These two short clips about session musicians really surprised me. Larry Knechtel was a famous member of the Wrecking Crew. Playing piano, bass, and some guitar. Larry won a Grammy for his piano in Bridge Over Trouble Water. Larry did the famous wah wah licks in Bread’s Guitar Man. Incredible musician. He left session work to join Bread. Glen Campbell was part of the Wrecking Crew too. He had years of session work before his starring career.
Larry made an interesting comment in his interview. He said they would be in the studio working and the band they were recording for would be on the other side of the glass watching. He said Session guys don’t freeze up when the red light goes on. Its a special talent to play under pressure. Larry explained that the record companies wouldn’t waste studio time on young musicians that might not deliver under pressure.
The other video is an incredible reunion of the surviving members of the Wrecking Crew. Glen Campbell talks about recording for Phil Spector, and working with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis jr. A really long list of artists.
Now I’m wondering which 60’s bands were allowed to record their own material? Theres no way of knowing how many hit songs were done by Session musicians.
I know all the guys in Bread were former session musicians. David Gates had been a song writer and record producer for years. I’m pretty sure the Stones and Beatles did most of their studio playing.
I bet a lot of the one hit wonder songs were actually studio session players. The guys in the group toured and played what the session guys did.
For the most part, 80% at least, the music I prefer usually lists everybody on the session so there’s no big surprises there. But it is cool to know who all was in on some of the sessions where liner notes don’t say.
Outside people who used house bands like in Motown and Muscle Shoals, by the late 60s the musicians in the group played their own instruments. Session musicians would be used from time to time, but only when the band wanted something they couldn’t master, they were generally credited.
The Beatles were one exception about crediting others – whoever played horns and strings for them were never mentioned*, and even Eric Clapton’s contribution to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was not listed on the album. But the main instruments on all their recordings were played by the band.
But typically the musicians in the band played their instruments and credited anyone who was used for instruments they didn’t play.
*Though that sort of thing was likely to go uncredited unless you were Tower of Power.
“Winchester Cathedral” by New Vaudeville Band and " Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam are prime examples, those bands never existed. Who knows maybe Gary Puckett and the Union Gap?
Wasn’t Muscle Shoals mostly late 60’s and the 70’s? I know the Wrecking Crew dates to the very early 60’s.
There was a session group in Nashville too. I can’t recall their name. They even developed The Nashville Number System. Its a way of representing music. Kind of like tabs today. Except the Nashville system could be done live. A guy would hold up a finger to indicate the next chord.
I am a metal guy and pretty much no one I listen to uses session musicians. The closest thing I can think of is Ozzy. Iirc, the lineup listed on Diary of a Madman isn’t the band that wrote and record it, except for Randy and Ozzy. But that was more of a Sharon trying to screw people thing than a session musician setup.
Most bands I listen to would instantly lose their fan base if they used session players.
But lots of “genuine bands” went out and played live on tour but had session musicians playing on their records.
After the first couple of years, Beach Boys’ songs were played mostly by session musicians (though Carl Wilson did play guitar on some of them).
I doubt Gary Lewis and the Playboys played on any of their records — or at least not their hits. Instead, it was session musicians led by Leon Russell.
The prominent drums that distinguished the Dave Clark Five’s early records were in fact played by session musician Bobby Graham.
So it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that session musicians played on Gary Puckett’s hits.
I’m reminded of the documentary film Twenty Feet From Stardom, about the backup singers like Darlene Love used by Motown and other recording companies. Like the session musicians, the backup singers are incredibly talented but were generally anonymous. But despite this, they’re not the ones headlining concerts. So I wonder what’s better; trying for fame, and knowing that you might not make it (or might become a one-hit wonder), or having a steady income and long career doing anonymous studio work.
As other posters are noting, there is a rich trove of books, documentaries and articles about the session players behind much of the great music of the rock era.
If you are stepping into this topic somewhat new, as it appears the OP is, look at the documentaries on Muscle Shoals, the Funk Brothers of Motown and read the book about the Wrecking Crew…
As I noted on a much older post, there’s a differece between the Funk Brothers and the Wrecking Crew. The big difference is that most of Motown’s top acts were VOCAL groups. Nobody expected the Supremes or the Temptations to play their own instruments, so it doesn’t hurt their reputations when people find out that sesssion men played the instruments on their hits.
But the Byrds and the Beach Boys were SUPPOSED to be bands made up of real musicians. Hence, it was a bit embarrassing to Michael Clarke and Dennis Wilson when it was revealed that Hal Blaine was the real drummer on many of their records.
In general, when a record company in the Sixties signed a new band, they wanted to get the first single recorded FAST, and then send the band out on tour to promote the single. Most of these bands had little or no experience in the studio, and their technique was a bit sloppy. Oh, they sounded fine in bars and nightclubs, but in the studio, a certain amount of restraint and delicacy is required. Drummers were usually the first guys to be replaced by session men, because the usual loud BOOM-bam-BOOM-BOOM-bam they’re used to can overwhelm a song on record.
If you let a new band fiddle around the studio for a few days or weeks, they could probably LEARN proper recording techniques (and many of them eventually did). But record companies figured it was cheaper, quicker and easier to bring in the Wrecking Crew. They’d get the song down correctly in one or two takes.
I personally was surprised to see how much of the music I liked was session musicians. I guess I had a naive simplistic view of the business. I guess logically I knew that, say, Simon and/or Garfunkle didn’t play all the instruments on their songs, but I guess I figured they played the main ones. Even so, I figured the band were all friends, and they traveled around in a big bus together, or at least lived together in a big, cool funky house in Malibu.
But, hey, I also believed that a band would only put out albums if they had all good material. No one would release a song if they didn’t think it was good, and perfect.
Your first paragraph is correct. But in the case of your allegation about The Byrds, this is oft-repeated misinformation.
Hal Blaine and other session musicians performed on exactly TWO Byrds tracks: both sides of their debut single, “Mr. Tambourine Man”/“I Knew I’d Want You” (though Jim McGuinn did play the Rickenbacker 12-string on these songs).
The five original Byrds were the instrumentalists on ALL other tracks of their first three albums. Their fourth album featured some guitar work by Clarence White (who later joined as a full-time member), but everything else was played by The Byrds.
Michael Clarke played drums on all of the first four Byrds albums (the first single excepted) and part of the fifth. He was fired midway through the Notorious Byrd Brothers album sessions, and drums on the remaining tracks were played by Jim Gordon. This album also featured some pedal steel work by Red Rhodes.
So with minor exceptions, almost all of the instrumental work on the first five classic Byrds albums was performed by The Byrds themselves.
I believe you’re probably right. Their producer, Jerry Fuller, was fond of “supplementing” their sound with strings and horns, until they rebelled in 1969 and quit working with him.
Yes, after Brian Wilson flipped out and stopped touring, he wrote, arranged, produced, and recorded in the studio while the rest of them were on tour. When they got back, Brian and the rest would record the vocals for the pre-recorded tracks and learn the songs well enough to perform them on tour.
For singers, I guess the studio musicians who backed them on the record become their touring band also. Except for the current deluge of pop tarts who bring CDs with the musical backing on tour with them because musicians AND back up dancers are too expensive to pay.
