I recently rewatched Walk the Line and found myself wondering just how many bassists and drummers there usually were on those old multi-artist road shows in the 50’s.
Unless your act was specifically promoted as a band unit, it seems just way too impractical for each act to have it’s own rhytm section.
Today, in the current L.A. music scene, I see the same few bassists and drummers playing all around town (often in regular pairings) with a wide variety of different songwriters. Every songwriter benefits from a strong rhythm section, and there are way more songwriters in this town than there are bassists and drummers- so the good ones are always in high demand and end up playing several gigs a week, not infrequently playing with more than one songwriter in one evening.
I know songwriters who, while on tour together as a double bill, have, for economic reasons, agreed to both book the same drummer and bassist. The two songwriters get to split the cost of travel, lodging, and food for the rhythm section instead of each having to pay for their own two guys. In these situations, the drummer and bassist each end up having to learn anywhere from 20 to 40 songs, playing two sets a night for the entire tour.
So, it seems to me that for those old road shows, when each act only performed one, two, or maybe if they were really famous three songs, that it would have made most sense to just have one bassist and one drummer shared.
Buddy Holly and the Crickets might have had to be booked as a band since they were promoted as a band. But couldn’t Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and Eddie Cochran all have shared a bassist and drummer?
If this is in fact how it was done (and I suspect it was) are there any particular bassists and drummers from this era who should have a few kind words said about them in the rock history books? Or have they all faded into anonymity?