Gene Estes
The Wrecking Crew, also known as the Clique and the First Call Gang, was a loose collective of American session musicians based in Los Angeles who played on many studio recordings in the 1960s and 1970s, including hundreds of top 40 hits. The musicians, most of whom had formal backgrounds in jazz or classical music, were not publicly recognized at the time but were viewed with reverence by industry insiders. They are now considered one of the most successful and prolific session recording units in history.
The group had no official name in its early years, and when the name the Wrecking Crew was first used is a subject of contention among the musicians. The unit initially coalesced in the early 1960s as the de facto house band for Phil Spector and helped realize his Wall of Sound production style. Drummer Hal Blaine was documented with deploying the group's moniker in a 1977 interview, attributing it to older musicians who felt that the group's embrace of rock and roll was going to "wreck" the music industry.
Following their work with Spector, they became the most requested session musicians in Los Angeles, playing behind recording artists including Jan and Dean, Sonny & Cher, the Mamas and the Papas, the Carpenters, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy Sinatra. The musicians were sometimes used as "ghost players" on recordings credited to rock groups, such as the Byrds' debut rendition of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" (1965), the first two albums by the Monkees, and the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds.
The Wrecking Crew's contributions went largely unnoticed until the publication of Blaine's memoir, which popularized their name, and the attention that followed. Keyboardist Leon Russell and guitarist Glen Campbell became popular solo acts, while Blaine is reputed to have played on more than 140 top-ten hits, including approximately 40 number-one hits. Other members included drummer Earl Palmer, saxophonist Steve Douglas, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, and keyboardist Larry Knechtel, who became a member of Bread. Blaine and Palmer were among the inaugural "sidemen" inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, and the Wrecking Crew was entirely inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2007. In 2008, they were the subject of the documentary The Wrecking Crew.
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