'The Wrecking Crew' Goes Behind the Music

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine
Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

If you’ve ever heard the themes from the Batman, Bonanza and Green Acres TV shows or the songs “Good Vibrations,” “California Dreamin’” and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” you’ve enjoyed the work of legendary session musicians the Wrecking Crew. “My dad had four phone lines in the house and an answering service,” says Denny Tedesco, reminiscing about his father Tommy, the crew’s superb guitarist who passed away in 1996. “He never turned a job down.” Tedesco’s documentary film The Wrecking Crew pays homage to the men and women behind the hit music of the ‘60s and ‘70s. With the Cleveland premiere March 20 at the Cedar Lee Theatre, we chat with Tedesco.

Cleveland Magazine: You started this film in 1996 and didn’t finish the first cut until 2008. Did you expect it would take that long to complete?

Denny Tedesco: No way [laughs]. We had to pay record labels, publishers and the musicians union. I started out traveling the country and taking donations before we raised more than $300,000 with Kickstarter. I always wanted to tell this story of my father and his extended family. When the film ends, we’ve had standing ovations and grown men in tears. Seeing this with an audience is a blast for me.

CM: Your father played alongside such talents as Hal Blaine, Glen Campbell, Don Randi and Carol Kaye, producing an incredible string of hits for everyone from Elvis to the Beach Boys to Cher. Why did they remain anonymous?

DT: These people were stars among their own community and the artists they recorded for. But they were real people who had to put food on the table and take their kids to school. They went from one session to another. In the end, they had a huge affect on the music of their time. 

CM: What happened when the crew backed Frank Sinatra on “Strangers in the Night”? 

DT: He didn’t like the song. He recorded it to appease some people. At the end of the song, he forgot the lyrics and did the do-be-do-be-do thing. And then he walked out. So Dean Martin came in to use up the rest of the studio time.

A four-CD soundtrack of The Wrecking Crew is available at PledgeMusic.

By Barry Goodrich

Film Fest: This One Rocks

If you love music from the ‘60s and ‘70s, The Wrecking Crew will entertain and educate you.

For many of us, groups such as The Beatles, Beach Boys, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Rolling Stones, Monkees, The Association, Eagles and Byrds, created the soundtracks of our lives. Each had a string of mega hits that will never leave us.

Let me separate the eight hit machines in the above list into two groups, and then ask you a question.
Group A – The Beach Boys, Monkees, The Association, and Byrds
Group B -The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Eagles and CSNY

Find a reason for the grouping? The answer is wonderfully revealed in The Wrecking Crew, a fascinating documentary for every rock ‘n’ roller.

The subtle, yet seismic answer: the musicians that played on the hit recordings in Group A were all studio musicians. Oh sure, you probably saw some of them play instruments while they were on tour, but the music we grew up listening to came from session musicians. It was not until Group B that they brought a new dimension to the music; they played their own instruments on the recordings.

Even more interesting was that a very small group of studio musicians, between a dozen or two, were the same people who played on virtually every hit record that came out of California in the 1960s.

This tight band of players became known as the “Wrecking Crew.” They played on thousands of recordings, but were rarely listed on the album covers. They did not seem to care. They were making a fabulous living and working nonstop. This documentary is their story.

When a producer had a song in the ’60s, from Sinatra to Glen Campbell (a former “Wrecking Crew” member), Jan & Dean, Sonny and Cher, Mamas and Papas, the Phil Spector stable, Ricky Nelson, TV commercials, it was time to book the “Wrecking Crew.” Some of the names wafted to the fringe of public consciousness, drummer Hal Blaine, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, saxophonist Plas Johnson, bass player Carol Kaye; but for the most part, the crew played on and on and on in obscurity.

And they loved it. Hit after hit rolled off the instruments of the “Wrecking Crew.”

They traveled from one recording studio to another on a nonstop treadmill. The players were so busy they hardly had time to listen to or appreciate their work. Day after day, morning till night, song after song, group after group, and singer after singer, it was an endless blur of rock ‘n’ roll. The whirlwind lasted about 10 years, tapering off when groups began to play their own material in the studios.

If these are the songs of your life, you will love the music, the vintage film clips and the stories behind the music. If you are a younger rock ‘n’ roller, the two hours with members of the “Wrecking Crew” are a valuable history lesson. Don’t miss their class.

— Bob Carson

Saturday, March 28, 9:25 p.m.; Sunday, March 29, 4:25 p.m. USA, 98 minutes