The Wrecking Crew (19 page)

“He's going to sit there all day until he can see you,” she warned, despite knowing that Jacobs had a firm policy about never meeting with promo men from the labels. But Adler was different, she figured. He was a big-time guy. And they
were
a new station.

“I don't give a fuck,” said the brusque, driven Jacobs, who was also considered a brilliant programmer. “I'm busy.”

“Ron, just let them come in for five minutes,” Breneman continued. “You can meet them in the back in the library.”

Against his better judgment, Jacobs gave in. He liked and respected Breneman enough to break his own rule. “Okay. Five minutes. That's it,” he said firmly.

With Breneman then ushering Adler and Oldham into the station's small production library, the Dunhill exec got down to business. “This is the first release from our new artists the Mamas and the Papas,” he said, handing a 45 to Jacobs, who then placed it on one of several turntables.

As the song began to play, Adler glanced over at the program director, hoping for some kind of positive sign. He got anything but.

“You mean that you've been waiting all day drinking or doing whatever next door at Nickodell's to play me
this
MOR shit?” Jacobs said as the two-minute-forty-two-second tune ended. “This song just ain't happening.” A disappointed Adler left without getting his “add.”

But an interesting thing happened with “California Dreamin'.” Over the next several weeks, some of the staff at KHJ started getting word back from various minor-league stations, those in smaller markets like San Bernardino and San Diego, that it was taking off, getting lots of requests. A firm believer in cold, hard data, Jacobs could see that the song had legs after all. Despite his dislike for it, Jacobs grudgingly added “California Dreamin'” to the KHJ playlist, where it promptly went to number one. Adler, the Mamas & the Papas, and the Wrecking Crew all had their hit. And for the next couple of years, the nation would have a new favorite band.

10

Strangers in the Night

Okay, ladies. We're going to start recording now.

—D
EAN
M
ARTIN

One afternoon in the fall of 1963, twenty-five-year-old producing hopeful Jimmy Bowen heard his telephone ring. Sharing a magnificent Frank Lloyd Wright–designed home just off Sunset Boulevard with the teen idol Frankie Avalon, Bowen figured it was probably just another of the many girls who called the house day and night, always looking for the handsome, pompadoured singer. “Is Frankie there?” “When will Frankie be back?”

As the Texas-raised Bowen picked up the receiver and drawled out a “hello,” all he heard on the other end was the sound of somebody whispering. Of course, there was nothing unusual about that, either. The relentlessly enterprising female callers were known to try any tactic they could think of to get through to their heartthrob.

Bowen even knew a little something about that kind of thing himself. In the late Fifties, he had been a member of the Rhythm Orchids, the backing band for the rockabilly singer Buddy Knox. Together, the quartet had generated several Top 40 hits on Roulette Records, including the number-one smash “Party Doll.” Their turn in the spotlight, however brief, had come with its own fair share of amorous attention from adoring adolescent bobby-soxers.

But this time around it wasn't one of Avalon's girlfriends phoning. No, this was quite obviously a man, and the guy was trying to tell Bowen something on the QT.

“Hey,” the hushed voice said, pausing. “I got you the job.”

Bowen quickly recognized the owner of the whisper. It was a friend and business associate named Murray Wolf, and there was no question as to the meaning of his statement. With a major inside connection in his pocket, Wolf had been angling for Bowen to get the coveted position of running the A & R department for Reprise Records, an easy-listening label now looking to update its artist roster and overall sound to appeal to a more youthful market.

“That's great,” a surprised and delighted Bowen replied. He knew it was a rare opportunity, especially for someone his age.

Before Bowen could catch his breath or even say “thank you,” however, Wolf, now back to speaking at normal volume, told him to hang on the line for a minute. The high-powered founder of Reprise was on his way to the phone and he wanted to say something to his new hire.

“James,” came the sonorous, unmistakable voice of a man who had once been the biggest teen idol of them all. “Glad to have you aboard.”

Click.

The Chairman of the Board—Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra—had spoken.

*   *   *

By the early Sixties, Dean Martin's recording career was sagging. With his last Top 40 hit single, “Volare,” coming out back in 1958, the international star desperately needed something to break his way. Though he had appeared in many movies over the years, with a couple of his late Fifties performances in films like
Some Came Running
and
Rio Bravo
earning critical acclaim, his inimitable way with a song was always Martin's main calling card among the public. Everything else he did fed off that.

At the same time, Jimmy Bowen wanted to find a first big act to produce at Reprise. With Martin having signed a recording contract there in 1962 at the urging of his close friend Frank Sinatra, the man born Dino Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, seemed like a perfect leadoff choice for the ambitious young producer. Bowen instinctively knew that he could make an album for Martin that had some radio-friendly hits on it for a change. In his opinion, the singer just needed to be presented the right way, to be brought into the modern era. And Bowen felt he had the perfect song with which to do it.

Dean Martin's longtime pianist, Ken Lane, had been fooling around with a little tune on the piano for almost twenty years, something he had written called “Everybody Loves Somebody.” It had a pretty melody and a great hook, both of which caught Jimmy Bowen's ear one day in the studio. “If I can cut that with a big orchestra,” Bowen said to Martin, “I can get that record on the radio for you.”

True to his word, after calling in twenty-plus musicians to United Recorders for a date on April 16, 1964, Bowen got the version of the song he wanted and more. The lush yet punchy production promptly became Dean Martin's first number-one hit in almost ten years, instantly reviving his moribund musical fortunes, right in the heart of Beatlemania, no less.

Among the musicians playing on “Everybody Loves Somebody” was Hal Blaine. Bowen wanted the recording to have some serious R & B–style bottom end to go with the pop melody and all the strings on top. Bringing in Blaine was a no-brainer in that regard. Like many in the Wrecking Crew, Blaine occasionally stepped away from his usual steady diet of rock-and-roll dates to join with assorted non–Wrecking Crew musicians on other projects. Bowen was fully aware of Blaine's diverse and successful background in playing for artists like Patti Page, Connie Francis, and the great Count Basie, each of whom had an inimitable, decidedly non-rock-and-roll style yet expected anyone drumming for them to be able to cook with some serious gas.

For Blaine, working with Dean Martin was another in a seemingly endless series of eye-opening music business experiences. Every star had his or her unique style, and the smooth, glib Martin was no exception.

One day while in the studio to record what would become one of Martin's better-known songs, a country-flavored tune called “Houston,” Blaine looked on in amazement as the veteran crooner handled an audience of fifty or more mostly females like a monkey handles coconuts.

“Okay, ladies,” Martin said in his rich, easy baritone as he ambled over to their seating area. “We're going to start recording now. It's time to make some records. So I want you all to sit back and relax. But remember, we have to be
very
quiet. No talking, no nothing.”

Martin gave them a wink and then held an index finger up to his lips for emphasis as the gathered guests chuckled in delight.

But just after the carefree star began singing during the first take, sure enough, a couple of the women started talking. “So, Shirley, I don't know if you're going on Thursday, but…”

Eddie Brackett, the engineer, immediately stopped the tape.

“Hold it, folks,” he said over the speaker from the control booth. “We're going to have to do another one. Some voices were leaking into the mics.”

As Blaine and the rest of the musicians waited and watched with smiles on their faces, Martin then strolled back over to the small audience and kicked his incomparable charm up another notch.

“Ladies,
please,
” he said in mock admonishment, with an obvious twinkle in his eye. “We simply can't have any talking.”

But just to drive his point home in a way that only he could, the effortlessly engaging Martin then slid himself onto one unsuspecting middle-aged woman's lap, gently cooing in her ear, “You do understand, don't you, dear?” With that, he kissed her on the cheek, rose, and sauntered back across the room to his music stand.

Mission accomplished. With the throng now hopelessly mesmerized by Dino's dazzling display of savoir faire, the recording was completed without further interruption.

Aside from the entertaining theatrics of the day, however, Hal Blaine had a very serious idea about how he might be able to make “Houston” even better. Blaine, like most of those in the Wrecking Crew, considered that to be one of their primary roles. They weren't hired to merely play. Lots of people could do that. They were brought in because they were the best of the best, able to not only execute quickly and at the highest of levels but also, perhaps especially, provide invaluable input along the way. In essence, they were all mini-arrangers, constantly working on their own parts in order to improve a song's overall chances of becoming a hit.

“Jimmy, do me a favor,” Blaine said to Bowen after the session had concluded. “Let me overdub an extra little percussion thing whenever you have a moment. It's something that I'm hearing.”

Bowen, as astute as they came, didn't have to be asked twice. When a guy of Blaine's skill and reputation said he had an idea, the producer knew enough to just step out of the way and reap the benefits.

“Sure, go for it,” Bowen said.

Noticing that the production seemed like it was kind of flat, Blaine grabbed one of the many glass ashtrays scattered throughout the studio (most of the musicians were smokers) and tapped its contents into the trash. Then, while standing before a live mic, he asked the engineer, Brackett, to roll tape. As the first throaty notes of a heavily reverberating hollow-body electric guitar began to ring out, Blaine started hitting the ashtray with his wooden drumstick, playing ever so slightly behind the beat. It provided the perfect Western-style, crystalline counterpoint to Martin's languid vocal work, almost like that of a blacksmith striking an anvil with his hammer. With this one simple bit of well-placed creativity, Hal Blaine instantly helped turn the song into yet another Dean Martin Top 40 hit record.

*   *   *

After about a five-month run with the road version of the Beach Boys, Glen Campbell had decided it was time to call it a wrap. Though he liked all the guys in the band and enjoyed playing their music, he just wasn't a surf-rock type of musician at heart. Session work, along with playing and singing on his own demo recordings, seemed to him to be a better use of his time. He wanted to keep his focus on the big prize, and staying near the studios was an important part of that. Campbell never wavered in his dogged determination to one day become a star in his own right.

One day in the spring of 1966, Campbell got a call from Donnie “Dirt” Lanier, the boyhood chum, former Rhythm Orchid, and current contractor for Campbell's old pal Jimmy Bowen. Lanier wanted to know if the former Beach Boy could do a 6:00
P.M.
session over at United Recorders on the eleventh of April. “Jimmy wants you to play some rhythm guitar,” Lanier said.

Campbell and Bowen, two down-home country boys from the Mid-South, had come up the LA ranks together in the early Sixties while working as apprentice songwriters for a brief period at a publishing company called American Music. Though the duo never wrote anything particularly noteworthy during their short stint, their friendship became a keeper. Golf, cigars, and the occasional snort of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey were but a few of their common interests. Now with Bowen an important producer and the head A & R man at Reprise Records, he liked to use his old buddy Campbell's incredible picking skills whenever he could. And this time out, the scheduled date was a whopper.

During the previous summer, Frank Sinatra, who had been closely watching his employee Bowen's success in revitalizing Dean Martin's singing career, had decided that he wanted in on the action, too. “What would you do for me as a producer to get me hits?” he had asked.

Bowen's solution was to surround Sinatra's golden voice with a dramatically more modern backing sound, particularly regarding the rhythm section. The producer promptly brought in a bunch of his regulars, installing Hal Blaine as the main drummer, while adding other Wrecking Crewers like Chuck Berghofer on stand-up bass and Emil Richards on percussion. Bowen wanted some rock-and-roll-style heft on board, just like he had done with Martin. Something to return the almost-forty-nine-year-old Sinatra to relevancy among contemporary radio listeners now accustomed to the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys. Popular music had changed, and Sinatra was going to have to change with it.

With Bowen's first production effort—a song called “Softly, As I Leave You”—putting Sinatra back in the Top 30 for the first time in four years, it also came with added pressure. Ol' Blue Eyes now wanted more.