motherfucking prick, you're fired,” he screamed as the studio fell silent.

Spector then marched back to the control booth, with a dumbfounded Melvoin trailing behind.

“Listen to me, Phil. Just listen for a minute.”

But Spector wouldn't engage with him. Melvoin had broken the rule of all rules and now he had to pay the ultimate price.

As Melvoin glanced at Spector's two hulking protectors, they began very conspicuously patting their chests, implying that the tiny, irate producer was packing some heat. With Melvoin fully aware of the story about Spector allegedly firing a round into the studio's ceiling only the night before, he decided to back off.

Stepping out into the hall, the keyboard player soon had company. It was John Lennon.

“Oh, Spike, he don't mean it,” the ex-Beatle said in his best faux Cockney accent. The two had been joshing around earlier in the evening about an old TV program called
The Goon Show
that ran on the BBC in the early Fifties starring the comedians Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers.

But Melvoin, understandably, was no longer in the mood for humor.

“John! He's fucking crazy. He
definitely
means it. And he's armed.”

Lennon thought it over for a moment.

“C'mon, man. Let's just finish the music,” he finally said, putting his hand on Melvoin's shoulder. “It'll be okay.”

With John Lennon's insistence and clout, Melvoin reluctantly returned to the session. And though the pianist would never work for Spector again, the famed producer still had one last little bit of unfinished business to come with several other members of the Wrecking Crew.

*   *   *

By the time Lennon's
Rock 'n' Roll
album recording sessions finally wrapped in December of 1973 (the former Beatle would do more work on the project later in New York), the Wrecking Crew were feeling the effects of an obvious employment downturn. In fact, most of them had been noticing a reduction in the number of bookings for rock-and-roll dates for some time. Partly due to the decreasing influence of Top 40 AM radio (and the growing length of songs), it also had as much or more to do with the overall musical climate itself. The way things were done in the business had started to change. Producers and arrangers were moving away from the once-dominant desire to hire freelance sidemen to play all the parts for various bands. Even established, insular LA-based hit makers like America and the Doors, who had used the occasional help of a few Wrecking Crewers to supplement some of their earliest work (e.g., Hal Blaine and Joe Osborn on “Ventura Highway”; Larry Knechtel on “Light My Fire”), had ultimately chosen to go it alone.

Attempting to reflect the attitudes of American youth in the music they released, if often a step or two behind, the major record labels began signing artists by the late Sixties and early Seventies who insisted upon playing their own instruments. Slick packaging was no longer hip. Authenticity—being
real
—was the new philosophy. So as self-contained bands like the Eagles, Three Dog Night, Chicago, the Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, and others grew in popularity, the job prospects for the Wrecking Crew suffered accordingly.

In addition, technological advances were making an impact. With the advent of synthesizers and drum machines, not to mention forty-eight-track studios, in many cases (especially where it was only a singer) it became easier and more cost-effective to just bring in one or two players, as needed, to then lay down multiple bass and guitar parts, which would be recorded one at a time onto discrete tracks. The producers and arrangers found, too, that they could often supply the electronically generated keyboard and drum programming themselves, thereby further eliminating the need to bring in outside help. With so many more individual tracks now available, the once-pressing need to record a huge number of highly paid pros all at once in a big room (like Spector did) no longer existed. Times had changed. Now most projects could be done piecemeal and on the cheap.

To compound matters, a new crop of young, hungry session cats were lining up to snatch whatever gigs
were
still available—much like the Wrecking Crew had done with the blue-blazer-and-necktie men who had come before them. These new players also had a more contemporary, “California” sound and sensibility, which fit well with the mellow, acoustic, singer/songwriter trend of the mid-Seventies. Acts that regularly recorded in Los Angeles like Jackson Browne, Carole King, Loggins and Messina, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Boz Scaggs, and James Taylor—even longtime Wrecking Crew employers like Neil Diamond and Johnny Rivers—now preferred to go with various combinations of guys like Richard Bennett, Larry Carlton, Andrew Gold, Danny Kortchmar, Dean Parks, Fred Tackett, and Waddy Wachtel on guitar; Kenny Edwards, Bob Glaub, David Hungate, and Lee Sklar on bass; Mike Botts, Jim Guerin, Jim Keltner, Russ Kunkel, and Jeff Porcaro on drums; and Craig Doerge, Michael Omartian, and David Paich on keyboards. Like it or not, the torch was being passed.

By the middle of the decade, Carol Kaye (who had returned to bass-playing action after her brief retirement), along with Gary Coleman, Earl Palmer, Don Peake, Bill Pitman, Michel Rubini, Tommy Tedesco, and several others, had, for the most part, already shifted gears into doing film and TV soundtrack work, with occasional forays into jazz. Rock and roll just couldn't pay the bills anymore. A few, like Barney Kessel, put out solo albums, too. Joe Osborn took off for Nashville, as did Billy Strange (Frank Sinatra had asked Strange to run his music publishing company there). Larry Knechtel joined the band Bread. Mike Deasy became a born-again rock-and-roll-style preacher. Lyle Ritz settled in as arguably the world's greatest ukulele player. Al Casey moved home to Phoenix to play on sessions and teach. The Wrecking Crew, for the most part, had scattered.

And then there was Glen Campbell. At the same time his star turn as the host of
The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour
had come to a close in June of 1972, the hits had been drying up, too. For over four years, from early 1971 through the summer of 1975, Campbell never so much as dented the Top 40 pop charts. His worry about things all going away seemed to be well founded. But then along came something called “Rhinestone Cowboy.”

Written by a little-known singer/songwriter named Larry Weiss, it was another one of those songs that Campbell knew he just had to record. The resulting single became the biggest of his career, going all the way to number one (his first). “Rhinestone Cowboy” also provided him with enough momentum to coast through the rest of the Seventies with several more big hits and to establish a permanent post–Wrecking Crew career headlining live shows at theaters, casinos, and state fairs around the country. The boy from Arkansas had finally achieved his dream.

Hal Blaine, however, was one of the few from the old days still standing, taking whatever rock-and-roll session dates came his way. Since his first job in that genre back in the late Fifties playing for Tommy Sands, a whole lot of life-altering history had washed across the American landscape. After almost fifteen grisly, divisive years, the last of the U.S. troops were finally home from combat in Southeast Asia. JFK, MLK, and RFK all had been assassinated. NASA somehow, astoundingly, found a way to land a man on the moon not once but many times over. And through talent, savvy, and an unrivaled Rolodex, Blaine managed to professionally thrive right alongside every bit of it. But the big-name session calls were now slowing to a trickle, even for him. He had begun supplementing his income by doing an increasing amount of advertising jingle work for big corporations like Budweiser, Coca-Cola, and Goodyear. Good pay, though not always the most satisfying way to make a buck. Yet the artful drummer, despite the rapidly changing face of his chosen industry, still had one last huge Top 40 recording about to fall right into his lap.

*   *   *

One day in the early winter of 1975, Hal Blaine picked up a message from his answering service. It was from a little-known keyboardist by the name of Daryl Dragon who wanted to hire Blaine to play on a session over at Paramount Recording on Santa Monica Boulevard, across the street from Gold Star. The two knew each other in passing from working with the Beach Boys on some of that band's post–Brian Wilson output in the early Seventies. Blaine liked the introverted Dragon and also knew him to be exceptionally skilled at playing anything with a set of keys attached to it—pianos, organs, harpsichords, synthesizers, and more. He was also the son of the well-known Oscar-winning conductor, composer, and arranger Carmen Dragon, so musical talent obviously ran in the Dragon family.

Agreeing to do the date, Blaine reported for duty on Saturday, January 25, at a little before 3:00
P.M.
Dragon was already there, along with his wife, Toni, and also his younger brother, Dennis. As had become common on recording projects for Blaine by this point, there were no other Wrecking Crew players in attendance. In fact, there were no other outside musicians in the studio at all. Dragon (the co-producer and arranger) and his brother (the recording engineer) planned to overdub all the keyboard, bass, and stray percussion parts themselves.

After they worked together for three and a half uneventful hours, the basic instrumental tracks for the two songs scheduled for that day were complete. Everything went smoothly, an ordinary recording date in Blaine's opinion. More important, it was another four hundred dollars in his pocket, for which he was appreciative. Weekend union scale rates were known as “golden time” and the pay was good. At a little after 6:30
P.M.
, the drummer packed up his gear, thanked the Dragons, and walked out to his car, giving the session little further thought.

Around five months later, after Blaine had returned from touring with John Denver, for whom the drummer had become part of both the singer's road and recording bands—a fantastic gig that had materialized just in time—Blaine's new wife, a stunning six-foot-tall blonde from Texas, happened to mention a song she had heard on the radio. “I think it might be you playing,” she said. “It's called ‘Love Will Keep Us Together.'” Blaine looked at her for a moment while running the title through his mind. “Nope,” he concluded, “never heard of it.”