The Wrecking Crew! Page #2

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classics if they'd had to,

but they had the magic touch.

We injected

a lot of ourself into it,

because we were

experts at doing it.

We were doing it all the time.

A guy would give us

a lead sheet or something,

and we'd know what the song was.

We made up a lot

of arrangements and so forth

on that set,

ourselves on those things.

Here's the way

that The Beat Goes On sounded

when we first heard it.

I said, "Uh-oh,

we need to pull

a rabbit out of a hat

for this one," you know?

It was our job to come up

with riffs and stuff,

so about the third line

I came up with was:

And Sonny loved it

and he gave it to Bob West,

the bass player, to play it.

And both of us are playing it

throughout the tune.

And without a good bass line,

the tune doesn't pop, you know,

it doesn't snap, you know,

like a big hit record.

I've always said,

"They put notes on paper.

They put notes on paper,

but that's not music."

You make the music.

What do you do with the notes?

- Right.

- What you do with the charts?

- Absolutely.

- What you do with the chords?

Other than that,

they can call the union

- for a guitar player.

- That's right, so...

So it's what you put into it,

because how many days are,

in fact, we're all here.

And it's what you put into it

that's not written.

Yeah, well, in fact, everybody

can... that's sitting here,

I remember doing

different things

that weren't

ever even thought about.

And then, all of a sudden,

become part of the record,

and part of signature

of the record.

We all used to produce our own

parts. It's that simple.

- Oh, yeah, yeah.

- To make it swing, yeah.

You know, the first thing

that I ever did

that smacked of any kind

of rock and roll

was some kind of date,

which I don't even know

who the artist was.

There wasn't a minor 7th chord

in the bushel, you know?

It was all pretty vanilla.

That's when I knew

something was different.

At the time, I was doing

the Ozzie And Harriet TV show.

- Ah.

- Then all of a sudden,

you know, I'm doing this show.

And then, they...

One day, they come up with...

Well, Jimmie Haskell comes up...

- with Ricky Nelson.

- And with Ricky Nelson, said...

- It's rock and roll.

- "We're doing

this rock and roll stuff."

I don't know

what they're talking about.

Just laid out a chord sheet,

and says,

"Play behind Ricky Nelson."

So pretty soon,

you've ended up...

We were starting

to get involved in this.

That's what took me to L.A.

in... In 196...

Summer of 1960, uh, to play

in the Ricky Nelson band.

Working with those people

like that

was a perfect showcase

for what would happen later.

Which I had no idea

that I would ever be

the "session" player.

I didn't even know

what that meant.

We learned how to play

rock and roll

right there on the job.

Hey, you know,

if they want this...

I can do that.

You know, that's Latin...

That's Latin music.

That's nothing, you know.

You can do that all day long.

There were some purists,

like there is

in every way of life,

some people will not compromise.

Not that they couldn't.

They wouldn't, most of the time,

permit themselves

to, you know...

They felt that they were

at a certain level.

And playing rock and roll

was perhaps a little bit

beneath them.

And they didn't want

to get into it,

whereas, our guys,

we welcomed the rock and roll.

They didn't play that sh*t.

they didn't know about it.

They didn't like it.

And I started out

playing demos mainly,

you know, $10 a song,

and I got to eat that day, and...

I had three kids to earn

a living, and that's it.

And the money was important

to pay the rent.

And so I did what

all the rest of the guys did.

I got, uh, a fender guitar

and put the light gauge strings

where you could

bend 'em from here to Christmas.

And listened to some of

the people that were doing this,

and the rock groups, and I got

so I could play that stuff

better than they could.

The very first call

I had ever had at Disney,

we got there a quarter to 12:00,

and all the blue blazers

were leaving.

And we're all sitting there,

and he makes a little speech

about, "Ladies and gentlemen,

we brought you in here

because in this particular film,

we're gonna do a little...

Some of your...

- your rock and roll music."

- "Your rock and roll music"?

"It is this"... Yeah.

"There's a little scene here..."

- It always happens to me.

- "...and we're gonna show it

to you," And it was

a quick, little scene,

so he says, "Now, we have

all the music for you.

It's there in front of you.

And we're gonna do this to what

we call a 'click track.'"

Like, we didn't know

anything was going on.

"We're gonna run

the click very slow

so that you can all learn,

study, and memorize this music."

And then he said, "Mary Anne,

play the click much slower."

Well, she accidentally hit it,

and the minute

we heard eight clicks,

ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-

ding-ding-ding, we're in.

And we play this thing

front to back.

And when we finished,

this guy said,

"How in the...

man, you did it perfect.

- I wish we'd have made that."

- "Made it."

"How in the world

could you do that?"

And Tommy said, "We practice

a lot during the day."

It was perfect, 'cause they...

they thought you were

a complete idiot.

I mean, it was unbelievable.

Most of the music

and the money...

I was about to say... It was

a Freudian slip, but true...

came out of the Brill building

in New York.

It was New York-based,

New York writers,

New York singers,

New York musicians.

The music business was

in New York city,

period, at that time.

Rolling master "A."

Master "A," take one.

Here we go, rolling.

Say, Chess Records

back in Cincinnati.

But there were only maybe

one guitar player,

one bass player,

one piano player,

so it could almost get held up

by those one or two guys.

Well, they could come

to Los Angeles,

and they... It wouldn't

matter if they could call

a matter of 10 or 12

different guitar players,

all of them would be

equally as good

to do what they wanted done,

plus we had more studios

out here.

A lot of the musicians

that were back east,

and in Nashville,

a lot of 'em came out here

to seek their fame and fortune.

This was

an untapped place for...

for new artists to record too.

Lee Hazlewood told me

he went back to New York

to do a session,

and he just kind of walked

over to the guitar player,

and said,

"Hey, could you play me

this little thing?"

And the guy said,

"Write it out."

And the guy just refused

to experiment and try anything.

Like, if it wasn't written out,

he wasn't gonna play it.

You had young musicians

who were willing to contribute

and come up with ideas,

you know,

and I think that

was the difference.

I don't think it's any secret.

The '60s called

all of the music to the west.

L.A. was the place to be.

If you wanted the best, they

were right here, in Los Angeles.

It was a rougher, looser sound

than what was

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