Glen Campbell
April 28, 2008 - Glen Campbell's career as a singer and entertainer launched him into the Country Music Hall of Fame, but before he became a household name as a hitmaker, he was a very successful studio musician in Los Angeles. As a result, he's featured in the independent movie "The Wrecking Crew," which closed the Nashville Film Festival with a special showing in two adjacent theaters last week.
The Wrecking Crew is the name given to a loose collection of players who dominated Southern California session work at the time Glen got started. The movie began with music from the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, in which Glen played acoustic guitar, and took the viewer on a ride through songs by such 1960s pop staples as the Ronettes, the Mamas & The Papas, Nancy Sinatra and Jan & Dean. One of the most entertaining people in the picture was Carole Kaye, a woman who remarkably created a full-time job for herself in a male-dominated profession prior to the feminist movement. Carole showed in the film how she came up with the signature bass line for Sonny & Cher's "The Beat Goes On" and demonstrated her five-note kickoff to Glen's classic hit "Wichita Lineman."
Among the musicians featured in the picture was bass player Joe Osborn, who left Los Angeles to become a session player in Nashville, appearing on country hits by the likes of Hank Williams Jr., John Conlee, Mickey Gilley and the Oak Ridge Boys.
Music City, which still has a very active studio scene, was an appropriate place to show the film, produced by Danny Tedesco, the son of Tommy Tedesco, who was one of Glen's Wrecking Crew peers.
Nashville, Danny said at the screening, "is the only town you can walk through the front door with your instrument instead of the back door."
Several members of the Wrecking Crew performed following the screening at the Film Festival's closing party, including keyboard player Al De Lory, who produced all of Glen's early hits. Foster & Lloyd founder Bill Lloyd and current Nashville session musician Jim Hoke traded lead vocals during the party on the Bob Dylan classic "Like A Rolling Stone," with Al Kooper — who was on the original — playing organ. The band also featured Nashville bassist Garry Tallent, of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band; singer-songwriter Kim Richey; Henry Gross, who made the 1976 pop hit "Shannon"; and drummer Craig Krampf, who's backed both Patty Loveless and Kim Carnes.