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This is Lee Habib with Our American Stories, and you're about to hear the story of a guitarist extraordinaire Tommy Tedesco. A member of a group of the most sought-after musicians in the world dubbed the Wrecking Crew. Tommy played on thousands of recordings from the 1960s to 80s, many of them top 20 hits you know. Yep. He 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 Tedesco, sought to fix this. and made the movie The Wrecking Crew, a terrific documentary about his father, and the other musicians who made up this remarkable band. Let's begin with Denny Tedesco, a great tribute by a son to a father. In the 1960s, there were a group of studio musicians in Los Angeles that became known as the Wrecking Crew.
Now I call them 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-1960s, 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 1960s, 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, 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 come from 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 1950s and early 60s, the music scene was changing and rock and roll couldn't be ignored. As generations and cultures clashed, so did the music. In 1960, rock and roll was at its infancy, and there was doubt among the parents and the older generation that.
The music would even last. Even record companies would take their time putting their toes into the rock and roll pool. One of the first changes in the record world was in the 1950s. There was a transition from the 78RPM record format to the 45RPM. which really represented the pop recording.
In 1958, the 45 disc replaced the 78 completely. The first time you'll hear the term top 40 is in 1960. Here producer Snuff Garrett tell the story. 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. He went out and looked, there were a hundred records on the jukebox, and he thought, Out of the 100 records, why do they keep playing those five or six? All the time, you know? And then he 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 and over.
So he and Gordon McClendon talked on the phone and invented top 40 radio. With 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 50s and early 60s. LA had a very established recording business, but it was really overshadowed by the film business. Here is producer Lou Adler to tell you more. I mean, they didn't recognize what was happening in LA music, the film people. It was much later that uh They started to even think about this would be a good soundtrack to have.
not only have a film that Has good gross as we can make money on a soundtrack. I think they didn't respect the music business for a very long time, even when it was successful in LA. The recording studio musicians of the time were 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, Jannon Dean, the Beach Boys, and Phil Spector started to have hits in the early 1960s.
Labels started to see the tide turn, 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 in your favor. in the music business at the time did exactly that. Many of the artists in the early 1960s were singers, so the labels would hire producers who turned around and hired session musicians to record the music.
So in comes a generation of musicians that were hungry to break into the studio scene. As I said earlier, they came from all kinds of backgrounds. My father came from Niagara Falls, New York with my mom and older brother in 1953. Here's a clip of my mother telling this story. We went to the prom and Ralph Martieri was playing the dance.
We 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. Tell the truth.
Okay, he got let go.
Okay. Ha ha ha ha ha. Martieri was going to get a guitar Singer.
so that he could only pay for one guy. He decided he knew there was nothing there in Niagara Falls for him. He wanted to go California to play. 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 it made him practice every day. I was told by two guys. Before we left, He's never gonna 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 in to those two guys. And that's what dad said, my stubborn Sicilian wife. And you're listening to Denny Tedesco tell the story of his father, Tommy Tedesco. We continue with this remarkable story and a remarkable tribute by a son to a father.
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Go to ouramericanstories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming. That's ouramericanstories.com. Want to sell your car your way? Who wouldn't? That's why CarMax offers a car selling experience designed just for you with online and in-store options.
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See CarMax.com for details. Premiere Protein. It's for getting after life, not just fitness. With 30 grams of protein, 160 calories, and no sugar added, helping people fuel their joyful lives. With Premiere Protein, you can say yes to more, whether it's crushing a big presentation at work, building an epic fort with the kids, or hitting the hiking trail with friends.
Premiere Protein offers delicious flavors like cafe latte, chocolate, caramel, vanilla, strawberry, and cake batter to name a few. Find your favorite flavor at PremierProtein.com. Are you looking for entertainment that lifts you up? Then check out Up Faith and Family, the leading streaming service for inspiring, hope-filled shows and movies. This season streams soul-stirring favorites like Southern Gospel, plus four full seasons of Jesus Calling, and the uplifting new faith series These Stones.
Or settle in with 19 seasons of the beloved family series Heartland, a family favorite ranch drama fans can't get enough of. It's commercial free. Stream anywhere. To get a free trail today, go to upfaithandfamily.com slash iHeart. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford, and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty.
Well, I don't know about you, but like I never liked being told, oh, wow, you look so good for your age. Like, why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age, every age? That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now.
Meaningful Beauty, beautiful skin at every age. Learn more at meaningfulbeauty.com. Um And we continue with our American stories. And now let's return to Denny Tedesco. 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 it made him practice every day. In fact, my wife was behind me 100%, never complained. My wife accepted it. This was our living.
Our whole family took it exactly that way. Every once in a while, a musician's wife would come and complain to her, and she'd talk to them. She'd say, well, look, that's his living. Yeah. 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 you do. He got so upset with him, I took my ring and I threw it at him.
And I went looking for it.
So my father, who was a gambler, to have crossed country with his family. with very little money in their pockets, it was the greatest gamble of his life that paid off. Many of the other musicians that became known as Wrecking Crew were Hal Blaine. Earl Palmer, Jim Gordon on drums. Don Randy, Leon Russell, Hal Delauri, Larry Necto on piano.
I'm base where Joe Osborne, Ray Pullman, Carol Kay, Lyle Ritz, and other guitarists that sat alongside my father included Glen Campbell, Bill Pittman, Barney Kessel, Lou Morrell, 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 GoldStar, Larry Levine, Dave Gold, and Stan Ross talking about the genesis of the name. You know, all the guys that have been in the studios, God bless them all, for 20, 30 years, they all wore the blue blazers, the neckties.
And there was no talking and no smoking and no nothing. And we came in there with Levi's and t-shirts, smoking cigarettes, whatever, we were. 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 wrecking crew thing came in. Even though the term the wrecking crew gained popularity with rock historians, many of these musicians never heard the term until years later. 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 labels started pushing some of the younger acts, they would create demos first.
Now the older musicians want to take a chance on taking up a demo session because it was illegal in the views of the musician union. Why take a chance when you're working on a movie for a 3 hour gig that paid less? 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 as well as the music scene. Here are the voices of Hal Blaine, Carol Kay, Plaz Johnson, and Cher talking about Phil Spector. Hello, let's go. Let's make one more, huh? One, three.
What? Do what? Do Wall-to-wall musicians, first of all. Yeah, most people used a four-piece rhythm section. He had four guitars or six or seven.
There were four pianos always, one upright bass, one fender bass. I mean, uh it was only one drums usually. 15 people playing percussion instruments. In a very small room. Yeah.
A small room, but an average room. And a huge echo chamber that Gold Star was famous for. Ceramic walls. That was the wall of the ceramic walls. You know, 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. Phil loved jazz guitars.
So in the guitar section, he would have my father, Barney Kessel Bill Pittman, Carol Kaye, 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. It's the first time I've been hearing Phil Spector's name with all the guys. I didn't know anything about them.
All I know is every word for him.
So I went on this job. It was like group therapy. And all of a sudden, I worked. For about a half hour, an hour, there was no break, a little longer. Finally, it says, hey.
When do you take a break here? Everybody looked at me like I'm nuts saying this to Phil. You know, I'm looking at Phil. When do we take a break here? When he says, when I'm in New York, Kenny Brell never asked for, you know, time of pressure.
I said, oh, you're starting that New York shit. I don't know. That's all. You were his friend for life. But it was real funny.
Like, I was the only one that ever must have talked to him like this.
So after that, it's okay, take a break. And the next thing you know, I was like a friend of his. I was doing, he says, you want to go out for coffee? He never asked nobody for coffee and I'm going with him and his body card. Here is a telegram that Phil sent my father in the mid-60s when Phil traveled to New York.
I was in my New York hotel room changing channels when I came across the Lawrence Welf 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 sent a telegram back.
His 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 to make sure that they could get in and get out with the recording.
Now recording technology in the early 60s didn't allow for mistakes. If you had 10 to 15 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, 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 Mr. Tambourine Man. Here's Roger McGuinn telling us the story.
Terry Melcher wanted to use session musicians for Mr. Tam Ringman. 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 Hellman, were livid. They hated the idea because they didn't get to play on their own record. We got a number one hit with it. Right off the bat, 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 77 takes to get the band track for turn, turn, turn. Which was also number one. Here's Carol Kay and my father. Here's the way that the beat goes on sounded when we first heard it. La-da-da-da-da.
Ha ha ha ha ha. Da da da da da da. That the Da da da da da. I said, Uhoh, we need to pull a rabbit out of a hat for this one You know It was our job to come up with riffs and stuff.
So about the third line I came up with was But in other doubts. 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 without a good bass line, the tune doesn't pop. It doesn't snap, you know, like a big hit record. I've always said they put notes on paper.
They put notes on paper. But that's not music. You make the music. What do you do with the notes? What do you do with the charts?
What do you do with the chords? Other than that, they can call a union for a guitar. That's right.
So it's what you put into it. Because how many days, in fact, we're all here. It's what you put into it that's not written. Yeah. Well, in fact, everybody that's 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 of the single.
We all used to produce our own parts. It's that simple. Make it swing, yeah. I'll never forget working with Gary Luce and his Playboys doing all the records. And I'll never forget I had one true real, real hot lick on this one record Spanish stuff all over the place.
Yeah. Guess you could say my love was blind. And finally, his guitar player come up to me and he says, Oh, 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 me complimenting me on what I did.
I said, well, just take the compliments and forget it. And you're listening to Denny Tedesco celebrating and honoring his father, more of Tommy Tedesco's story brought to us by his son Denny. Here on Our American Stories. Want to buy your way? Of course you do.
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Find your favorite flavor at PremierProtein.com. Are you looking for entertainment that lifts you up? Then check out Upt Faith and Family, the leading streaming service for inspiring, hope-filled shows and movies. This season streams soul-stirring favorites like Southern Gospel, plus four full seasons of Jesus Calling, and the uplifting new faith series These Stones. Or settle in with 19 seasons of the beloved family series Heartland, a family favorite ranch drama fans can't get enough of.
It's commercial free. Stream anywhere. Get a free trial today. Go to upfaithandfamily.com slash iHeart. Now, I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford.
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It's melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five-star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today, and you can get the amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five-piece system, free gifts, free shipping, and a 60-day money-back guarantee. All of that available at meaningfulbeauty.com.
Yeah. And we continue with our American stories and Denny Tedesco's story of his father, guitarist Tommy Tedesco. Here's Wrecking Crew Bassist Carol Kaye. to continue with this remarkable story. We learned how to play rock and roll right there on the job.
Hey, you know, if they want this. I can do it. You know, that's Latin, that's Latin music. That's nothing, yeah. You can do that all day day long.
Here's producer Bowens Howe, Glenn Campbell, Brian Wilson, Hal Blaine, Earl Palmer and Dick Clark 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 two albums that I did with them, those are all those studio musicians, it's Halcho, 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, we don't want those kids out there that buy our records to know that we didn't play on the record. I went out and took Brian's place with the Beach Boys. And I can understand probably why Brian had studio guys come in.
But fight like cats and dogs, man. Rather than Brian to go through the hassle to get the tracks, he would hire the rhythm section to come in and do the tracks. Or the guys, well they're at first they're a little jealous, you know what I mean? But I explained to him, I said, 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 uh went ahead and did it and uh Sure enough. The guys liked it. I mean, 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 have. 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 on it. A lot of times the 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 Tom Todesco isn't going to be fan, they wanted to sit around and watch. And their drummers would want to sit around and watch myself or Al, they were there like more or less they were learning.
You know, it would be something that I'd like to see too if it had it been the other way around. Nobody cared. All they wanted was the product. They just wanted the name and the sales. Who created it?
She. That was incidental. 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. I gotta tell you a story about your dad.
We were in Western Studio 3 there, and Jan Berry of Jan and Dean, he counted the song. Everybody ready?
Okay. Todesco started playing. And Jan said, stop, wait. He went over and looked, and he said, Todesco, what are you doing? Tommy, the music was upside down, and Tommy was reading it backwards.
Now, that's a true story. But you talk about getting a laugh out of it. Tommy was a cut-up. A session or a recording date, as they called it, would be three hours long.
Now 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 1968, 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 him it was for 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, just another tune. Many times it would just record tracks and the vocals would be laid in later. If you look at my father's workbooks from the 60s, 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. It was actually just the opposite. I never saw my father pick up his guitar to practice or play at home until the 70s 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 12 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' 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 12-string, and an amp. A trick my father would use when it came to getting all those oddball guitar gigs was listing himself on multiple guitar sections in the Union book.
If a composer asked his contractor to see who played Bella Laika or Buzuki, they will look into the union book and see many unknown Greek and Russian names, and then they come across Tedesco.
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 100%, the second 50% and the others were 25% 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. One of the violinists in the 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. 100%, 50%, 25%, and so on. Here is my father at a seminar in 1983 at Musicians Institute.
Talking about Spanish guitar. Let me give you what I call the creative studio guitar player. About a year ago I got the call to do a John Denver special. Yeah. It was John Denver in Mexico, and they wanted some, he was on a fishing vessel, and they wanted some Mexican music, so I give them this.
Gotta call two Charlie's Angels. They were in Puerto Rico. They wanted Puerto Rico music, so I got them this. Star skiing Hutch was in a big revolt in Bolivia on one show. They wanted Bolivian music.
The record industry started to change in the late 1960s. Technology changed 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 when the nineteen seventies came around many of the wrecking crew players went in different directions.
Some went 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 for? Sure he played on some iconic guitar leaves like Batman theme. Greenacres. Bonanza. and worked with everyone from Frank Sinatra 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 Conte, Henry Mancini, and others. Many times John Williams or James Horner would put a hold on him a couple months in advance. That's when he knew he made it. And you're listening to Denny Tedesco telling the remarkable story of his dad honoring his dad.
And we thank Denny for doing all this work. Check out the DVD and other Wrecking Crew items like CDs, books, and other merchandise at wreckingcrewfilm.com. and use the discount code AmericanStory. Watch this documentary, folks. It is American Music.
from 1960 to 1980, and a lot of stories you didn't get to hear here. More of Denny Tedesco honoring his father Tommy here. on our American stories. Yeah. Want to sell your car your way?
Who wouldn't? That's why CarMax offers a car selling experience designed just for you with online and in-store options. Want to know what your car is worth quickly? Get an online offer in under two minutes. Want to think it over?
Use OfferWatch to keep tabs on your car's value over time. Plus, CarMax offers flexible selling options with Express Drop-Off, in-store, or pickup at home. Selling your car is in your control with CarMax. Want to drive? CarMax.
Pickup not available everywhere. Restrictions and fee may apply. See CarMax.com for details. Premiere Protein. It's for getting after life, not just fitness.
With 30 grams of protein, 160 calories, and no sugar added, helping people fuel their joyful lives. With Premiere Protein, you can say yes to more, whether it's crushing a big presentation at work, building an epic fort with the kids, or hitting the hiking trail with friends. Premiere Protein offers delicious flavors like café latte, chocolate, caramel, vanilla, strawberry, and cake batter to name a few. Find your favorite flavor at PremierProtein.com. Are you looking for entertainment that lifts you up?
Then check out Up Faith and Family, the leading streaming service for inspiring, hope-filled shows and movies. This season streams soul-stirring favorites like Southern Gospel, plus four full seasons of Jesus Calling, and the uplifting new faith series These Stones. Or settle in with 19 seasons of the beloved family series Heartland, a family favorite ranch drama fans can't get enough of. It's commercial free. Stream anywhere.
Get a free trial today. Go to upfaithandfamily.com slash iHeart. Now, I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skincare simple, and it's loved by millions of women.
It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types, and it's designed to work as a complete skincare system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth, and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen, which contains all five of her best-selling products, including the amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has the power of melon leaf stem cell technology. It's melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five-star reviews, why not give it a try?
Subscribe today, and you can get the amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five-piece system, free gifts, free shipping, and a 60-day money-back guarantee. All of that available at meaningfulbeauty.com. Yeah. Mm.
And we continue with Denny Tedesco's tribute to his father, Tommy. Here on our American stories.
Now let's return. to Denny Tedesco for this final installment of this remarkable tribute. Uh Mm. Uh He used to say, I play for smiles. If a leader or the artist is smiling, I'm doing my job.
I might play something I think is better suited, but in the end, if he isn't smiling, I better think of something else. 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 part of a minority as a working musician. And then he became part of a smaller minority making a living as a session musician.
When he was asked if he should have been paid more for his contributions, 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 back.
So it all worked out. In 1993, 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 Schindler's List. In 1996 my father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. They gave him less 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 pasta, the coffee, and 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 60s.
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 my friends and my wife Susie, who was a producer, would be there to support my dream of telling the story.
Now, the first day of shooting, I brought together drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Carol Kay, saxophone player Plaz Johnson, and my dad. It was the first time probably in 25 years that all four had been in the room together. I was shooting 16mm film and I had two cameras on two dollies constantly circling. I was in heaven. 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, or parties. I never went to work with my dad.
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. One of the boys.
One of the boys. One of the guys, yeah. If sexual harassment suits were in there, she'd be seven millionaires right now. After what we put her through, she'd have all the lawyers working for her against us. I don't think anyone ever really felt that she was a Worman woman, and I don't mean that detrimental.
No, we were musicians. Yeah. Everything was music. Music really. Shutting her out and not sharing the camaraderie.
People ask me all the time about being a woman in a man's world. I felt equal with the rest of the guys and they felt it too.
Sometimes they got a little testy. They say, oh, you play good for a girl, Carol. 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. 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 30 minutes to an hour of an interview.
Now that's a dream, by the way. 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 of major interviews. See, you have to realize that these major stars like Cher, 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 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 refis.
Well that turned into a disaster.
Soon the market crashed and I had a load of debt with nothing to show for it but a bunch of interviews. I don't recommend making any film this way.
Now 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 to the absurd.
Some would say just use less songs. Use twenty instead of a hundred ten. But what does The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, The Birds, Fifth Dimension, Sam Cook, and the Chipmunks have in common?
some of the same musicians.
So you need to show the quantity of music that was coming out of LA at the time. As I say, I had to show quantity, not necessarily quality. At this point, my wife Susie was concerned we made the most expensive home movie ever. And that's where it was in 2006.
So we had to go for it. We hired an editor-producer, Claire Scanlon, to come in and help us put the film together. Clara 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. His comment was, hey, it's it's good, but 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. My ego was getting to me. 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 2014, 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, and other platforms.
Someone asked me if I learned anything about my father in the making of this. While many stories I 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. It made me very proud. 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, Chuck Rainey. Few years after my father passed, I went to interview Chuck who told me this story. I had never heard it before. Uh We're at Fox recording the music for these four segments of MASH. In one of the titles, He wrote something in the ledger lines on the base cleft.
which has always been somewhat of my weakness.
So we start recording it, we get to this part. and I make a mistake. I flubbed. Yeah. Now I knew who he was.
Wow, I'm glad that somebody else made a mistake. rather than me. Running back and they say, Tommy, you all right? Tommy said, Shut up. And the Hebrews taught me to describe.
So I said, somebody else had a problem with this. Run the tape back. Start it again. We get to the same place and I'll make a mistake. Again, on this particular part, Tommy goes...
And so the producer says, Tommy, all right, he said. It's okay. That boy. And he turns to me and he says, that's the last time. And I realize that he's doing me a favor.
He's hearing me mess it up. He did this twice and put it on him. And so on the break, we go to the break room. And he says, man, I'm Todesco, Tom Tedesco. 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 thanks for saying, he said, no problem at all, man. No problem at all.
You're a good player, you're here for a reason. This is a first call band. You're here for a reason. And remember, I got in my car going back home. I said, what a nice gesture from a real nice guy to do that for me.
Because I've seen other people really come down hard on other musicians, especially if they were new. But it's just so kind, the way he went. I realize that I'm very lucky. I had a great relationship with my dad.
Sometimes you wouldn't 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 he meant. The phone had stopped ringing, and his day as the 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. I mean, he loved his family and friends, and he would always help the younger guitar players, knowing it was just a matter of time before. they would take his place, just like he took someone else's place 40 years earlier. Miss you, Dad. Oh no.
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 WreckingCrewFilm.com and use the discount code American Story. That's discount code AmericanStory at wreckingcrewfilm.com. By the way.
As he put it, what turned into the most expensive home movie ever made. To this remarkable film on 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. 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. This is Our American Stories. Uh This is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronkin' Jewels.
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