The Wrecking Crew (5 page)

“Mind? I don't give a damn
what
you call it,” the ever-blunt Strange replied with a chuckle. “It never had a real name anyway.”

Strange well knew from his time spent in the music business that no matter the eventual title of the record, if it actually sold a few copies he would stand to make a little bread out of the deal as the song's writer. No use quibbling over a silly name. Not where money was concerned.

*   *   *

After eight years of working in and around Albuquerque, Glen Campbell had pretty much wrung all he could out of the experience. Though grateful for the opportunity provided to him by his uncle Dick, Campbell knew he desperately needed to expand his horizons. Playing in rough-and-tumble cowboy bars like the Chesterfield Club, the Hitching Post, and the Ace of Clubs had proven to be an excellent musical education—the first three hundred times. After that, the fights, the smoke-filled rooms, and the flying beer bottles became a daily, visceral reminder of where he was—and where he was not. Playing the same songs over and over with the same musicians was no way to build a career. If Campbell
really
wanted to make it to the top as a guitarist—to stay true to his dream—he knew he was going to have to somehow get to Los Angeles, the center of music on the West Coast.

Now married to his second wife, with a toddler from wife number one also to support (Glen had been a very busy boy in Albuquerque), the twenty-four-year-old had not been able to save much money. And he had exactly zero connections. The kind of people he knew around town could never help him get anywhere. They were mostly a bunch of small-time catgut scrapers and other musical wannabes who seemed quite content with the notion of spending the rest of their lives right where they were. Of course, slide a pack of Camel straights and a couple of shots of Old Grand-Dad in front of them and they would be happy to oblige you for hours with tales about all the worlds they planned to conquer. How the big time,
this time
, really was just around the corner.

But Campbell knew better, and deep inside so did they. Either way, being around the overpowering aura of so many unrealized dreams was sucking the life out of him. And Campbell wanted no part of that. He just wanted out. Eight years spent in the bush leagues can start to feel like eighty when it represents a full one-third of your life.

And then, one evening, the answer to Campbell's hoped-for exodus unexpectedly materialized. It came in the unlikely form of a little-known Texas-born singer and songwriter with great ambition and charisma by the name of Jerry Fuller.

*   *   *

In 1960, the music business, particularly in Los Angeles, operated much like the American Old West. Back in the nineteenth century, a skilled blacksmith, hide tanner, or cobbler, for example, could usually find plenty of work. As the nation's cattle industry expanded, a variety of supporting occupations like these became vitally important spokes in the wheel of success. Blacksmiths were needed to shoe the horses. Hide tanners were needed to make saddles and durable coats. And cobblers were needed to repair a hardworking cowboy's boot heels.

A hundred years later, the recording industry rewarded the same kind of entrepreneurial spirit. If you could capably write a catchy rock-and-roll melody or convincingly warble a set of lyrics into a microphone, you just might find yourself some work. And if you were skilled at both—as was Jerry Fuller—then the need for your services became virtually assured.

Leaving the Lone Star State at the age of twenty-one with one thing on his mind, the singer/songwriter Jerry Fuller made straight for the glittering lights and musical promise of Los Angeles. Brimming with confidence, the determined young musician made the usual rounds of publishing houses and almost immediately landed a number of jobs singing song demos at ten dollars a pop. Soon, with a winning mixture of drive and obvious talent, Fuller landed his own recording contract with Challenge Records, founded by cowboy singing star Gene Autry. “Betty My Angel,” a Top Ten hit on the West Coast, followed, as did several more regional successes. Later in 1960, Fuller's rockabilly-flavored version of “The Tennessee Waltz” squeaked into the national Hot 100 at number sixty-three, earning him an invitation to appear on
American Bandstand.

Hooking on as the opening act for his Challenge Records label mates the Champs, Fuller found himself playing one night in Albuquerque. After the show, a nervous Glen Campbell—who liked to catch any national act he could that might be passing through town—timidly approached Fuller backstage for an autograph. Despite all his local success, Campbell, almost childlike in his naïveté, still looked up to those with record deals, especially the artists who had actually made the charts. Striking up a conversation, the pair immediately hit it off, realizing a shared musical and cultural kinship when they saw one. Two family-oriented boys from the Mid-South just trying to make it in the biz.

Campbell invited his newfound friend to come watch his show later that night at a local bar. Fuller, accepting the offer, immediately took notice of Campbell's superb, wide-ranging skills.

“You're a
player,
man,” Fuller enthused after the gig. “You really ought to get to LA.”

“I'd love to, Jerry, but I don't have any connections. I wouldn't even know where to start.”

“Let me see what I can do for you.”

True to his word, Jerry Fuller did do something for Glen Campbell. A very big something. Jerry got him a job with the touring version of the Champs. Knowing that Dave Burgess wanted to leave the road for good in order to focus on producing more hits for the group in the studio, Fuller suggested Campbell's services as an able replacement on lead guitar. After an impromptu rehearsal, Burgess couldn't help but agree with Fuller's assessment. The kid was
good
. Burgess hired Campbell on the spot for one hundred dollars a week and handed him a bright red suit to wear onstage.

After a stunned and grateful Campbell got in his old car and drove away, he carefully waited a few blocks and then let out a huge scream of joy. From a false start with one uncle to a seemingly dead end with another, how his luck had changed. He was now in a “name” band that had actually charted a number-one nationwide hit.

“We've made it, Billie,” he yelled, excitedly turning toward his wife. “We've finally made the big time.”

*   *   *

After Billy Strange gave the go-ahead to Dave Burgess and the Champs to retitle “Monotonous Melody,” he figured that would finally be the end of it. Maybe some royalties would trickle in, maybe not. He had no idea what they planned to call it and cared even less. In truth, he was just too busy playing studio dates to pay much attention to anything.

But the song he had composed on a bet and on the fly simply refused to go quietly. Burgess did indeed come up with a new name, dubbing the tune “Limbo Rock.” And his ad hoc studio lineup of the Champs, featuring, among others, Wrecking Crew players-to-be Earl Palmer (drums), Tommy Tedesco (guitar), and Plas Johnson (sax), took it to number forty on the Hot 100, giving the Champs their strongest showing in over two years.

Though “Limbo Rock” was not nearly as big as “Tequila” had been, the success of the tune did at least temporarily breathe new life into the road version of the Champs. Stellar musicians all, this touring outfit—quite distinct from those who played under the Champs' name in the studio—featured more than just the guitar-playing skills of Glen Campbell. Also on board were a pair of Texans named Jim Seals (sax) and Dash Crofts (drums), who would go on to form the Seventies hit-making duo Seals & Crofts. And on the other guitar was a small, feisty character named Jerry Cole, who would himself become a Wrecking Crew regular in the not-too-distant future.

Perhaps more important, without anyone in the music industry or among the general public paying any real attention, a precedent was also quietly being set. These two versions of the Champs—road and studio—became one of the earliest examples within LA's fledgling rock-and-roll scene of using separate studio players from those who were listed on the record jackets (and elsewhere) as officially being members of the band. It also further helped to cement the art of record making as truly a producer's medium, where those who actually played on any given recording were quite often anonymous and interchangeable at the whim of those behind the glass.

As the Champs's producer
and
owner of its name, Burgess, to his credit, had devised the perfect economic formula: keep one set of guys permanently on the road grinding it out every night—with the band's name plastered front and center on marquees across the country—while hiring a separate group of no-name, on-call players to cut the records back home. It saved a fortune on having to bring the road group home all the time and it kept a steady flow of revenue from ticket sales coming in the door. A major win-win for a producer with a keen eye for the bottom line. Who would know the difference, anyway? And as Burgess discovered, much to his delight, no one ever did.

In the meantime, the newly christened “Limbo Rock” would still have one last, unexpected shimmy to make.

*   *   *

Dancing has always been of central importance in the music industry. It is an age-old axiom that where there is dancing there will be record sales. And virtually nothing can sell a record faster than a red-hot bona fide dance craze, especially one created specifically for that purpose. Cuban bandleader Xavier Cugat, sensing a heightened interest in all things Latin, helped to popularize conga line dancing in the United States with his 1940 hit, “Perfidia.” By the mid-Fifties, ex–Glenn Miller Band trumpeter Ray Anthony did Cugat one better by releasing a pair of million-selling singles called “The Bunny Hop” and “The Hokey Pokey.” For brief periods after they separately hit the charts, the two novelty songs had Americans everywhere either jumping around on one foot or shaking various body parts “all about.”

By the beginning of the 1960s, the tried-and-true formula of capitalizing on a new dance in order to sell more records had evolved into a virtual cottage industry. Rock and roll had become a phenomenon, and now any permutation or subgenre that might also sell a few records was fair game. Accordingly, label executives and producers practically stumbled over themselves in an effort to find songwriters who could come up with some kind of gimmicky new dance tune—anything that might capture the interest of record buyers. The crazier the name, the better, too. “The Stroll,” “The Madison,” and “The Mashed Potato” were but three examples among the many quickly recorded songs designed to create (and cash in on) the dance du jour.

With dancing being nothing if not visual, the move by ABC in 1957 to begin nationally televising the Philadelphia-based
American Bandstand
show every weekday afternoon also played a crucial role in promoting dance-based records. Dick Clark, the program's handsome, winning host, possessed an almost uncannily shrewd eye for what might excite America's teens next. And
Bandstand
was
the
music and dance showcase of its time. Live artists lip-synched their latest hit records in front of the cameras while dozens of attractive (and handpicked) young men and women cavorted about. So powerful was its appeal that many an adolescent could be found racing home after school just to see which hot new vinyl platter Dick might be spinning next or which new dance steps regulars like Ed and Bunny might be employing.

When the flip side of a Hank Ballard and the Midnighters single called “The Twist” ignited a regional dance fad of the same name, Clark encouraged local label Cameo-Parkway Records—with whom he had a relationship through
Bandstand
—to cut a new version of the song, which he could then spotlight across the country via his show. With an unknown South Philly singer called Chubby Checker (a Fats Domino knockoff in both style and name) tapped to do the honors, “The Twist” rapidly became a national smash, corkscrewing its way to the top of the Hot 100 not once but
twice
in just over a year's time. The corresponding dance's simplicity, which almost anyone could do, also easily made it the most popular of the era. From school kids to college students to jet-setters in trendy Manhattan clubs like the Peppermint Lounge, seemingly
everyone
was doing the twist.

But every dance sensation has its day, and by the summer of 1962 twist mania had finally swiveled itself to a halt. Naturally interested in keeping his now-famous singing client on the charts, Jon Sheldon, Checker's manager, thought he knew of a song that had a chance to become the next big dance floor craze: “Limbo Rock.” He had heard the Champs' peppy instrumental version on the radio and liked both the melody and the name. It just needed some happy, danceable, rhyming words, he reasoned.

Sheldon gave Billy Strange a quick call in California and asked his permission to add some lyrics to the composition (“Certainly,” Strange had replied), whereupon both men then went back to their respective careers. Billy had heard of Chubby Checker, of course, and was happy that the Philadelphia-based singer wanted to record his little tune. But Strange was a realist, too. He knew that everybody
thinks
they are about to cut the next great hit.

Several months after the now-long-forgotten call from Chubby Checker's manager, Billy Strange sat at his kitchen table one day, going through his mail. As he tore open one of the envelopes sitting before him, he pulled out what looked to be a check of some kind from BMI, one of the two big competing companies that collected airplay royalties on behalf of songwriters and publishers (ASCAP being the other). Strange had become used to seeing the occasional tiny check trickle in from BMI for some minor thing he had written along the way.

As he looked more closely, however, Strange suddenly noticed that this was no tiny check. It was in the staggering amount of sixty-three thousand dollars—more money than he had ever seen in one place, might ever see.