The Wreck Crew Research Paper

“These kids are going to wreck the business”; words uttered by older generations of studio musicians during the 1960s and 1970s. Although the names of these musicians may go uncredited, most of the population can recognize a plethora of music played and recorded by this mysterious band that flew seamlessly under the radar. During the rise of Rock and Roll music, time was money. Artists and producers are looking for talented and efficient musicians to produce high-quality records quickly. Enter, The Wrecking Crew. The Wrecking Crew was a group of highly trained studio musicians from Los Angeles who recorded the musical tracks for many famous artists during the 1960s and 1970s. Some such artists included The Beach Boys, The Mamas and the Papas, The Byrds, Sonny and …show more content…
However, the older generations of studio players found Rock and Roll music to be distasteful, which allowed The Wrecking Crew to take over and become successful playing on the large majority of Rock and Roll records (“The Wrecking Crew: The Most Famous.”). The Wrecking Crew was comprised of a revolving sequence of nearly 30 musicians, many of whom had a background in classical or jazz (“The Wrecking Crew”). As a result of these skills, they were often given musical freedom with the tracks on which they worked. Hal Blaine, one of the key session drummers, stated “Nine times out of ten the producer or arranger would tell us to use the charts as a guide, that’s all. We were encouraged to go for it, to go beyond what had been written. We had the opportunity to create, to be a team of arrangers” (Chilton). It is estimated that Blaine played on more than 35,000 tracks during his time as a member of The Wrecking Crew. It was also Blaine who coined the name “The Wrecking Crew” in his 1990 memoir, as formerly, the group had unofficially been called “The Clique” and “The First Call Gang”

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