THE BEACH BOYS
FRANK SINATRA
ELVIS
NAT 'KING' COLE
SIMON & GARFUNKEL
THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS
PHIL SPECTOR GROUPS:
The Crystals
The Ronnettes
Bob B Soxx and Blue Jeans
Darlene Love
THE BYRDS
THE MAMAS & THE PAPAS
DEAN MARTIN
SONNY & CHER
THE MONKEES
GLEN CAMPBELL
Wrecking Crew film - Unsung Background
Musicians Get Their Due
It's fortunate that movie theaters today are again showing 'niche' movies,
For a long time we had to select from the three or four big commercial
movies of the day. Only in recent years have theater chains like Landmark/
Cinemark, and the few small, independent theaters taken on independent
films again. Otherwise, we would never see films like 'The Wrecking Crew'
which we viewed Firday March 28 at San Rafael's Rafael theater. In
attendance was the man behind the movie, Daniel Tedesco, who took questions
afterwards.
Most probably haven't heard the name Tommy Tedesco. Tedesco, was
the father of Daniel Tedesco and star of the movie.
Though he passed in the early 1990s, his accomplished as a studio
musician are recognized in this movie,along with many musicians.
As Tedesco noted afterwards, the movie had no 'angel' funding
like '20 feet from Stardom,' a movie about the unsung backup singers
on hit records. It was a 19 year struggle to raise funds to make the
movie happen.
The 'Wrecking Crew' is the name most credited to drummer Hal Blaine
for the Los Angeles-based group of musicians, of whom he was one, who
appeared on an ungodly number of hit records between the late 1950s and 1970s.
One would think that people like Blaine would have amassed enormous
amounts of money to help fund the movie, but, as Blaine says in the movie,
circumstances were different back then when studios controled recordings-
not to mention divorces where artists like Blaine lost everything.
In the movie, the young Tedesco takes a back seat, only talking
sporadically about his Dad. It is the musicians themselves,
like Blaine, bassist Carol Kaye, drummer Earl Palmer and -
even the senior Tedesco, who was still with us at the time when
Daniel started making the movie nineteen years earlier. Even sidemen
like Glen Campbell are featured in the film.Campbell's personal
success wouldn't come until years after he was a struggling partime
sideman in the Wrecking Crew. The artists the Crew backed is like
a 'Who's Who'of Los Angeles singers and bands, including Frank and
Nancy Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Sonny and Cher (Cher was also a back up
singer during the Wrecking Crew sessions), Gary Lewis and the Playboys,
John Denver - and of course the legendary Phil Spector and his many
groups, The Ronnettes, Crystals, Bobb B Sox and Blue Jeans,
Righteous Borthers, Ike and Tina, and on and on.
The only thing wrong with the movie is that there isn't enough
time to go in depth. While we get only a little background on the
senior Tedesco - he was a poor musician growing up in the Niagra
Falls, New York area, before getting serious about music in Los
Angeles - and we learn even less about other sidepeople, though
Kaye is given a fair amount of time as one of the few female
artsits. Even Phil Spector isn't discussed as much as one would
expect; he's in jail today so an interview would have been dificult
and Spector wasn't known to do many interviews, anyway.
But, it was the genius of Tedesco, that sparked the
success of the Wrecking Crew. Sure, Blaine was a key figure, and responsible for coming up
with many of the photo footage for the film accorinding to Daniel;
Blaine was sure to stop photos and video in the day when video footage
was pretty rare.
You'll be surprised to see how many familiar artsis and recordings
the roughly 40-person Wrecking crew working on. The movie plays this week
in selected Landmark theaters such as the Rafael in San Rafael and
Landmark in Berkeley. A DVD, soundtrack and book are currently
in the works. Catch them!
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