1. art and entertainment
2. music

16
The life of a session musician was anything but easy. This wasn’t your typical nine-to-five job.
The schedule was relentless and brutal; equal parts inspiring and demanding, exhausting and
lucrative, the unyielding demands of their job left little time for family and a social life.
Hal Blaine: I was a working musician playing on sessions every day,
from the Beach Boys to Elvis to the Byrds to the 5th Dimension
to the Monkees.
Billy Strange: We’d often do three, four or five sessions a day
depending on how busy we were.
Earl Palmer: For Liberty Records, we would do an album a day, six
tunes in the morning, and six tunes in the evening.
Jerry Cole: In those days in the ’60s it was like the Wild West. I
would arrive at the studio in the morning and start recording. We
would often work all day on whatever session and then I would
grab some dinner and go to another studio or tape a show like
Shindig. Most of the sessions were union paid but I also did a lot
of cash-under-the-table sessions. I did a lot of work for Crown
Records where they would tell what the idiom was…surf, hot
rod, go-go, psychedelic, etc. I would write 10 songs, sometimes
as we were recording, get the band together and record a whole
LP in one night. We got paid cash. I’d leave and go get something
to eat and then head for the Palomino Club where I would play
with guys like Red Rhodes until two in the morning, go to sleep at
4 AM and get up at 9 AM for another union session and then do
it all over again! (Interview by Mike Vernon)
Billy Strange: When I first started doing sessions in the late ’50s
scale was $37.50 for a three-hour session. By the mid ’60s scale
was up to $250 for a three-hour session.
Mike Deasy: Back in those days if you were making a $250 a session and you were doing three of them a day, that’s not bad when
a new Cadillac was $3400 and gas was a quarter.
Glen Campbell: You’re talking about the middle ’60s and that’s
good bread. I grew up picking cotton for a dollar. I made more
money than I ever made doing sessions, which is why I didn’t
want to run off and become a singer real quick. I could make three
times as much money doing session work.
Hal Blaine: We were a nucleus of guys working in nightclubs and
were lucky if we were making a hundred dollars working five, six
and seven nights a week. Then all of sudden we started making a
thousand dollars a day playing sessions, which was a lot of money
back then. Everybody wanted us. All of sudden you were making a
thousand a day and in a year you were making 150, 200 thousand
dollars.
Joe Osborn (bass): Terry Melcher always liked to work very late.
Having done a few sessions already that day, we were on one
of his sessions, which started at midnight. After midnight the
session scale gets ridiculous, like quadruple. We were a few hours
into the session and were exhausted. At three in the morning
Earl Palmer stood up and said, “Hey man, I don’t want any more
money, I wanna go home” (laughs) and that was the end of the
session. (laughs)
25
Julius Wechter: One day Phil got on the mike and said, “Sonny, why don’t
you play tambourine? You’re wasting time and money.” So Sonny looked at
me, was standing next to me. And I said [whisper], “I’ll show you.” I have
the distinct honor of saying that I taught him how to play tambourine.
Lew McCreary (trombone): It seemed almost every session after that he
played something like claves, way back in the corner. He became a good
luck charm for Phil.
Cher: The guys really loved Son. They weren’t sure what he was doing
there because he got all the horrible jobs, played the jawbone, played
tambourine and he made coffee. He did everything. He paid his dues
learning how to be a record producer. Son was one of the guys. Phillip
was never really one of the guys. He was always studying Phil because
he said Phil was the best producer that he’d ever seen.
Nino Tempo: They all played flawlessly and gave Phil exactly what he wanted. He felt comfortable with them too. They all laughed at the same jokes.
You didn’t derive anything individual from them. What they created was
en masse, a totality of sound. Nobody’s individual talent dynamic would
come through. Everybody was playing the same thing and it was diluted in
the echo chambers. If I took a great solo you wouldn’t have heard it.
Brian Wilson (the Beach Boys): I went to a few Spector sessions. One was
for “This Could Be the Night.” Phil called me down to the session because he
wanted me to learn something about that. Then I did Pet Sounds. I played piano
on a song off of Spector’s Christmas album. (sings “Santa Claus is Coming to
Town”) He had me play a piano but I couldn’t keep the rhythm right so he had to
take me off the piano. I couldn’t hack it. After seeing Phil work I got the bug how to
do it and took off on my own little tangent.
Bill Pitman: If somebody smoked a cigarette and put it on the piano and it burned a little part
of the piano, the studio would be set up exactly the same way for the next session with the
smoldering cigarette.
Stan Ross: When Phil started to work with the Ronettes and the Crystals, at one session he’d
booked too many musicians in the room. The room wasn’t meant to handle horns and strings
and two basses and two pianos and three drummers all at one time. Most people would cut
the rhythm section first and then overdub the strings. Not Phil. He wanted to do everything
all at once. So he’d have the Wrecking Crew in there with the string and the horn players. And
it sounded terrible. So we had to put on echo to give it some space. The echo was used as an
emergency feature to space it out a bit. People in the studio came into the control room to hear
back what they played and they didn’t believe it was them because it sounded so different with
the echo added. That gave it a great sound. Phil loved that sound and from then on he used it
on all of his records.
Frank Capp: Before he made it big with Sonny & Cher, Sonny Bono used to work for Phil. Once in
a while on a session Sonny would come back into my corner where all my percussion stuff was
and he’d pick up a pair of maracas or a tambourine and he’d shake ’em so that he could get paid
for a recording session.
52
Larry Knechtel: In my opinion, if you don’t grab people with music that makes you want to hear it
again you haven’t done your job. Phil’s talent as a producer was creating records that really grabbed
people and made you want to hear them over and over again. Also, there were a lot more independent
labels back then. There weren’t corporate decisions being made by accountants and lawyers. It was
often ideas coming from one guy.
Billy Strange: Spector’s very underrated as a producer. What made him great is like Brian (Wilson)
he had an idea of what he wanted in the studio. I did sessions with him at Gold Star where he had six
guitars and four pianos on a track. And boy, did he love the echo chamber at Gold Star!
Carol Kaye: Gold Star had its own special echo chamber built by the studio’s owner, Dave Gold, with
engineer Stan Ross. He explained it to me one day while we were waiting together in a post office
line. It ran right through the women’s rest room so on a playback I was warned, “Shhh, don’t make
any noise in there.” So I didn’t dare flush the toilet on the playback. Spector was the first to use earphones for musicians, and to use the thicker kinds of sound baffles too for better isolation of sounds,
though I wonder if it helped since we all played extra loud anyway. Leakage also was a part of that
Wall of Sound. The Gold Star sound was that of its echo chamber combined with sound leakage into
the rest of the mikes in the studio.
Phil always played back his takes at first on little tiny speakers, which were the size of car speakers.
He wanted to make sure his records sounded good on the radio for people in their cars, and then he’d
blast the booth with his playbacks as loud as he could with volume and echo. We’d all have our ears
ringing from listening to his takes in the booth.
Carol Kaye: Phil kept isolating each of Hal’s drums so he’d have him play for a long time until he
got the sound that he wanted. The rest of the band had to wait around, so chessboards were
sometimes set up. The guitar players would gossip. Glen Campbell would stand up and sing a
dirty country song and Tommy Tedesco would razz him about being a star when he stood up. How
prophetic. But the funniest pastime I saw was the lead trumpet player who would always draw a
picture of a naked lady on the wall for the horn players to use for dartboard games, throwing the
darts at the strategic places. All of this was going on in the one hour it took for Phil to work on
Hal’s drum sound.
“Spector blew out more speakers
at Gold Star Studios than they
could stock. He wanted to play
back the music LOUD! The Wall
of Sound literally was that.”
Larry Levine: To me, the control room at Gold Star was the greatest-sounding
environment ever for what we were doing. There was never another room like
that. When we’d play back, the musicians would come into the control room to
listen because it was exciting. These people would come in and all you’d hear is
this big ARGGHH and they wouldn’t be able to hear anything.
Herb Alpert: When I used to go down to Gold Star you could be in the parking lot and hear what Phil was recording. Those walls were vibrating!
53
they couldn’t read music very well and so became stars before
they got into the more embarrassing situations of having to be
found out that they couldn’t read music. I think they all did pretty
well. (laughs)
Leon Russell: When I used to play on sessions I would try to
play and keep my mouth shut. I was playing on some Joe Cocker
records that Denny Cordell was producing. I had a couple of
songs I wanted to submit to him for Joe Cocker, “Delta Lady” and
“Hello, Little Friend,” I think was the other one. This was after
the session. And when Cordell saw me do that he was kind of
flabbergasted because I had been sitting there all quiet and then
started doing all this singing and he got interested in me as an
artist. And it was because of him I pursued a solo career. Then we
decided to put the Shelter label together.
It became the perfect ending to a great performance. It couldn’t
have been any more apropos. Needless to say, as soon as they
ended the take, Michael immediately threw what was left of the
flaming sheet music to the studio floor, stomping on it with all
fours, bringing a roar of laughter from the other musicians and
the “peanut gallery” in the control room.
At the end of the session, Michael left and forgot to take the
Yellow Cab hat he arrived with. I quickly adopted the hat with the
intention of continuing the charade somewhere down the road.
To this day I still have that hat worn by Michael Melvoin, and at
best, it will always serve to remind me of that day; Michael with
his Yellow Cab hat cocked over his brow, banging away on that
piano, sheet music ablaze.
Before achieving major solo success in
the early ’70s, Leon Russell gained
invaluable hands-on experience
working as an integral member of
the Wrecking Crew.
Cher: Leon (Russell) never said boo to anyone. He would just
come in and play his piano. So one day he came to work and
he was completely drunk. He was actually talking and he never
spoke. Everybody was coming in and saying, “Did you see Leon?”
Everyone was just looking at him and he was being funny too
’cause he never said a word. So Phillip (Spector) was just totally
knocked out but finally he wanted the session to begin. And Leon
was doing all this crazy stuff. So Phillip said, “Leon, have you ever
heard the word ‘respect’?” and Leon jumped up on the piano and
said, “Phillip, have you ever heard the word ‘fuck you’?” They
couldn’t get it together for half an hour. People were like dying
on the floor. Tears rolling in the studio. It was one of the weirdest
things you ever saw.
A lot of times when I heard the final song and what went on it,
it was disappointing to me. (laughs) But playing on sessions was
just one weird twist of fate that kept me out of the insurance
business, I guess. (laughs)
The Carny, The Wichita
Lineman, And The Doctor
While most of L.A.’s talented session
players were happily immersed
behind the scenes, Glen Campbell,
Leon Russell and Dr. John were
among the elite who broke out front
as solo artists and enjoyed major
success on the music charts.
Carol Kaye: There was a joke going around at that time, “I don’t
read enough to hurt my playing.” Glen Campbell, Leon Russell and
Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) were some of the biggest natural talents around. They were special because of the great creative
lines they’d come up with. They weren’t musically trained and
“You’re Late…”
When you’re required to knock out
three songs in a three-hour session,
being punctual was crucial for a
session player.
Julius Wechter: There was a session set for eight o’clock at
night with an 80-piece orchestra and no Leon Russell. “Where
the hell is Leon?” 8:05, 8:06, 8:07. Suddenly the door opens,
all the guys hush up. Leon had a limp and the piano is all the
way across the studio. Takes him about four or five minutes to
get there and not a word spoken. He limps over to the piano,
sits down, fixes himself, pulls up the lid and looks to the
booth. And from the booth comes the voice of the contractor,
Ben Barrett, who says, “Leon, don’t you ever, ever be
late again.You’re holding up this whole recording.” Leon
closes the piano, gets up and limps all the way back and
out. He could do it.
Lew McCreary: He played so funky. When he played, he made any
record he ever played on great.
Leon Russell: I loved to be able to play with those guys but I was
very nervous all the time in the studio; I was afraid I was gonna
make a mistake. Playing in the Wrecking Crew I had the benefit of
being around a lot of different styles of music but I didn’t pick that
up from the records, though, I had that going in—it just comes
from the background of my life. When I was playing on those
sessions they’d give me a chord sheet and we’d practice for 45
minutes before I heard anybody ever sing the song. Most of the
time when I was doing that, I was thinking of different melodies
and songs that could go on those chords just to pass the time.
CLOCKWISE: Leon Russell in the ’70s; Leon Russell, Don Randi and Al De Lory; Don Randi, Leon Russell and Al De Lory.
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Carol Kaye: Sometimes Billy Strange had some multiple
guitar ideas like the start of “Sloop John B,” which
sounded great but the choice was still up to Brian.
I got one lick in on “California Girls” but other than that I
didn’t compose with Brian like I had to do on all the other
dates. He wrote some fine bass parts. Like every other fine
composer, Brian was influenced by a lot of different music,
from jazz to western to pop to rock to soul. He borrowed the
bass line from “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” for “California Girls.”
“To me he was the same nice young
fellow with a sly sense of humor who had
great ideas for music.”
Carol Kaye: I never saw drugs at all—one time a beer bottle
in a sack but that was it. However, with the SMiLE album, he
did change a little bit and we all heard it was drugs but he
got the job done even if he had to do it in pieces, which Mike
Melvoin (keyboardist) told me later, “It drove us so nuts,
we needed a beer after those dates.” But it didn’t bother
me. They do film calls in pieces so it was just more like that. He did change a little bit, but to me he was the same nice
young fellow with a sly sense of humor who had great ideas
for music.
Al De Lory: I looked forward to doing sessions with Brian. His
songs were so ambitious and that made those sessions more
challenging for me because I knew I needed to come up with
something special that would please him. We’d played on tons of
sessions but nothing sounded like what Brian was doing. He was
one step ahead of the pack.
Carol Kaye: Playing on the Beach Boys records was a wonderful
experience though it could be boring at times. Lyle Ritz was the
upright bass player on the Brian Wilson dates and he was always
a prankster. There was one boring time recording the Beach Boys
stuff with Brian, I smell smoke, look around and there he was
setting fire to the music! Talk about livening up the date. (laughs)
Al Jardine: As Mike (Love) put it appropriately, I was struck
by how the “acid alliteration” of the music and lyric was
really different. It took some getting used to, to be honest
with you. Particularly the singing and the application of the
actual performances were really like vocal exercises as
much as they were anything else. We were just basically
experimenting a lot and trying to get it perfect. We began
to get obsessive about it and started to implode because
there was so much to do and so much experimentation
going on. It really started to take its toll. We did get Pet
Sounds finished and we were recording both of those albums
simultaneously. The two began to kind of run into each other
and we extracted Pet Sounds out of the majority of the
material and left the rest of it unfinished.
Lyle Ritz: I was always in jaw-dropping awe at the way Brian wrote
bass parts. When I played on a Beach Boys session I made sure to
do it exactly his way. The parts he wrote out weren’t basic root
notes, but they were very imaginative. The bass was really playing
music and was a very integral part of the song but in a strange
way. I’d never heard this kind of writing before.
Carol Kaye: Brian always liked to impress us. One day he had us come
into the booth to listen to something new of his. It was a multiple
voice a cappella thing which he had overlaid and it was beautiful. We
were blown away at its depth. No one spoke except Barney (Kessel),
who turned to Brian and said, “I take back everything I ever thought
of you, Brian!” It was a backhanded compliment, especially because
it took a minute for Brian to get it. Brian was the king of those kinds
of sly put-ons but this one got him.
SMiLE was more textural, more complex and it had a lot
more vocal movement than our earlier material. “Good
Vibrations” is a good example of that. With that song and
other songs on SMiLE, we began to get into more esoteric
kind of chord changes and mood changes. You’ll find SMiLE
full of different movements and vignettes. Each movement
had its own texture and required its own session.
Carol Kaye: The SMiLE album signified a new level Brian was
taking the music to. In my opinion, I thought it was even
better in parts than Pet Sounds. But overall, Pet Sounds
is his greatest achievement as well as other singular hit
recordings he’s done with the Beach Boys. ABOVE: Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks; Brian Wilson and Hal Blaine.
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Author’s note: A partial listing of Beach Boys recordings featuring
Carol Kaye on bass: “Good Vibrations,” “California Girls,” “Help
Me, Rhonda,” “The Little Girl I Once Knew,” “Please Let Me
Wonder” (Kaye: “I played Dano on this one along with Ray
Pohlman”), “I Get Around,” “Pet Sounds,” “Sloop John B,” “God
Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Caroline, No,” “Don’t Talk
(Put Your Head on My Shoulder),” “I’m Waiting for the Day,”
“Let’s Go Away for Awhile,” “You Still Believe in Me,” “In My
Room,” “Heroes and Villains,” “Child is the Father of the Man,”
“Surf’s Up,” “Cabin Essence,” “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow,” “Do You
Like Worms,” “Vegetables,” “Wonderful” and “I Just Wasn’t
Made for These Times.”
Snuff Garrett (producer): I produced the first Monkees session at RCA (June 10, 1966) and only
did it as a favor for Don Kirshner. Leon Russell did arrangements on two tracks (“Take a Giant
Step” and “Let’s Dance On”). I didn’t want to produce the Monkees but Donnie (Kirshner) was
in a fix. He’d gone to Phil Spector and Mickie Most to see if they would produce the Monkees
and they both turned him down. Then he came to me and I turned him down too. I was so busy
and didn’t want to do it. I was very hot at that time producing Gary Lewis & the Playboys and I
didn’t need a job. He persisted and said, “Snuff, you gotta do this for me.” Donnie was my friend
and I didn’t want to hurt him so I said OK, I’ll do it. He sent a contract, which gave me exclusive
rights to produce the Monkees. The next time I looked out the door of my home there was a
brand-new Pontiac in the driveway. I called Donnie and said, “Thanks Donnie, I love ya, but I don’t
want that fucking car!” He explained that this car company was sponsoring the show and said,
“Snuff, it’s a gift, enjoy it.” I screamed, “Hey, I don’t give a fuck. I’ve got two Rolls Royces and
a Cadillac, I don’t need a Pontiac. Get that damn car outta here!” So he sent someone over, I
gave him the keys and he drove it off.
As for the session, I didn’t need them to play on it when I had the best session players on the face
of the earth so I used the Wrecking Crew. I didn’t get along well with the Monkees. The rest of
the guys got furious with me because I was gonna make Davy Jones the lead singer. That didn’t
sit well with the rest of the band. They went fuckin’ berserk-o and I just laughed. I wasn’t ready
yet to make finished records with them. I just went in to see what the hell I had to play with. To
glue them into a group was gonna be really difficult. It didn’t feel good or right and Leon felt the
same way as I did.
Leon Russell: When I was with Snuff Garrett we cut the first Monkees song. It was a Screen
Gems song but they didn’t like it and didn’t use it. It was a song that Taj Mahal ultimately had
a hit with.
June 10, 1966 RCA Studios Hollywood, Ca.(seen below) L-R: Micky, engineer Dave Hassinger, Snuff Garrett and Davy, BELOW LEFT L-R: Leon Russell, Micky, Snuff.
Snuff Garett: They thought they were
very comical and funny. Listen, I knew the
Beatles and I can tell you the Beatles had a
great sense of humor, the Monkees didn’t.
We did that one session and I wasn’t happy
with the songs that were submitted from
Donnie’s company. Later I met with Don
Kirshner and Lester Sill who worked for
Screen Gems and I said, “They’re gonna be
a fucking nightmare to work with!” Donnie
told me, “They hate you and don’t want to
work with you.” And I said, “I really could
care less, the feeling’s mutual.” I had a
signed contract to be the producer for the
Monkees and they paid me off. They gave
me a really big check and I walked away
from the project.
131
DA DOO RON RON”
THE CRYSTALS
BILLBOARD CHART HIT: # 3
PHILLES 112
the same way. That positive energy going between the producer,
musicians and singers got everyone excited. I enjoyed working
with Phil but it was a challenge too. All I wanted to do was satisfy
Phil with my vocal performance.
1963
Ellie Greenwich: I was one of the piano players on the session for
“Da Doo Ron Ron.” Leon Russell and another piano player were
also on the same session. We had to play this part over and over
and over again of constant triplets. The constant repetition without any breaks made it really difficult. Your arm got very tired and
your fingers started cramping. And to this day, the joint on my little pinky finger on my left hand still clicks because of that. (laughs)
Frank Capp: One of the signature sounds of that song is the castanets. I had a castanet board, which was a pair of castanets
mounted on a board so you didn’t have to hold them in your hand
to click them. I also had two pairs of castanets mounted on a
stick. So I took a pair of those and played them on top of the
mounted castanets and it was the loudest damn clickety-clack
you ever heard! That was the first time I employed the castanets
on top of the castanets.
La La Brooks: I was 15 years old when I sang the lead vocal on
“Da Doo Ron Ron.” Being a teenager I was able to connect with
the sentiment of the lyrics because it was like a kid’s song. I loved
singing it. Phil pushed me hard on that one. I had to keep singing
it and singing it and singing it. I must have done over 40 takes
or more. As soon as I finished doing it Phil hugged me and said,
“We’ve got a hit!”
Ellie Greenwich: I’m a firm believer that riff songs with a singalong quality either become big hits or do nothing. But thankfully
that song turned out to be a big hit.
Jeff Barry: To this day, people still ask me what “Da Doo Ron Ron”
is about and it doesn’t mean anything. I wasn’t reinventing the
wheel, there’s very little new. In the ’30s and ’40s there were
songs with nonsensical lyrics. I’m just happy to have come up with
an occasional line here and there that expresses something that
might not have been said.
Nino Tempo: It was five in the morning and the record
was finished and I felt it was missing something in the part right
before the lyrics, “Yes, my heart stood still,” and also in the spots
for the rest of those lyrics, “Yes, his name was Bill” and “and
when he walked me home.” I told Phil, “I keep waiting to hear this
kind of pause, this kick drum.” He said, “Go out there and we’ll
try it. Just play the kick drum.” So I sat on the floor and had the
mallet in my hand and played the kick drums in those spots and
it’s really added something extra to the record. It’s in the details
and that’s what makes something great.
Darlene Love: I originally recorded the lead vocal on “Da Doo Ron
Ron.” Phil had finished the whole session and he wanted me to
come back in and do another take to fix some things. We were
arguing back and forth about it because I hadn’t signed my record
deal with him yet. I told him, “Until we sign a deal I’m not gonna
finish it.” After I did such a great job with it I didn’t figure he’d
find anybody better than me to sing it. (laughs) Phil knew what he
wanted. God only knows how long La La Brooks took to learn that
song the exact way I sang it. If you listen very carefully to the record, Phil only brought my voice down and then there were spots
where he took it totally out. La La put her voice on “Da Doo Ron
Ron” but the rest of the Crystals weren’t there and didn’t sing
on it. It was our group, the Blossoms. La La did a great job but
unfortunately Phil ended up making the Crystals and the Blossoms
enemies. People were saying, “Darlene Love sang on that record,
you guys didn’t do it” so they were getting very angry.
La La Brooks: When we recorded it I remember that the whole
room was full with the Wrecking Crew—Carol Kaye on bass, Hal
Blaine on drums, everybody was there. They were ready to make
hits and enjoyed the challenge of working with Phil. His sense of
projecting success was so strong that he made everyone else feel
LEFT: La La Brooks, lead singer on “Da Doo Ron Ron.” ABOVE: Darlene Love in the studio; Love recollects recording an original vocal for the track.
167
1968
Carol Kaye: “Wichita Lineman” is about losing someone. I had just
lost a fiancé who died as the result of a car accident. That was a
great song. I really liked the way Glen sang it with such feeling.
WICHITA LINEMAN”
GLEN CAMPBELL
BILLBOARD CHART HIT: # 3
CAPITOL 2302
Jimmy Webb: After “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” had become
such a huge hit, Glen called me from the studio and said “I’m
at Western Studio and I’m with Al De Lory and we need another song. Can you write it about a place?” And I said, “Well, I
guess I can.” He said, “When can we have it?” I said,
“I don’t know.” I was kind of in shock. I’d never
met Glen at that point. He was just a voice
over the telephone. We talked a little bit
about what they wanted; it’s what
they used to call a follow-up, which
is a song that in essence evokes
the original hit without copying
it note for note. It’s almost an
antique notion but something
that used to be a part of the
business. I lived in an area of
Hollywood, which was a little moth-eaten section of big
houses that had belonged to
the silent screen stars. Ozzie
and Harriet Nelson lived at the
end of the street in a great big
house. I was living in what had once
been the Philippine consulate. So it was
a kind of cheesy chic where I was. A lot of
people were living in the house with me, which
was nothing but good manners in the ’60s. I had a
little Steinway piano in my music room. While I had been sleeping
away that morning, one of the pranksters around the house had
crept into the music room and painted the piano a bright green. I
thought, “Oh my God, how am I gonna write a song on this green
piano?” (laughs) I sat down and started working on it and probably in three or four hours I had it. I didn’t think it was finished.
I thought the last verse, which now reads as Glen’s guitar solo,
was just something that I didn’t have anything to sew it up nicely
the way I had sewn up “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” So they
called me again and said, “How’s it going?” Anyhow, I sent it over
there and included a note with it saying “I don’t think this thing
is finished.” A couple of days later Glen called me again and said,
“Wow, you know that song, that’s a hit!” I said, “What are you
talking about?” And he said, “Wichita Lineman.” And I said, “But
that song isn’t finished.” And he said, “It is now!” (laughs)
Al De Lory: Glen was just a natural talent. He put down a great
part on “Wichita Lineman.” We were in the studio listening to
a playback and both of us thought the song needed something
else. Glen said, “Hold on, I’ll be right back” and he went out and
got a bass guitar. He sat out there and played that baritone
solo, just played the melody to that song and turned out to
be incredible. It was just one of those spontaneous ideas that
really worked.
Carol Kaye: I always liked what I played on “Wichita Lineman.”
I always had great-sounding Dano bass guitars, an instrument
you practically had to rebuild to make it playable for studio work.
I had a special hot pickup installed in mine with excellent potent
strings and great bridge setup. Glen loved the sound of it, and
used it to play his famous solo on this song. He also gave my
housekeeper a thrill by dropping by to borrow it for the recording of “Galveston.”
Bill Pitman: While I didn’t like many of the rock sessions I played
on, I enjoyed playing on Glen’s sessions like “Wichita Lineman”
or “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” You couldn’t go wrong with
those Jimmy Webb songs.
Carol Kaye: I heard “Wichita Lineman” in a drugstore after I had
quit recording for several months, and hearing that brought it
home to me and that I belonged back in Hollywood recording in
the studios. I missed real music and missed the excellence that
this recording represented. It’s still a powerful recording today.
Glen Campbell: Al (De Lory) was one of the guys in the Wrecking
Crew. As an orchestrator and producer, he was incredible. When
he told me he wanted to put strings on my songs I said, “Yeah,
go ahead, that’ll be great.” He turned out to be a great string
arranger too. He captured a sense of drama in my music.
ABOVE: Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell, early ’70s. RIGHT: Al De Lory and Glen Campbell.
216
1968
217
1970
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER”
SIMON & GARFUNKEL
BILLBOARD CHART HIT: # 1
I at the piano groping, “No Larry, can you give me the same chord
but not so dense?” Or “Take it more into a dominant chord so it
sets this up?” We worked hard to find the structure and the chord
progression. We struggled to find that turnaround—it’s about 12
bars—and it goes from the end of the first verse into the second
and from the end of the second verse into the third.
COLUMBIA 45079
Jimmie Haskell (arranger/conductor): I was at Columbia Studios in
L.A. working with Simon & Garfunkel and engineer Roy Halee on
the song “Keep the Customer Satisfied.” I conducted my brass arrangements for that and “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright.” When the
session was over, the musicians started to leave and I began to
pack up. Paul said, “Jimmie, please wait around for a few minutes.”
Then Paul spoke to me afterwards and said, “I wrote a new tune
and Larry Knechtel’s coming over to play piano. I don’t have any
music for him to read. Please do a takedown of this tune I’m about
to play for you.” Then he played his guitar and sang “Bridge Over
Troubled Water” for me. I wrote down the chord symbols and some
notes. I realized it was a fantastic song, but I also thought, that’s
not rock and roll, and I hope it sells. (laughs)
Joe Osborn: I’m really proud to have played on that song. They took
Larry (Knechtel) to the studio first and he learned the song, played
to a click track and came up with the piano part. Then they brought
me and Hal (Blaine) to work to that. We were at Columbia Studios
in Hollywood and that took a solid week of working on that track.
The song wasn’t finished, Paul had one verse so Artie (Garfunkel)
was just doing scratch vocals and singing the same thing over and
over just to get the track down. To get the rhythm track took almost a week but when we got it it made all the difference in the
world. From the get-go, it was obviously a hit record.
Paul Simon: The experience of writing “Bridge Over Troubled
Water” was unique. I was in my late 20s and I wrote it in a night.
The music and lyrics came completely naturally. It was like a gift.
Because I hadn’t experienced one with that intensity before I didn’t
think anything of it other than that’s unusually good for me. It was
better than I usually write. Even in terms of the chord structure, I
was using chords that I didn’t usually use. At the time I didn’t think
it was about a spiritual experience. It would have been something
I recognized later. To write something that effortlessly and that
quickly is a very unusual kind of inspiration. It’s happened to me a
few times in my writing career and “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
is one of the notable examples of that. It was definitely one of those
experiences that separated itself from the rest of my writing. Then
the odd thing that happened was I gave it to Artie (Garfunkel) to sing
and transferred it over to (session pianist) Larry Knechtel to play.
Larry Knechtel: Paul came in with the song and played it for me on
guitar. He wanted it done on piano. I came up with the intro and the
tag. I made up the arrangement and I got a Grammy for it. I wish
I’d gotten a quarter point on it too. (laughs)
We were in the big studio at Columbia, Studio A, which was
the size of a basketball court, and they had a beautiful Steinway
grand. We did 72 takes on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” but
the bulk of the record was the second take. I had a reputation
of “Don’t let me go on too long. Push the ‘record’ button early”
because the longer I spent working on a track the safer and less
inspiring I got. I play much better the first couple times through
when I’m just winging it.
Art Garfunkel: Paul wrote the song so he’s laying down the chord
changes but as each verse ends there’s a whole bunch of chord
changes that give you the turnaround into the next verse. Larry
and I had a great time working out how each verse of “Bridge
Over Troubled Water” would finish and then turn around to
set up the next verse because you had quite a few bars
of music (sings)… “I will lay me down…” You had all
the next ensuing chords that would take you back to
the second verse (sings) “When you’re down and
out.” So all that turnaround stuff was Larry and
238
Hal Blaine: I always listen to a song first to see what it’s about.
Somehow as I listened to Paul singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water,”
it conjured the feeling of a black gentleman in a chain gang. Paul
Simon and Roy Halee, their engineer, gave you carte blanche to do
anything you wanted on a record. Of course, it was ultimately up to
them whether they would keep it or not. So I ran out into the parking lot and grabbed a set of snow tire chains in my car. I brought
them in and Roy Halee found a room where I could overdub them.
I was hitting the chains in this concrete room that they weren’t
using where they stored microphones and microphone stands. I
had to be on my knees in order to swing the chain over and hit it on
a certain beat. I was using the tire chain as a rhythmic percussive
device. And that’s what we overdubbed onto the record.
Jimmie Haskell: After “Bridge” was released, I was called by
Christine Farnon, the girl who managed NARAS (the Recording
Academy). She told me “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was to be
listed for the Grammy voters for Best Arrangement nomination.
She said, “Ernie Freeman just called and said he wants to be listed
as arranger on ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water,’ I thought you did it?”
I said, “I wrote a simple arrangement for piano and Ernie wrote the
strings, so he’s correct.” She said, “Let me check it out with Paul.”