The Wrecking Crew! Page #8

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It was a scab date.

- Oh, well, most of 'em were...

- Right, yeah.

When we first started

way back then, you know.

- Right. It was $15.

- Two for a quarter.

Yeah, two for 25.

And that was The Lonely Bull.

That was the first huge hit

that Herb Alpert ever had.

It was huge!

He became a millionaire

on that one record.

And you know what he did?

He went to the union,

said what he did,

paid the union fine,

and then had checks sent

to all the musicians for scale,

that... that they were supposed

to have gotten and didn't.

A signature moment

in A Taste of Honey

is when the bass drum

is knocking four to the floor.

We didn't have a way

to get back to the time

without, you know, a count off.

And Hal, you know, said,

"Let me just hit the drum,

the bass drum.

Everyone will know

when to come in."

Larry Levine thought...

The engineer,

that we should keep that,

and it was, you know,

one of the things that people

remember about the record.

And it became kind of

a trademark of the T.J.B.S.

It was all because

these professional musicians

couldn't come in together.

I met Julius in high school.

We started playing a song

and he took a solo,

and I thought, "Wow, man,

this guy sounds

like Lionel Hampton."

He wrote Spanish Flea,

although his first title

was "Spanish Fly,"

and I said, "I... I don't know,

I'm not sure...

I'm not so sure

that title's gonna work.

You know, when The T.J.B.

became famous

and he had to create a group

to go on the road,

none of the studio musicians

would do it

because they were too busy.

We did 13 albums,

and this was something

that bothered me my whole life,

my whole career.

We'd come back to town,

and I would call

guys like Lou and Hal.

And the guys on the road...

Yeah, were really upset.

They were a little offended

that they were not used,

but you know,

recording musicians had

a certain sound

that was important to get.

No matter what shape

your stomach's in,

when it gets out of shape,

take Alka-Seltzer.

I saw a commercial,

and I thought it was a smash.

I called Dave Pell,

who was my supervisor,

and I said, "What instrumental

groups do we have here?"

And he said, "Well, we have

a name called The T-Bones."

And I say, "All right."

So I got Tommy Tedesco

and the boys,

in the studio we went,

and we did No Matter What Shape."

And that was the number-one

instrumental of the year.

The T-Bones!

What is their name,

"Willy Vanelli"

- or what the hell the sh*t is?

- Milli...

- They had nothing over us...

- Right.

...right?

We did that all the time.

I wanted The Marketts to be

like a working group.

And, you know, if the public

knew it wasn't so,

it would be like a

"Mini Vanilli" or whatever.

I think it's a little

different when you're a

horn player and you're asked

to play the introduction

- and play the first chorus...

- I can understand that.

...and play the first solo, and

then play the fade on the end.

And the damn thing comes on and

it doesn't have your name on it.

Surfer's Stomp... Plas Johnson

was the lead saxophonist,

and I said, "Plas, how about

calling it The Plas Johnson?"

And he's says, "no," he says,

"I don't want to be associated

with that type of music."

I mean, he was a much better

player than that,

but it became a hit and so we

call it The Marketts.

And then I start getting calls.

So, the song writer, who

co-wrote Surfer's Stomp with me

called Mike Gordon,

he got a group together,

went on the road.

Worse than not getting

the money,

is to have... to played on a hit

record which sold

a million copies, and not even

have your name on them.

And they go dig some white kids

up out of high school

and put them on the road

and call them the name.

And it was quite easy

for the producers

and the companies to hire us to

read this music.

And play these things down,

in three hours

and get out of that studio

in three hours

than to have them come and spend

three weeks doing it.

We would either augment

or totally replace a group.

We do a new group, say

The Association, for instance.

None of them played

on the record.

We replaced the entire group.

Well, these are the guys that

played on Windy

and Never My Love and

Everything That Touches You.

And all the things that were

in those two albums

that I did with them, those are

all those studio musicians.

It's Al, Joe, Larry, Tommy and...

and those guys.

I wanted to put their names

on the back of the album

when it was finished

and they wouldn't let me

because they said, "Well, we

don't want those kids out there

that buy our records to know

that we didn't

play on the record."

I went out and took Brian's

place with The Beach Boys.

And I can understand that

probably why Brian had studio

guys come in, because they would

fight like cats and dogs, man.

Rather than Brian to go through

the hassle to get the tracks,

he would hire the rhythm section

to come in and do the tracks.

One of the guys... At first they

were a little jealous,

you know what I mean?

But I explained to them, I said,

"You know, I want to get the

best I can get for the group."

And they go, "Well, I can

understand your point, Brian,"

you know.

So we went ahead and did it,

and sure enough,

the guys liked it.

I mean, that's one of the most

asked questions,

"Well, didn't Dennis get mad,

wasn't he mad

because you were doing

The Beach Boys records?"

Dennis did not have the studio

chops that we have, you know.

The proof of the pudding

is that Dennis

called me to do his album when

Dennis did his solo album.

I played the drums on that.

A lot of times the guys would

be sitting around the studio,

we didn't know they were the

guys in the band.

The guitar players that were

in these various groups,

when they realized guys like

Tommy Tedesco

was gonna be playing, they

wanted to sit around and watch.

And the drummers would want

to sit around

and watch myself or Al.

They were there, like, more or

less they were learning.

You know, it would be something

that I'd like to see too

if it had been

the other way around.

Terry Melcher wanted to use

session musicians

for Mr. Tambourine Man.

I'd been a studio musician

in New York,

prior to being in The Byrds,

so...

they let me play on it.

So my feeling was,

"Great. I get to play

with this great band,

The Wrecking Crew."

Of course, the other guys,

David Crosby,

Michael Clark and

Chris Hellman, were livid.

They hated the idea because

they didn't get to play

on their own record.

We got a number one hit with it,

right off the bat.

But we knocked out two tracks

in one three-hour session.

To compare that with what

happened when the rest

of the band got to play,

it took us 77 takes

to get the band track for

Turn, Turn, Turn,

which was also a number one.

People assume that just

because my dad made his living

playing guitar, I can also play.

For me, and some of the other

kids of studio musicians,

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