May 20, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Tommy Tedesco is probably the most recorded guitarist in history having played on thousands of recordings from the 1960s-1980s ( Many of them top 20 hits). Tommy's son, filmmaker Denny Tedesco, produced The Wrecking Crew, the highly-acclaimed documentary about his father and the other musicians who made up The Wrecking Crew, and is here to tell us the story!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib with our American stories, and you're
about to hear the story of a guitarist extraordinaire, Tommy Todesco,
a member of a group of the most sought after
musicians in the world, dubbed the Recing Crew. Tommy played
on thousands of recordings from the nineteen sixties to eighties,
many of them top twenty hits you know, yet he
(00:33):
never earned the household name status he deserved. He was,
as one critic said, the most famous guitarist you've never
heard of. Tommy's son, filmmaker Denny Toedsco, sought to fix
this and made the movie The Wrecking Crew, a terrific
documentary about his father and the other musicians who made
(00:54):
up this remarkable band. Let's begin with Denny Tedesco. A
great tribute by a son to a father.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
In the nineteen sixties, there were a group of studio
musicians in Los Angeles that became known as the Wrecking Crew.
Now I call him the melting pot of America's pop music. Italians, Jews, Irish, Black,
classically trained jazz musicians, country musicians, hillbilly and one woman
now together for a few years in the mid nineteen sixties,
(01:24):
they ruled the Billboard charts with their recordings. They were
a hidden secret among music buyers and listeners, but they
were revered by artists, producers, and engineers. If a pop
artist recorded in LA in the nineteen sixties, most likely
many of these, if not all, these studio musicians were
involved in the recording. They recorded with The Beach Boys,
Elvis fit to Mention, the Birds, Janadine, Mamas and Papas,
(01:48):
the Monkeys, Frank and Nancy Sinatra, Sam Cook, the Ronettes,
Righteous Brothers, and so many more. Why am I telling
you this story, Well, one of those Italian guitar players,
Tommy Tedesco, was my father. My name is Denny Tedesco.
Some of the other voices you will hear comes from
(02:08):
the documentary The Wrecking Crew. But before I tell you
more about my father and his friends, you need to
know what came before to lead up to their success.
In the nineteen fifties and early sixties, the music scene
was changing and rock and roll couldn't be ignored. As
generations and cultures clash, so did the music. In nineteen sixty,
rock and roll was at its infancy, and there was
(02:29):
doubt among the parents in the older generation that the
music would even last.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Even record companies would take their time putting their toes
into the rock and roll pool.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
One of the first changes in the record world was
in the nineteen fifties. There was a transition from the
seventy eight rpm record format to the forty five rpm,
which really represented the pop recording. In nineteen fifty eight,
the forty five disc were placed the seventy eight completely.
The first time you'll hear the term top forty is
(02:59):
in nineteen six Here producer Snuffcarrett tell the story.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Todd Story is a day drinker, and he would sit
in this local bar and sit there all day and drink.
One day, after a year or so, he thought he
was sitting there thinking about it, how many records are
on that jukebox? Because everybody plays the same five or
six records all the time, there was one hundred records
in the jukebox. He thought, how the one hundred records,
(03:26):
Why do they keep playing those five or six all
the time, you know? And they figured out that and said, well,
maybe people just want to hear the hits. They don't
want to hear this or that or whatever. They want
to hear the same songs over numbers. So he and
Gordon McClinton talked on the phone and invented Top forty radio, with.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Radio featuring top hit singles. There was a demand for product,
and record companies needed to supply that demand. Now you
have to realize the main commercial pop recordings were coming
out of New York, Nashville, Detroit, London. In the late
fifties and early sixties. LA had a very established recording business,
but it was really overshadowed by the film business.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Here is producer Lou Adler to tell you more.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
I mean, they didn't recognize what was happening in LA
music to film people. It was much later that they
started to even think about this would be a good
soundtrack to have. You know, we can not only have
a film that has good grosses, we can make money
on the soundtrack. I think they didn't respect the music
business for a very long time, even when it was
(04:28):
successful in LA.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
The recording studio musicians of the time we're keeping busy,
but not so much by the pop scene. Movie and
television soundtracks kept many employed, and the West Coast jazz
scene became to be known as the cool sound But
things started to change when artists like Sam Cooke, Chanadeine,
the Beach Boys, and Phil Spector started to have hits
in the early nineteen sixties, labels started to see the
(04:49):
tide turns, so they started signing new acts. Like any business,
you want to make sure you don't overextend on a
budget and put the odds of success.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
In your favor.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
In the music business at the time did exactly that.
Many of the artists in the early nineteen sixties were singers,
so the labels would hire producers who turned around and
hire session musicians to record the music. So incomes a
generation of musicians that were hungry to break into the
studio scene.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
As I said.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Earlier, they came from all kinds of backgrounds. My father
came from Naga Falls, New York with my mom and
older brother in nineteen fifty three. Here's the clip of
my mother telling this story.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
We went to the prom and Ralph Martiri was playing
the dance and found out that their guitar player was
leaving that night, and he tried out, auditioned, and he
was hired right then and there I was on a
Friday night and a Saturday night he left for New
York City.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And tell the truth.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
Okay, you gotta let go. Martiri was going to get
a guitar singer so that he could only pay for
one guy. He decided he knew there was nothing near
Nagara Falls for him. He wanted to go California to
play well.
Speaker 7 (06:16):
My father struggled to find work playing guitar. He had
to make ends meet working in a warehouse. He always
said it was the best job he ever had. He
hated it so much and made him practice every day.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
I was told by two guys before we left, he's
never going to make it. So after seven months of
struggling here, Daddy wanted to go back, and I said
there's no way because I wasn't giving him.
Speaker 8 (06:41):
To those two guys.
Speaker 6 (06:44):
And that's what Dad said, my stubborn Sicilian wife.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And you're listening to Denny to Desco tell the story
of his father, Tommy to Desco. We continue with this
remarkable story and a remarkable tribute by a son to
a father here on our American Stories. Folks, if you
(07:31):
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(07:52):
donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot com. And we continue with
our American Stories. And now let's return to Tenny Todsco.
Speaker 7 (08:12):
While my father struggled to find work playing guitar, he
had to make ends meet working in a warehouse. He
always said it was the best job he ever had.
He hated it so much and made him practice every day.
Speaker 9 (08:23):
In fact, my wife was behind me one hundred percent.
Never complained. My wife accepted it. This was our living.
Our whole family took it exactly that way. Everyone saw
a musician's wife would come and complain to her, and.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
She'd talk to them.
Speaker 9 (08:38):
She'd say, well, look that's his living.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
I was very jealous of the guitar when we were
first dating and got engaged, and he paid a lot
more attention to the guitar, I felt, so I gave
him an ultimatum, it's me or the guitar, and he said, honey,
the guitar doesn't have legs.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
You do.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
You got so upset with him, I took my ring
and I threw it at him and I went.
Speaker 8 (09:05):
Looking for it.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So my father, who was a gambler, drove cross country
with his family with very little money in their pockets.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
It was the greatest gamble of his life that paid off.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Many of the other musicians that became known as Wrecking
Crew were Hal Blaine, Earl Palmer, Jim Gordon on drums,
Don Randy Leon, Russell Haldlauri, Larry NetTel on piano on
bas where, Joe Osborne, Ray Polman, Carol.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Kay Lyle Ritz and other guitarists that sat.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Alongside my father included Glenn Campbell, Bill Pittman, Barney Kessel,
Lou Morale, Billy Strange and many others. The Wrecking Crew
wasn't a band per se. Each individual was hired as individuals.
Here is Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco and the engineers from
gold Star Larry Levine, Dave Gold and Stan Ross talking
(09:56):
about the genesis of the name.
Speaker 10 (09:58):
You know, all the guys that had been in the studios.
God bless them all for twenty thirty years. They all
wore the blue blazers and the neck ties and there
was no talking, no smoking, and no nothing. And we
came in there with Levi's and T shirts, smoking cigarettes
whatever weird, and the older guys were saying, they're going
to wreck the business. You know, they are going to
wreck the music business. Well, that's how that whole record
(10:21):
crew thing came in.
Speaker 7 (10:22):
Even though the term of the wrecking crew gained popularity
with rock historians, many of these musicians never heard the
term until years later.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
There were a few reasons the older guys were putting
it down. Remember, many of the established studio musicians were
from the old school big bands, and they were busy
working in lucrative careers in soundtracks. When the label started
pushing some of the younger acts, they would create demos first. Now,
the older musicians wanted to take a chance on taking
a demo session because it was illegal and the views
(10:52):
of the musician union, Why take a chance when you're
working on a movie for a.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Three hour gig that paid us.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
But for some of the younger guys it was an
opportunity to get involved with new producers and new artists.
Once these guys became so in demand, from that point on,
most of the recordings became legit union dates. One of
the producers who hired these guys was Phil Spector. When
he moved back to the West Coast. That seems to
be the anchor that changed so much for the musicians
(11:20):
as well as the music scene. Here are the voices
of Hal Blaine, Carol, kay Plas, Johnson, and Cher talking
about Phil Spector.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Hello, let's go, let's make one for uh three?
Speaker 10 (11:34):
Well, walldo all musicians. First of all, Yeah, most people
used the four piece rhythm section. He had four guitars
or six or seven. There were four pianos always one
upright bass, one Fender base. I mean there's only one drums.
Usually fifty people playing percussion.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
Instruments in a very small room.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Yeah, a small room, but an average.
Speaker 10 (12:00):
And a huge echo chamber. That gold Star was famous for.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
That was the walls, ceramic walls.
Speaker 11 (12:07):
Philip was walking in a different universe than everybody else,
and so in his mind it was all him, you know,
and the guys were just some sort of an extension
of what he couldn't do.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Phil loved jazz, guitarists. So in the guitar section he
would have my father, Barney Kessel, Bill Pittman, Carol Kay,
Howard Roberts, and a few others. Phil could be hard
to get along with for many but my father seemed
to be able to deal with him in his own way.
Here's my father talking about his first time working with Phil.
Speaker 9 (12:38):
Because the first time I've been here in Phil Spector's name,
with all the guys, I didn't know anything about him.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
All I knows ever we worked for him.
Speaker 9 (12:45):
So I went on this job.
Speaker 8 (12:46):
It was like group therapy, you know, and.
Speaker 9 (12:48):
All of a sudden I worked for about a half
hour an hour, there was no break. Finally said, hey,
we know, when do you take a break here? Everybody
looked at me like, I'm not saying this. The philm
you know, I'm looking at film. When do we take
a break here? When he says when I'm in New York,
Kenny Brow never asked for you know, time, I said, oh,
(13:09):
you're starting at New York. Yes, life, But it was
real funny, like I was the only one that ever must.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Have talked to him like this.
Speaker 9 (13:20):
So after it's okay, take a break, and the next
thing you know, I was like a friend of his.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I was doing. He said, you want to go out
for coffee?
Speaker 9 (13:27):
He never asked nobody for coffee, and I'm going with
him and his bodyguard.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Here's the telegram that Phil set my father in the
mid sixties when Phil traveled to New York. I was
in my New York hotel room changing channels when I
came across the Lawrence Welk Show. And what do I
see two beady Sicilian eyes in the band? What is
a hip Hollywood guitar player doing on the Lawrence Welk Show.
My father turned around and set the telegram back. His
(13:53):
response was, what is a hip Hollywood producer watching Lawrence Welk?
For the gravy train was moving fast and you didn't
turn anything down. Many times, if a new band was
going into the studio, the producer would still use these
session musicians. They usually weren't allowed to play on the
album because studio time was expensive and the producers had
(14:15):
to make sure that they could get in and get
out with the recording. Now, recording technology in the early
sixties didn't allow for mistakes. If you had ten to
fifteen players in a room, they all had to nail
their parts. There were no computers helping you punch in.
If you made a mistake, they would just start from
the beginning and go for it. Glenn Campbell described it
like this. He said, it was like playing with Michael Jordan,
(14:36):
but everybody in the room was a Michael Jordan. One
of these groups that had their instruments stripped from them
at the door were The Birds when they recorded Mister
Tambourine Man.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Here's Roger mcgwinn telling us the story.
Speaker 12 (14:48):
Kerry Melcher wanted to use session musicians for Mister Tambreee Man.
I'd been a studio musician in New York prior to
being in the Birds, so they let me play on it.
So my feeling was great, I get to play with
this great band. The record crew. Of course, the other guys,
David Crosby and Michael Clark and Chris Hillman were livid.
They hated the idea because they didn't get to play
on their own record. We got a number one hit
(15:09):
with it right off the back, but we knocked out
two tracks in one three hour session. To compare that
with what happened when the rest of the band got
to play it, took us seventy seven takes to get
the band track for Turnturn Turn, which was also number one.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Here's Carol Okay and my father.
Speaker 8 (15:25):
Here's the way that the beat goes on sounded when
we first heard it. Let it d d down. We
need to pull a rabbit at a HT For this one.
(15:46):
It was our job to come up with riffs and stuff.
So about the third line I came up with was
let down, and Sonny loved it, and he gave it
to Bob West the bass player, to play it. And
both of us are playing it throughout the tune and
(16:06):
without a good days lighte the tune doesn't pop, you know,
it doesn't snap, you know, like a big hit record.
Speaker 9 (16:12):
I've always said they put notes on paper, they put
notes on paper, but that's not music.
Speaker 10 (16:17):
You make the music.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
What do you do with the notes?
Speaker 8 (16:20):
What do you do with the charts?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
What do you do with the cards?
Speaker 9 (16:24):
That's right, So it's what you put into it, because
how many days are in fact, we're all here.
Speaker 13 (16:29):
It's what you put into it that's not written.
Speaker 9 (16:31):
Yeah, well, in fact everybody and they're sitting here. I
remember doing different things that weren't ever even thought about
and then all of a sudden become part of the record,
and part.
Speaker 10 (16:40):
Of it, said, we all used to produce our own parts.
It's that simple.
Speaker 9 (16:44):
Yeah, I'll never forget working with Gary LUs and just
Playboy's doing all the records, and I'll never forget I
had one true, real, real hot lick on this one record.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
The Spanish stuff all over the place. Yes, you could say,
I love God.
Speaker 9 (17:07):
And finally his guitar player come up to me, he says,
are you drove me crazy with that thing? First of all,
I can't play it, so I don't play it, and
then everybody comes up to be complimenting me on.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
What I did on the day.
Speaker 9 (17:21):
I said, well, just take the compliment and forget it.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And you're listening to Denny to Desco celebrating and honoring
his father. More of Tommy to Desko's story brought to
us by his son Denny here on our American Stories,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories, and Denny to
Desko's story of his father. Guitarist Tommy Todsco Here's Wrecking
Crew bassist Carol kay To continue with his remarkable story.
Speaker 8 (18:22):
We learned how to play rock and roll right there
on the job. Hey, you know, if they want this, I.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Can do it.
Speaker 8 (18:30):
You know, that's Latin, that's Latin music. That's nothing. You
can do that all day day long.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Here's producer Bones Howe, Glenn Campbell, Brian Wilson, Hal Blaine,
Earl Palmer, and Dick Clark.
Speaker 14 (18:50):
These are the guys that played on Wendy and Never
My Love and Everything That Touches You and all the
things that were in those those two albums that I
did with them. Those are all those studio musicians. It's
Al Cho, Larry Tommy and those guys. I wanted to
put their names on the back of the album when
it was finished, and they wouldn't let me because they said, well,
(19:11):
we don't want those kids out there that buy our
records to know that we didn't play on the record.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
I went out and took Brian's place with the Beach Boys,
and I can understand probably why Brian.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Had studio guys come in. There's a lot of a fight,
like cats.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
A dog Man, Rather than Brian to go through the
hassle to get the tracks, eble to hire the rhythms
actually to come in and do the tracks.
Speaker 13 (19:35):
Well, the guys, well they're at first had a little
jealous you know what I mean. But I explained to myself,
you know, I want to get the best I can
get for the group, and they go, well, I can
understand your point, Brian, you know. So we went ahead
and did it, and sure enough the guys liked it.
Speaker 10 (19:51):
And that's one of the most asked questions, Well, didn't
Dennis get mad? Wasn't he mad because you were doing
the Beach Boys records? Dennis did not have the studio
chops that we had. You know, the proof of the
pudding is that Dennis called me to do his album.
When Dennis did his solo album, I played the drums a.
Speaker 15 (20:11):
Lot of times that guys would be sitting around the studio.
We didn't know that there were guys in the band,
the guitar players that were in these various groups. When
they realized guys like common to deak guus and to
be playing, they wanted to sit around and watch, and
the drummers would want to sit around and watch. Myself,
well out they were there like well less they were learning.
You know, it would be something that I'd like to
see too. If had it been the other way around.
(20:32):
Nobody cared all they wanted was the product. They just
wanted the name and the sales who created it. Shit
that was incidental.
Speaker 7 (20:41):
My father would say, there are only four reasons to
take a gig. For the money, for the connections, for
the experience, or just for fun.
Speaker 10 (20:49):
I got to tell you a story about your dad.
We were in Western Studio three.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
There and Jan Vary of Jan and Dane.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
He counted the song everybody ready, Okay to go started
playing and Jans to stop. Wait.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
He went over and.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Looked and he said, tell LESCo, what are you doing? Tommy?
Speaker 5 (21:11):
The music was upside down and Tommy was reading it backwards.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Now that's a true story, but do you talk about
getting a laugh out of it?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Tommy was a cut up.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
A session, or a recording date as they called it
would be three hours long.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Now.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
The musicians would go to work many times not knowing
what they were recording or whom they were recording with.
Most of the time the music was just written out,
but many times they would have to come up with
ideas that worked for a song. In nineteen sixty eight,
Jimmy Webb gave my father a charm modeled like a
tiny Grammy Award as a thank you gift. My father asked,
what is this for. Jimmy told them it was for
(21:46):
winning the Grammy for Up, Up, and Away with the
fifth dimension. My father didn't even realize he was on
the track. Now you have to realize when they went
to work, they were given sheet music and then they
would just start playing the songs weren't hits, yet another tune.
Many times it would just record tracks and the vocals
would be laid in later. If you look at my
(22:06):
father's workbooks from the sixties, he was working three to
four recordings a day. Now, the Union allowed them to
record only three to four songs per three hours, so
you can imagine the amount of music they were given.
So to remember what was recorded the week before could
be very difficult. Now many people assume it was like
one big hoot, nanny and jam session at my house
growing up.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
It was actually just the opposite.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I never saw my father pick up his guitar to
practice or play at home until the seventies when he
was doing his own jazz records. The last thing he
wanted to do was to play or even listen to music.
When he came home. He didn't need to practice. He
was working twelve hours a day. I knew my father
went to work playing guitar, but I never comprehended how
different that was to other kids' dads and moms. Other friends'
(22:51):
dads went to work with hammers and saws in their trucks.
In my dad's trunk, it was packed with a Fender telecaster,
steel string acoustic, a classical, a mandolin, a banjo, a
twelve string in an amp. A trick my father would
use when it came to getting all those odd ball
guitar gigs was listing himself on multiple guitar sections in
the Union Book. If a composer asked his contractor to
(23:14):
see who played bellalaika or bazuki, they will look into
the Union Book and see many unknown Greek and Russian names,
and then they come across to Desco. Now, my father
did play all those instruments. The difference was he tuned
every one of them like a guitar. If you played
more than one guitar on a session, you were paid more.
It was called doubling. The first guitar was one hundred percent,
(23:35):
the second fifty percent, and the others were twenty five
percent of the session rate. One day my father was
recording the show The Love Boat, which was traveling through
the Mediterranean, so he was in hog Heaven working with
various guitars.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
One of the violinists in the.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Orchestra called out sarcastically to Tommy, Tommy, do you even
know the names of those instruments? He stood up and
picked each one up and proudly said, yep, one hundred
percent and so on. Here's my father at a seminar
in nineteen eighty three at Musicians Institute talking about Spanish guitar.
Speaker 11 (24:10):
Let me give you what I called the creative studio
guitar player. How about a year ago I got the
call to do a John Denver special.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It was John Denver in Mexico and they.
Speaker 11 (24:21):
Wanted some He was on a fishing vessel and they
wanted some Mexican music.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
So I get this.
Speaker 11 (24:43):
Got a call to who Charlie's Angels. They were in
Puerto Rico. They wanted Puerto Rican music, So I got this.
Star skin Hunch was in a big revolt from Bolivia.
They wanted Bolivia music.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
The record industry started to change in the late nineteen sixties.
Technology change which allowed more tracks, which gave a lot
more leeway for producing. Bands were self sufficient, and soon
it was about the singer songwriter era. The artists had
more to say in the production of the music, and
many times they brought their own players. But in the
nineteen seventies came around, many of the Wrecking Crew players
(25:27):
went in different directions, someone on the road with various
artists and groups, and some went into teaching. My father's
career was extended well into the eighties, working on television
and film scores. Someone asked him in an interview a
few years before he passed, what piece of music would
you want to be remembered?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
For sure?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
He played on some iconic guitar leies like Batman Theme,
Green Acres, Bonanza, and worked with everyone from Frank Sinatra
(26:06):
and Elvis to the Beach Boys and the Mamas and Papas.
But many times any of the other eight guitar players
could have recorded the same pieces. But what he was
most proud of was some of the films he worked
on with the great composers John Williams, James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith,
Bill Conti, Henry Mancini and others. Many times John Williams
or James Horner would put a hold on him a
(26:28):
couple months in advance. That's when he knew he made it.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
And you're listening to Denny to Desco telling the remarkable
story of his dad, honoring his dad, and we thank
Denny for doing all of this work. Check out the
DVD and other Wrecking Crew items like CDs, books, and
other merchandise at wreckingcrewfilm dot com and use the discount
code American Story. Watch this documentary, folks. It is American
(26:55):
music from nineteen sixty to nineteen eighty and a lot
of story you didn't get to hear. Here more of
Denny Todesco honoring his father, Tommy here on Our American Stories.
(27:37):
And we continue with Denny Todesco's tribute to his father
Tommy here on Our American Stories. Now let's return to
Denny Todesco for this final installment of this remarkable tribute.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
He used to say, I play for smiles. If a
leader or the artist is smiling, I'm doing my job.
Might play something I think.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Is better suited. But in the end, if he isn't smiling,
I better think of something else.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Father used to say, there's music and then there's the
music business. Sometimes they mix, but not always. He said
he was the luckiest guy in the world. He never
thought he'd make a living at his instrument. He always
felt you're a part of a minority as a working musician,
and then he became part of a smaller minority make
it a living as a session musician. When he was
asked if he should have been paid more for his contributions,
(28:26):
he would say, I worked on hundreds of hits, but
I worked on thousands of bombs, so I never gave
the guy that had the bomb his money.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Back, so it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
In nineteen ninety three, my father had a stroke that
basically ended his career as a guitar player. It was devastating.
He survived and he came back, but his right hand
wasn't the same. He still picked up the guitar, but
he would never record again. The last movie he worked
on was Shindler's List. In nineteen ninety six, my father
was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. They gave him less
(28:58):
than a year. We were stunned as a family, but
not surprised. My dad had quit smoking in nineteen eighty,
but my father smoked three packs a day. He didn't
really drink and He hated drugs. He wasn't philosophically opposed
if others participated, but he never liked being out of
control or not mentally sharp. But he had his vices.
They were the cigarettes, the posits of the coffee, and
(29:20):
the gambling. Many times he could do all four at
the same time. Before this diagnosis, I played around with
the idea to tell the story about the musicians of
the sixties. So when my dad was diagnosed, I realized
if I didn't make a move quickly, I would never
have the chance to tell that story. At this point
in my life, I was working on Imax films as
a grip coordinator. I wasn't a director, but I knew
(29:42):
my friends and my wife Susie, who was a producer,
would be there to support my dream of telling the story.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
The first day was shooting, I brought together drummer Hal Blaine,
bassist Carol Kaye, saxophone player Plaid Johnson, and my dad.
It was the first time, probably in twenty five years,
that all four had been in the room together. I
was shooting sixteen millimeters film and I had two cameras
on two dollies, constantly surcling.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I was in Heaven.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
They sat at the round table and they just started talking.
I would throw out a couple of questions and they
would just go from there. You have to realize the
only time I really ever saw my father's friends were
at poker games, golf games, were parties.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I never went to work with my dad.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
So when I brought the four of these characters together,
it was magic. The stories, the laughter, the teasing, the
joking was amazing. It was still early in my father's disease,
so he still had a lot of energy and spunk.
It played out exactly like I envisioned it that day.
Speaker 13 (30:36):
One of the boys, one of the boys.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
One of the guys. Here the sexual harassment suits we're
in there.
Speaker 9 (30:41):
She'd be seven millionaires right now after what we put
her through.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
She'd have all the lawyers.
Speaker 13 (30:46):
Working for.
Speaker 10 (30:49):
I don't think anyone ever really felt that she was
a woman woman, and I don't mean that Detrick.
Speaker 9 (30:54):
Were we were musicians, Yeah, everything was music. Music.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Really worse than that would.
Speaker 13 (30:59):
Have been shutting her out and not sharing the camaraderie.
Speaker 8 (31:04):
People ask me all the time about being a woman
in the man's world. I felt equal with the rest
of the guys, and they felt it too. Sometimes they
got a little tested. They say, oh, you play good
for a girl kid, Yeah, and you play good for
a guy too. I love musicians and the humor and
the way that they play, and they all knew that.
And I think it was like a sister having a
sister there.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Dad passed a few months later. He never got to
see one minute of the film. After he passed, I
continued interviewing anyone that I was able to get to.
The hardest part in making a documentary is getting past
the gatekeepers. The gatekeeper's job is to stop folks like me.
I'm asking them to give me thirty minutes to an
hour of an interview. Now that's a dream, by the way,
(31:47):
to sit down and let me ask them questions for
no money. But if I could get past the gatekeeper
and get to the artist through the back door, I
knew I had a chance on major interviews. So you
have to realize that these majors, stars like share Brian
Wilson and others, were only kids when they were working
with my father and his friends, so they looked up
to the musicians nothing but fond memories. People always ask
(32:10):
me if I received any financial help from others in
the making of the film other than family. I say no,
but I did actually get help from Wells Fargo, Countrywide,
American Express, p of A, and other financial institutions who
were more than willing to give me credit cards and refise.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Well that turned into a disaster soon.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
The market crash and I had a load of debt
with nothing to show for it but a bunch of interviews.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
I don't recommend making any film this way. Now.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
There were all kinds of ideas how to trim the budget.
People who hadn't seen the film came up with ideas
that started from the practical.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
To the absurd.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Some would say, just use less songs, use twenty instead
of one hundred and ten. But what does the Beach Boys,
Frank Sinatra, the Birds fit dimension, Sam Cook and the
Chipmunks have in common some of the same musicians. So
you need to show the quantity of music that coming
out of la at the time. As I say, I
had to show quantity, not necessarily quality. At this point,
(33:06):
my wife Susie was concerned. We made the most expensive
home movie ever and that's where it was in two
thousand and six, so we had to go for it.
We hired an editor of producer, Claire Scalen, to come
in and help us put the film together. Claire and
I cut the first thirty minutes together and showed it
to our friend Grady Cooper, who looked at it and
made a very stinging comment.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
His comment was, Hey, it's good, but.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Why are you making this story? What I just saw
in this cut, any of us could do this. What
he meant was I wasn't taking advantage of something. I
was avoiding the connection to the film my father, and
I was avoiding that fact.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
My ego was getting to me.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I wanted to be known as the director, not the
son of the subject. I finally gave in, and it
changed everything from that point on. Finally, in twenty fourteen,
I paid everyone off and was finally picked up by
Magnolia Pictures. It screened in theaters around the world and
was on Netflix and continues to play on Hulu, YouTube.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
And other platforms.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Someone asked me if I learned anything about my father
in the making of this. While many stories are heard
sometimes sounded like folklore, musicians would always describe a recording
as if it was like a legendary world series game
with an orchestra playing and my father had the lead.
He would play a hard piece of music as if
he owned it and wrote it himself.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
It made me very proud.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
But one of my favorite stories I would like to
leave you with says it all. This came from one
of the greatest bass players in the world.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Chuck Rainey.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
A few years after my father passed, I went to
interview Chuck, who told me this story.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
I had never heard it before.
Speaker 16 (34:41):
Where at Fox recording the music for these four segments
of mash. In one of the titles, he wrote something
in the ledge lines on the base left, which has
always been somewhat of my weakness. So we start recording
and we get to this part and I make a mistake.
I love it. Tommy now I knew who he was. Wow,
(35:04):
I'm glad that somebody else made a mistake rather than me.
Running back and they say, Tommy, you alright to me,
he said, he said, and then he was telling me
to descal, So I said, shure, somebody else had a
problem with this. Run the tap back started again. We
get to the same place and I'll make a mistake
(35:24):
again on this particular part, and Tommy goes and so
the producer says, Tommy, all right. He says, it's okay,
I'm going and he turns to me and he says,
that's the last time. And I realized that he's doing
me a favor. He's hearing me mess it up. He
did it this twice and put it on him. And
(35:46):
so on the break we go to the break room
and he says, Man, I'm I'm to disco to desco.
He says, you know, it's great to work with you.
I heard a lot about you. And he says, don't
get scared. He says, fear does that. And I thanks
for saying He said, no problem at all, Man, no
problem at all. And you're a good player. You're here
for a reason. It was the first hall band. You know,
you're here for a reason. And maybe I got my
(36:07):
car going back home. I said, what a nice gesture
for a real nice guy to do that for me,
you know, because I've seen other people really come down
hard on other musicians, especially.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
If they were new.
Speaker 16 (36:18):
But it's just so kind the way he went.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
I realized that I'm very lucky. I had a great
relationship with my dad. Sometimes you want to think so
we would argue all the time, not sure about what,
but we both knew how to push each other's buttons.
But as soon as he was diagnosed with cancer, we
never argued again. Just a few weeks before he passed away,
he said to me, you know, the stroke came at
the right time in my life. I knew exactly what
(36:43):
he meant. The phone had stopped ringing, and his day
is though la Session King came to an end. But
now he had an excuse of why the phone didn't ring,
and it wasn't something that he had control over. Now,
if I learned anything from my father, it was to
always give more than you take. His family and friends,
and he would always help the younger guitar players know
and it was just a matter of time before they
(37:06):
would take his place, just like he took someone else's
place forty years earlier.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Miss your dad and a special thanks to Denny Tedesco
for that beautiful story honoring his father Tommy Tedesco. Check
out the DVD and other Wrecking Crew items like CDs, books,
and other merchandise at wrecincrewfilm dot com and use the
discount code American Story. That's discount code American Story at
(37:31):
Wreckingcrewfilm dot com. By the way, as he put it,
what turned into the most expensive home movie ever made,
to this remarkable film a Magnolia Pictures, Netflix and available online,
is the insight that he needed to do a movie
as a son and not as some auteur or some artist,
(37:53):
and it changed everything, and my goodness to have a
dad like this. There are two kinds of dads, folks,
and I'll say it over and over again, the dad
who gets a documentary or a story like this from
a son, and the dad who doesn't.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
This is our American stories.
This is Lee Habib with our American stories, and you're
about to hear the story of a guitarist extraordinaire, Tommy Todesco,
a member of a group of the most sought after
musicians in the world, dubbed the Recing Crew. Tommy played
on thousands of recordings from the nineteen sixties to eighties,
many of them top twenty hits you know, yet he
(00:33):
never earned the household name status he deserved. He was,
as one critic said, the most famous guitarist you've never
heard of. Tommy's son, filmmaker Denny Toedsco, sought to fix
this and made the movie The Wrecking Crew, a terrific
documentary about his father and the other musicians who made
(00:54):
up this remarkable band. Let's begin with Denny Tedesco. A
great tribute by a son to a father.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
In the nineteen sixties, there were a group of studio
musicians in Los Angeles that became known as the Wrecking Crew.
Now I call him the melting pot of America's pop music. Italians, Jews, Irish, Black,
classically trained jazz musicians, country musicians, hillbilly and one woman
now together for a few years in the mid nineteen sixties,
(01:24):
they ruled the Billboard charts with their recordings. They were
a hidden secret among music buyers and listeners, but they
were revered by artists, producers, and engineers. If a pop
artist recorded in LA in the nineteen sixties, most likely
many of these, if not all, these studio musicians were
involved in the recording. They recorded with The Beach Boys,
Elvis fit to Mention, the Birds, Janadine, Mamas and Papas,
(01:48):
the Monkeys, Frank and Nancy Sinatra, Sam Cook, the Ronettes,
Righteous Brothers, and so many more. Why am I telling
you this story, Well, one of those Italian guitar players,
Tommy Tedesco, was my father. My name is Denny Tedesco.
Some of the other voices you will hear comes from
(02:08):
the documentary The Wrecking Crew. But before I tell you
more about my father and his friends, you need to
know what came before to lead up to their success.
In the nineteen fifties and early sixties, the music scene
was changing and rock and roll couldn't be ignored. As
generations and cultures clash, so did the music. In nineteen sixty,
rock and roll was at its infancy, and there was
(02:29):
doubt among the parents in the older generation that the
music would even last.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Even record companies would take their time putting their toes
into the rock and roll pool.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
One of the first changes in the record world was
in the nineteen fifties. There was a transition from the
seventy eight rpm record format to the forty five rpm,
which really represented the pop recording. In nineteen fifty eight,
the forty five disc were placed the seventy eight completely.
The first time you'll hear the term top forty is
(02:59):
in nineteen six Here producer Snuffcarrett tell the story.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Todd Story is a day drinker, and he would sit
in this local bar and sit there all day and drink.
One day, after a year or so, he thought he
was sitting there thinking about it, how many records are
on that jukebox? Because everybody plays the same five or
six records all the time, there was one hundred records
in the jukebox. He thought, how the one hundred records,
(03:26):
Why do they keep playing those five or six all
the time, you know? And they figured out that and said, well,
maybe people just want to hear the hits. They don't
want to hear this or that or whatever. They want
to hear the same songs over numbers. So he and
Gordon McClinton talked on the phone and invented Top forty radio, with.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Radio featuring top hit singles. There was a demand for product,
and record companies needed to supply that demand. Now you
have to realize the main commercial pop recordings were coming
out of New York, Nashville, Detroit, London. In the late
fifties and early sixties. LA had a very established recording business,
but it was really overshadowed by the film business.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Here is producer Lou Adler to tell you more.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
I mean, they didn't recognize what was happening in LA
music to film people. It was much later that they
started to even think about this would be a good
soundtrack to have. You know, we can not only have
a film that has good grosses, we can make money
on the soundtrack. I think they didn't respect the music
business for a very long time, even when it was
(04:28):
successful in LA.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
The recording studio musicians of the time we're keeping busy,
but not so much by the pop scene. Movie and
television soundtracks kept many employed, and the West Coast jazz
scene became to be known as the cool sound But
things started to change when artists like Sam Cooke, Chanadeine,
the Beach Boys, and Phil Spector started to have hits
in the early nineteen sixties, labels started to see the
(04:49):
tide turns, so they started signing new acts. Like any business,
you want to make sure you don't overextend on a
budget and put the odds of success.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
In your favor.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
In the music business at the time did exactly that.
Many of the artists in the early nineteen sixties were singers,
so the labels would hire producers who turned around and
hire session musicians to record the music. So incomes a
generation of musicians that were hungry to break into the
studio scene.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
As I said.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Earlier, they came from all kinds of backgrounds. My father
came from Naga Falls, New York with my mom and
older brother in nineteen fifty three. Here's the clip of
my mother telling this story.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
We went to the prom and Ralph Martiri was playing
the dance and found out that their guitar player was
leaving that night, and he tried out, auditioned, and he
was hired right then and there I was on a
Friday night and a Saturday night he left for New
York City.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And tell the truth.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
Okay, you gotta let go. Martiri was going to get
a guitar singer so that he could only pay for
one guy. He decided he knew there was nothing near
Nagara Falls for him. He wanted to go California to
play well.
Speaker 7 (06:16):
My father struggled to find work playing guitar. He had
to make ends meet working in a warehouse. He always
said it was the best job he ever had. He
hated it so much and made him practice every day.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
I was told by two guys before we left, he's
never going to make it. So after seven months of
struggling here, Daddy wanted to go back, and I said
there's no way because I wasn't giving him.
Speaker 8 (06:41):
To those two guys.
Speaker 6 (06:44):
And that's what Dad said, my stubborn Sicilian wife.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And you're listening to Denny to Desco tell the story
of his father, Tommy to Desco. We continue with this
remarkable story and a remarkable tribute by a son to
a father here on our American Stories. Folks, if you
(07:31):
love the great American stories we tell and love America
like we do, we're asking you to become a part
of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that
America is a good and great country, please make a donation.
A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and seventy six cents
is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to
our American Stories dot com now and go to the
(07:52):
donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot com. And we continue with
our American Stories. And now let's return to Tenny Todsco.
Speaker 7 (08:12):
While my father struggled to find work playing guitar, he
had to make ends meet working in a warehouse. He
always said it was the best job he ever had.
He hated it so much and made him practice every day.
Speaker 9 (08:23):
In fact, my wife was behind me one hundred percent.
Never complained. My wife accepted it. This was our living.
Our whole family took it exactly that way. Everyone saw
a musician's wife would come and complain to her, and.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
She'd talk to them.
Speaker 9 (08:38):
She'd say, well, look that's his living.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
I was very jealous of the guitar when we were
first dating and got engaged, and he paid a lot
more attention to the guitar, I felt, so I gave
him an ultimatum, it's me or the guitar, and he said, honey,
the guitar doesn't have legs.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
You do.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
You got so upset with him, I took my ring
and I threw it at him and I went.
Speaker 8 (09:05):
Looking for it.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So my father, who was a gambler, drove cross country
with his family with very little money in their pockets.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
It was the greatest gamble of his life that paid off.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Many of the other musicians that became known as Wrecking
Crew were Hal Blaine, Earl Palmer, Jim Gordon on drums,
Don Randy Leon, Russell Haldlauri, Larry NetTel on piano on
bas where, Joe Osborne, Ray Polman, Carol.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Kay Lyle Ritz and other guitarists that sat.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Alongside my father included Glenn Campbell, Bill Pittman, Barney Kessel,
Lou Morale, Billy Strange and many others. The Wrecking Crew
wasn't a band per se. Each individual was hired as individuals.
Here is Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco and the engineers from
gold Star Larry Levine, Dave Gold and Stan Ross talking
(09:56):
about the genesis of the name.
Speaker 10 (09:58):
You know, all the guys that had been in the studios.
God bless them all for twenty thirty years. They all
wore the blue blazers and the neck ties and there
was no talking, no smoking, and no nothing. And we
came in there with Levi's and T shirts, smoking cigarettes
whatever weird, and the older guys were saying, they're going
to wreck the business. You know, they are going to
wreck the music business. Well, that's how that whole record
(10:21):
crew thing came in.
Speaker 7 (10:22):
Even though the term of the wrecking crew gained popularity
with rock historians, many of these musicians never heard the
term until years later.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
There were a few reasons the older guys were putting
it down. Remember, many of the established studio musicians were
from the old school big bands, and they were busy
working in lucrative careers in soundtracks. When the label started
pushing some of the younger acts, they would create demos first. Now,
the older musicians wanted to take a chance on taking
a demo session because it was illegal and the views
(10:52):
of the musician union, Why take a chance when you're
working on a movie for a.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Three hour gig that paid us.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
But for some of the younger guys it was an
opportunity to get involved with new producers and new artists.
Once these guys became so in demand, from that point on,
most of the recordings became legit union dates. One of
the producers who hired these guys was Phil Spector. When
he moved back to the West Coast. That seems to
be the anchor that changed so much for the musicians
(11:20):
as well as the music scene. Here are the voices
of Hal Blaine, Carol, kay Plas, Johnson, and Cher talking
about Phil Spector.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Hello, let's go, let's make one for uh three?
Speaker 10 (11:34):
Well, walldo all musicians. First of all, Yeah, most people
used the four piece rhythm section. He had four guitars
or six or seven. There were four pianos always one
upright bass, one Fender base. I mean there's only one drums.
Usually fifty people playing percussion.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
Instruments in a very small room.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Yeah, a small room, but an average.
Speaker 10 (12:00):
And a huge echo chamber. That gold Star was famous for.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
That was the walls, ceramic walls.
Speaker 11 (12:07):
Philip was walking in a different universe than everybody else,
and so in his mind it was all him, you know,
and the guys were just some sort of an extension
of what he couldn't do.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Phil loved jazz, guitarists. So in the guitar section he
would have my father, Barney Kessel, Bill Pittman, Carol Kay,
Howard Roberts, and a few others. Phil could be hard
to get along with for many but my father seemed
to be able to deal with him in his own way.
Here's my father talking about his first time working with Phil.
Speaker 9 (12:38):
Because the first time I've been here in Phil Spector's name,
with all the guys, I didn't know anything about him.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
All I knows ever we worked for him.
Speaker 9 (12:45):
So I went on this job.
Speaker 8 (12:46):
It was like group therapy, you know, and.
Speaker 9 (12:48):
All of a sudden I worked for about a half
hour an hour, there was no break. Finally said, hey,
we know, when do you take a break here? Everybody
looked at me like, I'm not saying this. The philm
you know, I'm looking at film. When do we take
a break here? When he says when I'm in New York,
Kenny Brow never asked for you know, time, I said, oh,
(13:09):
you're starting at New York. Yes, life, But it was
real funny, like I was the only one that ever must.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Have talked to him like this.
Speaker 9 (13:20):
So after it's okay, take a break, and the next
thing you know, I was like a friend of his.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I was doing. He said, you want to go out
for coffee?
Speaker 9 (13:27):
He never asked nobody for coffee, and I'm going with
him and his bodyguard.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Here's the telegram that Phil set my father in the
mid sixties when Phil traveled to New York. I was
in my New York hotel room changing channels when I
came across the Lawrence Welk Show. And what do I
see two beady Sicilian eyes in the band? What is
a hip Hollywood guitar player doing on the Lawrence Welk Show.
My father turned around and set the telegram back. His
(13:53):
response was, what is a hip Hollywood producer watching Lawrence Welk?
For the gravy train was moving fast and you didn't
turn anything down. Many times, if a new band was
going into the studio, the producer would still use these
session musicians. They usually weren't allowed to play on the
album because studio time was expensive and the producers had
(14:15):
to make sure that they could get in and get
out with the recording. Now, recording technology in the early
sixties didn't allow for mistakes. If you had ten to
fifteen players in a room, they all had to nail
their parts. There were no computers helping you punch in.
If you made a mistake, they would just start from
the beginning and go for it. Glenn Campbell described it
like this. He said, it was like playing with Michael Jordan,
(14:36):
but everybody in the room was a Michael Jordan. One
of these groups that had their instruments stripped from them
at the door were The Birds when they recorded Mister
Tambourine Man.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Here's Roger mcgwinn telling us the story.
Speaker 12 (14:48):
Kerry Melcher wanted to use session musicians for Mister Tambreee Man.
I'd been a studio musician in New York prior to
being in the Birds, so they let me play on it.
So my feeling was great, I get to play with
this great band. The record crew. Of course, the other guys,
David Crosby and Michael Clark and Chris Hillman were livid.
They hated the idea because they didn't get to play
on their own record. We got a number one hit
(15:09):
with it right off the back, but we knocked out
two tracks in one three hour session. To compare that
with what happened when the rest of the band got
to play it, took us seventy seven takes to get
the band track for Turnturn Turn, which was also number one.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Here's Carol Okay and my father.
Speaker 8 (15:25):
Here's the way that the beat goes on sounded when
we first heard it. Let it d d down. We
need to pull a rabbit at a HT For this one.
(15:46):
It was our job to come up with riffs and stuff.
So about the third line I came up with was
let down, and Sonny loved it, and he gave it
to Bob West the bass player, to play it. And
both of us are playing it throughout the tune and
(16:06):
without a good days lighte the tune doesn't pop, you know,
it doesn't snap, you know, like a big hit record.
Speaker 9 (16:12):
I've always said they put notes on paper, they put
notes on paper, but that's not music.
Speaker 10 (16:17):
You make the music.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
What do you do with the notes?
Speaker 8 (16:20):
What do you do with the charts?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
What do you do with the cards?
Speaker 9 (16:24):
That's right, So it's what you put into it, because
how many days are in fact, we're all here.
Speaker 13 (16:29):
It's what you put into it that's not written.
Speaker 9 (16:31):
Yeah, well, in fact everybody and they're sitting here. I
remember doing different things that weren't ever even thought about
and then all of a sudden become part of the record,
and part.
Speaker 10 (16:40):
Of it, said, we all used to produce our own parts.
It's that simple.
Speaker 9 (16:44):
Yeah, I'll never forget working with Gary LUs and just
Playboy's doing all the records, and I'll never forget I
had one true, real, real hot lick on this one record.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
The Spanish stuff all over the place. Yes, you could say,
I love God.
Speaker 9 (17:07):
And finally his guitar player come up to me, he says,
are you drove me crazy with that thing? First of all,
I can't play it, so I don't play it, and
then everybody comes up to be complimenting me on.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
What I did on the day.
Speaker 9 (17:21):
I said, well, just take the compliment and forget it.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And you're listening to Denny to Desco celebrating and honoring
his father. More of Tommy to Desko's story brought to
us by his son Denny here on our American Stories,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories, and Denny to
Desko's story of his father. Guitarist Tommy Todsco Here's Wrecking
Crew bassist Carol kay To continue with his remarkable story.
Speaker 8 (18:22):
We learned how to play rock and roll right there
on the job. Hey, you know, if they want this, I.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Can do it.
Speaker 8 (18:30):
You know, that's Latin, that's Latin music. That's nothing. You
can do that all day day long.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Here's producer Bones Howe, Glenn Campbell, Brian Wilson, Hal Blaine,
Earl Palmer, and Dick Clark.
Speaker 14 (18:50):
These are the guys that played on Wendy and Never
My Love and Everything That Touches You and all the
things that were in those those two albums that I
did with them. Those are all those studio musicians. It's
Al Cho, Larry Tommy and those guys. I wanted to
put their names on the back of the album when
it was finished, and they wouldn't let me because they said, well,
(19:11):
we don't want those kids out there that buy our
records to know that we didn't play on the record.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
I went out and took Brian's place with the Beach Boys,
and I can understand probably why Brian.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Had studio guys come in. There's a lot of a fight,
like cats.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
A dog Man, Rather than Brian to go through the
hassle to get the tracks, eble to hire the rhythms
actually to come in and do the tracks.
Speaker 13 (19:35):
Well, the guys, well they're at first had a little
jealous you know what I mean. But I explained to myself,
you know, I want to get the best I can
get for the group, and they go, well, I can
understand your point, Brian, you know. So we went ahead
and did it, and sure enough the guys liked it.
Speaker 10 (19:51):
And that's one of the most asked questions, Well, didn't
Dennis get mad? Wasn't he mad because you were doing
the Beach Boys records? Dennis did not have the studio
chops that we had. You know, the proof of the
pudding is that Dennis called me to do his album.
When Dennis did his solo album, I played the drums a.
Speaker 15 (20:11):
Lot of times that guys would be sitting around the studio.
We didn't know that there were guys in the band,
the guitar players that were in these various groups. When
they realized guys like common to deak guus and to
be playing, they wanted to sit around and watch, and
the drummers would want to sit around and watch. Myself,
well out they were there like well less they were learning.
You know, it would be something that I'd like to
see too. If had it been the other way around.
(20:32):
Nobody cared all they wanted was the product. They just
wanted the name and the sales who created it. Shit
that was incidental.
Speaker 7 (20:41):
My father would say, there are only four reasons to
take a gig. For the money, for the connections, for
the experience, or just for fun.
Speaker 10 (20:49):
I got to tell you a story about your dad.
We were in Western Studio three.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
There and Jan Vary of Jan and Dane.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
He counted the song everybody ready, Okay to go started
playing and Jans to stop. Wait.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
He went over and.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Looked and he said, tell LESCo, what are you doing? Tommy?
Speaker 5 (21:11):
The music was upside down and Tommy was reading it backwards.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Now that's a true story, but do you talk about
getting a laugh out of it?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Tommy was a cut up.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
A session, or a recording date as they called it
would be three hours long.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Now.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
The musicians would go to work many times not knowing
what they were recording or whom they were recording with.
Most of the time the music was just written out,
but many times they would have to come up with
ideas that worked for a song. In nineteen sixty eight,
Jimmy Webb gave my father a charm modeled like a
tiny Grammy Award as a thank you gift. My father asked,
what is this for. Jimmy told them it was for
(21:46):
winning the Grammy for Up, Up, and Away with the
fifth dimension. My father didn't even realize he was on
the track. Now you have to realize when they went
to work, they were given sheet music and then they
would just start playing the songs weren't hits, yet another tune.
Many times it would just record tracks and the vocals
would be laid in later. If you look at my
(22:06):
father's workbooks from the sixties, he was working three to
four recordings a day. Now, the Union allowed them to
record only three to four songs per three hours, so
you can imagine the amount of music they were given.
So to remember what was recorded the week before could
be very difficult. Now many people assume it was like
one big hoot, nanny and jam session at my house
growing up.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
It was actually just the opposite.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I never saw my father pick up his guitar to
practice or play at home until the seventies when he
was doing his own jazz records. The last thing he
wanted to do was to play or even listen to music.
When he came home. He didn't need to practice. He
was working twelve hours a day. I knew my father
went to work playing guitar, but I never comprehended how
different that was to other kids' dads and moms. Other friends'
(22:51):
dads went to work with hammers and saws in their trucks.
In my dad's trunk, it was packed with a Fender telecaster,
steel string acoustic, a classical, a mandolin, a banjo, a
twelve string in an amp. A trick my father would
use when it came to getting all those odd ball
guitar gigs was listing himself on multiple guitar sections in
the Union Book. If a composer asked his contractor to
(23:14):
see who played bellalaika or bazuki, they will look into
the Union Book and see many unknown Greek and Russian names,
and then they come across to Desco. Now, my father
did play all those instruments. The difference was he tuned
every one of them like a guitar. If you played
more than one guitar on a session, you were paid more.
It was called doubling. The first guitar was one hundred percent,
(23:35):
the second fifty percent, and the others were twenty five
percent of the session rate. One day my father was
recording the show The Love Boat, which was traveling through
the Mediterranean, so he was in hog Heaven working with
various guitars.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
One of the violinists in the.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Orchestra called out sarcastically to Tommy, Tommy, do you even
know the names of those instruments? He stood up and
picked each one up and proudly said, yep, one hundred
percent and so on. Here's my father at a seminar
in nineteen eighty three at Musicians Institute talking about Spanish guitar.
Speaker 11 (24:10):
Let me give you what I called the creative studio
guitar player. How about a year ago I got the
call to do a John Denver special.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It was John Denver in Mexico and they.
Speaker 11 (24:21):
Wanted some He was on a fishing vessel and they
wanted some Mexican music.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
So I get this.
Speaker 11 (24:43):
Got a call to who Charlie's Angels. They were in
Puerto Rico. They wanted Puerto Rican music, So I got this.
Star skin Hunch was in a big revolt from Bolivia.
They wanted Bolivia music.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
The record industry started to change in the late nineteen sixties.
Technology change which allowed more tracks, which gave a lot
more leeway for producing. Bands were self sufficient, and soon
it was about the singer songwriter era. The artists had
more to say in the production of the music, and
many times they brought their own players. But in the
nineteen seventies came around, many of the Wrecking Crew players
(25:27):
went in different directions, someone on the road with various
artists and groups, and some went into teaching. My father's
career was extended well into the eighties, working on television
and film scores. Someone asked him in an interview a
few years before he passed, what piece of music would
you want to be remembered?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
For sure?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
He played on some iconic guitar leies like Batman Theme,
Green Acres, Bonanza, and worked with everyone from Frank Sinatra
(26:06):
and Elvis to the Beach Boys and the Mamas and Papas.
But many times any of the other eight guitar players
could have recorded the same pieces. But what he was
most proud of was some of the films he worked
on with the great composers John Williams, James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith,
Bill Conti, Henry Mancini and others. Many times John Williams
or James Horner would put a hold on him a
(26:28):
couple months in advance. That's when he knew he made it.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
And you're listening to Denny to Desco telling the remarkable
story of his dad, honoring his dad, and we thank
Denny for doing all of this work. Check out the
DVD and other Wrecking Crew items like CDs, books, and
other merchandise at wreckingcrewfilm dot com and use the discount
code American Story. Watch this documentary, folks. It is American
(26:55):
music from nineteen sixty to nineteen eighty and a lot
of story you didn't get to hear. Here more of
Denny Todesco honoring his father, Tommy here on Our American Stories.
(27:37):
And we continue with Denny Todesco's tribute to his father
Tommy here on Our American Stories. Now let's return to
Denny Todesco for this final installment of this remarkable tribute.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
He used to say, I play for smiles. If a
leader or the artist is smiling, I'm doing my job.
Might play something I think.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Is better suited. But in the end, if he isn't smiling,
I better think of something else.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Father used to say, there's music and then there's the
music business. Sometimes they mix, but not always. He said
he was the luckiest guy in the world. He never
thought he'd make a living at his instrument. He always
felt you're a part of a minority as a working musician,
and then he became part of a smaller minority make
it a living as a session musician. When he was
asked if he should have been paid more for his contributions,
(28:26):
he would say, I worked on hundreds of hits, but
I worked on thousands of bombs, so I never gave
the guy that had the bomb his money.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Back, so it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
In nineteen ninety three, my father had a stroke that
basically ended his career as a guitar player. It was devastating.
He survived and he came back, but his right hand
wasn't the same. He still picked up the guitar, but
he would never record again. The last movie he worked
on was Shindler's List. In nineteen ninety six, my father
was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. They gave him less
(28:58):
than a year. We were stunned as a family, but
not surprised. My dad had quit smoking in nineteen eighty,
but my father smoked three packs a day. He didn't
really drink and He hated drugs. He wasn't philosophically opposed
if others participated, but he never liked being out of
control or not mentally sharp. But he had his vices.
They were the cigarettes, the posits of the coffee, and
(29:20):
the gambling. Many times he could do all four at
the same time. Before this diagnosis, I played around with
the idea to tell the story about the musicians of
the sixties. So when my dad was diagnosed, I realized
if I didn't make a move quickly, I would never
have the chance to tell that story. At this point
in my life, I was working on Imax films as
a grip coordinator. I wasn't a director, but I knew
(29:42):
my friends and my wife Susie, who was a producer,
would be there to support my dream of telling the story.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
The first day was shooting, I brought together drummer Hal Blaine,
bassist Carol Kaye, saxophone player Plaid Johnson, and my dad.
It was the first time, probably in twenty five years,
that all four had been in the room together. I
was shooting sixteen millimeters film and I had two cameras
on two dollies, constantly surcling.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I was in Heaven.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
They sat at the round table and they just started talking.
I would throw out a couple of questions and they
would just go from there. You have to realize the
only time I really ever saw my father's friends were
at poker games, golf games, were parties.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I never went to work with my dad.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
So when I brought the four of these characters together,
it was magic. The stories, the laughter, the teasing, the
joking was amazing. It was still early in my father's disease,
so he still had a lot of energy and spunk.
It played out exactly like I envisioned it that day.
Speaker 13 (30:36):
One of the boys, one of the boys.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
One of the guys. Here the sexual harassment suits we're
in there.
Speaker 9 (30:41):
She'd be seven millionaires right now after what we put
her through.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
She'd have all the lawyers.
Speaker 13 (30:46):
Working for.
Speaker 10 (30:49):
I don't think anyone ever really felt that she was
a woman woman, and I don't mean that Detrick.
Speaker 9 (30:54):
Were we were musicians, Yeah, everything was music. Music.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Really worse than that would.
Speaker 13 (30:59):
Have been shutting her out and not sharing the camaraderie.
Speaker 8 (31:04):
People ask me all the time about being a woman
in the man's world. I felt equal with the rest
of the guys, and they felt it too. Sometimes they
got a little tested. They say, oh, you play good
for a girl kid, Yeah, and you play good for
a guy too. I love musicians and the humor and
the way that they play, and they all knew that.
And I think it was like a sister having a
sister there.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Dad passed a few months later. He never got to
see one minute of the film. After he passed, I
continued interviewing anyone that I was able to get to.
The hardest part in making a documentary is getting past
the gatekeepers. The gatekeeper's job is to stop folks like me.
I'm asking them to give me thirty minutes to an
hour of an interview. Now that's a dream, by the way,
(31:47):
to sit down and let me ask them questions for
no money. But if I could get past the gatekeeper
and get to the artist through the back door, I
knew I had a chance on major interviews. So you
have to realize that these majors, stars like share Brian
Wilson and others, were only kids when they were working
with my father and his friends, so they looked up
to the musicians nothing but fond memories. People always ask
(32:10):
me if I received any financial help from others in
the making of the film other than family. I say no,
but I did actually get help from Wells Fargo, Countrywide,
American Express, p of A, and other financial institutions who
were more than willing to give me credit cards and refise.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Well that turned into a disaster soon.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
The market crash and I had a load of debt
with nothing to show for it but a bunch of interviews.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
I don't recommend making any film this way. Now.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
There were all kinds of ideas how to trim the budget.
People who hadn't seen the film came up with ideas
that started from the practical.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
To the absurd.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Some would say, just use less songs, use twenty instead
of one hundred and ten. But what does the Beach Boys,
Frank Sinatra, the Birds fit dimension, Sam Cook and the
Chipmunks have in common some of the same musicians. So
you need to show the quantity of music that coming
out of la at the time. As I say, I
had to show quantity, not necessarily quality. At this point,
(33:06):
my wife Susie was concerned. We made the most expensive
home movie ever and that's where it was in two
thousand and six, so we had to go for it.
We hired an editor of producer, Claire Scalen, to come
in and help us put the film together. Claire and
I cut the first thirty minutes together and showed it
to our friend Grady Cooper, who looked at it and
made a very stinging comment.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
His comment was, Hey, it's good, but.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Why are you making this story? What I just saw
in this cut, any of us could do this. What
he meant was I wasn't taking advantage of something. I
was avoiding the connection to the film my father, and
I was avoiding that fact.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
My ego was getting to me.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I wanted to be known as the director, not the
son of the subject. I finally gave in, and it
changed everything from that point on. Finally, in twenty fourteen,
I paid everyone off and was finally picked up by
Magnolia Pictures. It screened in theaters around the world and
was on Netflix and continues to play on Hulu, YouTube.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
And other platforms.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Someone asked me if I learned anything about my father
in the making of this. While many stories are heard
sometimes sounded like folklore, musicians would always describe a recording
as if it was like a legendary world series game
with an orchestra playing and my father had the lead.
He would play a hard piece of music as if
he owned it and wrote it himself.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
It made me very proud.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
But one of my favorite stories I would like to
leave you with says it all. This came from one
of the greatest bass players in the world.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Chuck Rainey.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
A few years after my father passed, I went to
interview Chuck, who told me this story.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
I had never heard it before.
Speaker 16 (34:41):
Where at Fox recording the music for these four segments
of mash. In one of the titles, he wrote something
in the ledge lines on the base left, which has
always been somewhat of my weakness. So we start recording
and we get to this part and I make a mistake.
I love it. Tommy now I knew who he was. Wow,
(35:04):
I'm glad that somebody else made a mistake rather than me.
Running back and they say, Tommy, you alright to me,
he said, he said, and then he was telling me
to descal, So I said, shure, somebody else had a
problem with this. Run the tap back started again. We
get to the same place and I'll make a mistake
(35:24):
again on this particular part, and Tommy goes and so
the producer says, Tommy, all right. He says, it's okay,
I'm going and he turns to me and he says,
that's the last time. And I realized that he's doing
me a favor. He's hearing me mess it up. He
did it this twice and put it on him. And
(35:46):
so on the break we go to the break room
and he says, Man, I'm I'm to disco to desco.
He says, you know, it's great to work with you.
I heard a lot about you. And he says, don't
get scared. He says, fear does that. And I thanks
for saying He said, no problem at all, Man, no
problem at all. And you're a good player. You're here
for a reason. It was the first hall band. You know,
you're here for a reason. And maybe I got my
(36:07):
car going back home. I said, what a nice gesture
for a real nice guy to do that for me,
you know, because I've seen other people really come down
hard on other musicians, especially.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
If they were new.
Speaker 16 (36:18):
But it's just so kind the way he went.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
I realized that I'm very lucky. I had a great
relationship with my dad. Sometimes you want to think so
we would argue all the time, not sure about what,
but we both knew how to push each other's buttons.
But as soon as he was diagnosed with cancer, we
never argued again. Just a few weeks before he passed away,
he said to me, you know, the stroke came at
the right time in my life. I knew exactly what
(36:43):
he meant. The phone had stopped ringing, and his day
is though la Session King came to an end. But
now he had an excuse of why the phone didn't ring,
and it wasn't something that he had control over. Now,
if I learned anything from my father, it was to
always give more than you take. His family and friends,
and he would always help the younger guitar players know
and it was just a matter of time before they
(37:06):
would take his place, just like he took someone else's
place forty years earlier.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Miss your dad and a special thanks to Denny Tedesco
for that beautiful story honoring his father Tommy Tedesco. Check
out the DVD and other Wrecking Crew items like CDs, books,
and other merchandise at wrecincrewfilm dot com and use the
discount code American Story. That's discount code American Story at
(37:31):
Wreckingcrewfilm dot com. By the way, as he put it,
what turned into the most expensive home movie ever made,
to this remarkable film a Magnolia Pictures, Netflix and available online,
is the insight that he needed to do a movie
as a son and not as some auteur or some artist,
(37:53):
and it changed everything, and my goodness to have a
dad like this. There are two kinds of dads, folks,
and I'll say it over and over again, the dad
who gets a documentary or a story like this from
a son, and the dad who doesn't.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
This is our American stories.
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