The Wrecking Crew 2015
I bought a digital copy of this documentary movie when it was on sale for 99 cents based on very good reviews. It is very similar to Standing in the Shadows of Motown about Motown's studio musicians, but The Wrecking Crew was a group of freelance musicians in Los Angeles in the 1960's and 1970's. They were never really an official group, just a bunch of musicians who wound up working together a lot for a lot of acts. Because they were incredibly competent pros, a music producer would hire the session guys to record an album, which they could do very quickly instead of having the band members all in the studio figuring things out. This worked out really well for a band like The Beach Boys so that Brian Wilson, who wrote all the songs, could get a really good recording done with whatever musicians were needed. The movie was made by Denny Tedsco, whose father, Tommy Tedesco, was a session guitarist. The movie was started before Tedesco died in 1997 and was not finished until 2008, but a lot of the interviews are older or even archival. The movie wasn't released broadly until 2015 while they tried to get music rights to the huge number of well known songs used. It is interesting to hear about these working musicians who worked like crazy, made a ton of money, and appeared on so many famous songs, often uncredited. The movie isn't always polished, but it packs a lot in, including photos, footage, and a lot of music, plus interviews with a lot of people involved, including Glen Campbell, who was a session guitarist before starting a solo career.
Written: 09 Jun 2024
Owned on: Digital