The Wrecking Crew (37 page)

A few days later, while down at Local 47's office to pick up a paycheck, Blaine happened to run into Dennis Dragon. Life was like that in Hollywood, especially for a guy like Blaine, who had been around a long, long time. Coming across a friend or aquaintance was practically a daily occurrence.

After they had exchanged pleasantries, Dragon excitedly shared the thought that seemed to be uppermost in his mind. “We've got a hit, man!” he exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear. “We've got a
hit
.”

Thinking that Dragon was speaking about some new project he had recently played on for somebody, Blaine said, “Oh, that's great, Dennis. I'm really happy for you.” The way the business was going in the mid-Seventies for a lot of freelance studio musicians, good news was always nice to hear.

“Yeah, you know,” Dragon continued, “the Captain and Tennille. Looks like the record is going to be huge.”

Blaine was perplexed. Though certainly aware of plenty of music acts around town, he had never heard of that particular group or duo or whatever they were. And it seemed like Dragon assumed that he had.

“Please excuse my ignorance, Dennis, but who the heck are the Captain and Tennille?”

Dragon smiled.

“You
know,
” he replied, hoping to jog Blaine's memory, “the session we did with my brother and his wife over at Paramount Recording early this year? Remember?”

Oh, that session. Maybe
this
was the song his wife had been talking about. Blaine never had any reason to think that anything from that date back in January would see the light of day, let alone become a big deal. Who knew? For one thing, he had never heard any of the vocals. Toni had planned to add those later.

Once she did, however, “Love Will Keep Us Together” didn't just become a hit. It didn't just go to number one, either. It simply exploded everywhere, turning the Captain & Tennille into overnight sensations. The Captain's tight, effervescent production values and Tennille's powerful, uplifting singing performance combined to make the up-tempo love song (co-written by Neil Sedaka) a simply irresistible piece of pop confection. It became both the biggest-selling single of 1975 and the Grammy winner for record of the year (Blaine's record-setting eighth).

But for Hal Blaine, “Love Will Keep Us Together” proved to be the high-water mark of an unparalleled career. As the Seventies became the early Eighties, with the John Denver gig long gone and calls to play on any kind of session becoming as scarce as the four-track tape machines they were once recorded on, Blaine finally just stopped. It was time to move on, like the rest of the Wrecking Crew. Nobody lasts forever in the music biz, and he had lasted longer than most.

*   *   *

On December 3, 1992, Michel Rubini sat down to enjoy a delightfully unexpected fiftieth birthday present, something he never thought would come to pass. There he was, after well over two decades, enthusiastically manning a set of keyboards in a recording studio for none other than Phil Spector.

To be precise, it had been twenty-six and a half years since Rubini had last seen Spector, not since that strange, unnerving evening at Gold Star back in the summer of 1966 when the producer appeared to be in the middle of some kind of breakdown. In the meantime, Rubini's career had been on a sharp trajectory. He had gone from playing (mostly) rock-and-roll sessions to producing, arranging, and even scoring films. And, at the personal request of Sonny Bono, Rubini spent several years in the early Seventies as the musical director, conductor, and arranger on
The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour
on CBS and on the singing duo's live, sold-out appearances at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. The keyboardist hadn't done what might be considered a true Wrecking Crew date in what seemed like forever. But the out-of-the-blue message from Spector had been intriguing. It said to be at a place called Studio 56 at 7000 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood for an 8:00
P.M.
start. And the way Rubini understood it, a bunch of his onetime session buddies were going to be there, too. That in itself would make it worth doing.

Spector recently had come out of one of his many mini-retirements and the reenergized producer now wanted to cut a record. Though he would have preferred to do it at Gold Star, home of his greatest triumphs, that landmark studio had unfortunately closed in 1984, a victim of hard times. After a subsequent fire burned the place to the ground, the parcel of land it sat on then became home to a slick, prefab-looking strip mall, which served to add an it-figures, Nineties-style insult to the whole injury.

With the Gold Star option now forever off the table, Spector instead decided to book some time for his new project at Studio 56, an ultramodern complex located about eight blocks farther to the west on Santa Monica Boulevard in a building that used to house the old Radio Recorders (ironically one of Gold Star's early competitors). Spector assumed that the facilities would be similar to what he was accustomed to using. But he was wrong.

From the start, it was clear that Studio 56's young owners had no clue how the legendary Phil Spector liked to record. With a giant multi-track console yet just a handful of available microphones, the whole setup obviously had been designed for doing endless overdubs, not to record a group of almost thirty people all at once, each of whom needed a separate input signal. Spector wanted to do it all
live,
just like in the old days. That's how he created his masterpieces, by tinkering with the EQ and volume on a full complement of sounds at the precise moment they came together in the studio and went to tape. Not by editing some hodgepodge of separate tracks after the fact.

As Spector and his friends David and Dan Kessel (Barney's boys) worked to scrounge up enough workable mics and waited for Jack Nitzsche to show up with the arrangement, a good number of onetime Wrecking Crew regulars waited and watched along with Rubini. Those on hand included Hal Blaine, Dennis Budimir, Al DeLory, Steve Douglas, Don Peake, Don Randi, Tommy Tedesco, Nino Tempo, and Julius Wechter. Well-known musicans Paul Shaffer and Todd Rundgren were also in attendance to play on the date, having both been huge Spector fans for years. Some of the other horn guys who commonly played as part of the Wrecking Crew were there, too, including Jim Horn, Dick “Slide” Hyde, Lou McCreary, Jay Migliori, and Ollie Mitchell. It was a full house of eager, talented musicians, all just itching to create some magic for the master. The thought crossed more than a few minds that maybe, just maybe, if things went right, this could be the start of something big, a return to the happiest times they had ever known.

Finally, after three hours of sitting around, the musicians all ran through the song together for the first time. And it didn't sound half-bad from where Spector was sitting in the booth. They would, of course, need to play it many more times to get it where it needed to be. But hey, so far, so good.

And then came the playback.

As the young in-house engineer who had been assigned to the production rolled tape, there was music all right. Good music. But one crucial element was missing, Spector's signature element, the thing that glued everything he ever recorded together: echo. The producer had heard it when listening to the monitors as the Wrecking Crew played live. And now it was gone.

“Where's the echo?” he asked the engineer, baffled.

“Oh, well, we don't record here with echo,” the kid casually replied. “We just monitor with it. That's something that can be added later during mixdown.”

During
mixdown
? Spector was virtually speechless. These people had no idea what he had been trying to achieve for the past several hours. And there was no point in going any further. If this studio was set up this way, then they probably all were. Good old Gold Star had been the last of its kind.

“That's it; session's over,” the producer bluntly said over the talk-back mic to the roomful of musicians expectantly waiting on the other side of the glass. Then, with what seemed like a touch of melancholy, he softly added, “Thanks very much, everybody. You've been great.” And that was that.

It didn't take an advanced degree in psychoanalysis to sense that Spector's wistful words reflected a whole lot more than just an evening's worth of frustration. It was as if the producer knew that this had been the last hurrah, their last time together. There would be no further shot at redemption or resurrection or glory for any of them. No more hits. The Wrecking Crew's unrivaled rock-and-roll recording legacy, along with that of the man who had first put them together in a studio some thirty years before, would have to stand as is.

Acknowledgments

Thank You (for the Interviews):

Lou Adler, Keith Allison, Herb Alpert, Don Altfeld, Ray Anthony, Renee Armand, John Bahler, Tom Bahler, Steve Barri, Richard Bennett, Chuck Berghofer, Ted Bluechel, Jr., the late Mike Botts, Jimmy Bowen, Dennis Budimir, Artie Butler, Glen Campbell, Frankie Capp, the late Fred Carter, Jr., Kerry Chater, David Cohen, Kane Cole, Joe Correro, Jr., Dave Costell, Kent Crowley, Nancy Deedrick, Al DeLory, the late Denny Doherty, Micky Dolenz, Leo Eiffert, Rick Faucher, Chuck Findley, Jerry Fuller, Snuff Garrett, David Gates, Arnie “Woo Woo” Ginsburg, David Gold, Roy Halee, Albert Hammond, Jimmie Haskell, Ron Hicklin, Danny Hutton, Ron Jacobs, Carol Kaye, Craig Kincaid, Terry Kirkman, the late Larry Knechtel, Lonnie Knechtel, Artie Kornfeld, Florence LaRue, David Leaf, Darlene Love, Roger McGuinn, Scott McKenzie, Mike Melvoin, Tommy Morgan, Art Munson, Michael Omartian, Joe Osborn, Gary S. Paxton, Michelle Phillips, Peter Pilafian, Bill Pitman, Guy Pohlman, Mike Post, Gary Puckett, Chuck Rainey, Don Randi, Emil Richards, Lyle Ritz, Johnny Rivers, Stan Ross, Louie Shelton, P. F. Sloan, Tommy Smothers, Armin Steiner, Sally Stevens, Billy and Jeanne Strange, Carmeline Tedesco, Dean Torrence, Mark Volman, Jackie Ward, Jimmy Webb, Mason Williams, and Linda Wolf.

Special Thanks To:

Helen Zimmermann at the Helen Zimmermann Literary Agency, for being the best.

Rob Kirkpatrick and Margaret Smith at Thomas Dunne, for being so welcoming (and patient).

Carl Lennertz, for being absolutely golden.

Larry Colton, for showing me the ABCs of it all.

Richard Snow, for graciously giving me my start.

Susan Gunderson, for Burt Bacharach, Woody Guthrie, and Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Naomi Rooney, for teaching me about Mother Treble Clef and Father Bass Clef.

Laura Hillenbrand, for all things
Seabiscuit
.

Shirley Manson, for being the kindest and the coolest.

Linda Ronstadt, for her gratefully received comments.

Dusty Street, for allowing me to fly low and avoid the radar with her.

Denny Tedesco, for his generosity and for carrying the torch all these years.

Bones Howe, for always being so helpful, forthcoming, and insightful.

Hal Blaine, for endlessly answering my questions and being a real friend to the book.

Don Peake, for all the well-told tales.

Michel Rubini, for so openly sharing his life's story.

Gary Coleman, for coming out in the rain to tell me even more.

Creed Bratton, for honesty, humor, inspiration, and a great new album.

Cactus, for keeping it lean and swampy.

Steve DiTullio, for Conner Henry, Craning-it-up, and laughter nonpareil.

Charlie Faust, for introducing me to Larry C. and Betty D.

Macy Lawrence, for the Bartell tutorials.

Steve Roth, for the best pass in history.

Mark and Deb Lindsay, for all the shared adventures.

Terry and Anna Finley, for being as solid as they come.

Kosh and Susan, for the astounding creativity and continued friendship.

Jane Allen and Jeff Worrell, for all the great music conversations.

Sabrina, for just being her.

Valerie, for more love, enthusiasm, and encouragement than I could imagine possible.

My dad, George Hartman, for simply being the finest father in the world.

The Usual Suspects

A List of Those Among the Wrecking Crew Who Commonly Played in Various Combinations on the Biggest Rock-and-Roll Recordings Coming Out of LA During the Sixties and Early Seventies

Keyboards: Al DeLory, Larry Knechtel, Mike Melvoin, Don Randi, Michel Rubini, and
Leon Russell
*

Guitar: Dennis Budimir, James Burton, Glen Campbell, Al Casey, David Cohen, Jerry Cole, Mike Deasy, Barney Kessel, Lou Morrell, Don Peake, Bill Pitman, Mac Rebennack (aka Dr. John), Howard Roberts, Louie Shelton, Billy Strange, and Tommy Tedesco

Upright (string) bass: Chuck Berghofer, Jimmy Bond, and Lyle Ritz

Electric bass: Max Bennett, Carol Kaye, Joe Osborn, Ray Pohlman, and Bob West

Drums:
Hal Blaine,
*
Frank Capp, Jim Gordon, and
Earl Palmer
*

Percussion: Larry Bunker, Gary Coleman, Gene Estes, Emil Richards, and Julius Wechter

Harmonica: Tommy Morgan

Horns: Allan Beutler (sax), Roy Caton (trumpet), Gene Cipriano (sax),
Steve Douglas
*
(sax), Chuck Findley (trumpet), Bill Green (sax), Jim Horn (sax, flute), Dick “Slide” Hyde (trombone), Plas Johnson (sax), Jackie Kelso (sax), Lou McCreary (trombone), Jay Migliori (sax), Ollie Mitchell (trumpet), and Nino Tempo (sax)

*
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee

Time Line

A Small Sample from Among the Wrecking Crew's Hundreds of Hit Recordings