The Wrecking Crew, Part 3, Carol Kaye

Welcome to Rock & Roll Flashback!  I'm Jumpin' John McDermott, and today we focus on bassist Carol Kaye.  Carol Smith was born on March 24, 1935 in Everett, Washington.  Her parents were professional musicians, and her father played jazz trombone in big bands.  As she would be known from 1953 on, Carol Kaye went on to become one of the most prolific recorded bass guitarists in rock and pop music, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 50 years.  So sit back and have a listen to The Wrecking Crew - Part 3!

[We encourage everyone to check out Denny Tedesco's excellent documentary film, "The Wrecking Crew"!  https://www.wreckingcrewfilm.com/]

All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott. The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John. It was initially recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004 with several revisions since then.
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Transcript

The Wrecking Crew- Part 3, Carol Kaye

 Welcome to Rock & Roll Flashback!  I'm Jumpin' John McDermott, and we'll be looking back at some of Rock and Roll's greatest artists, songs, and stories.  Today we focus on bassist Carol Kaye.  So sit back and have a listen to The Wrecking Crew - Part 3!

 Carol Smith was born on March 24, 1935 in Everett, Washington.  Her parents were professional musicians, and her father played jazz trombone in big bands.  As she would be known from 1953 on, Carol Kaye went on to become one of the most prolific recorded bass guitarists in rock and pop music, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 50 years.

 After her family moved to Wilmington, California, at age 13 Carol received a steel string guitar from her mother.  Carol took guitar lessons from Horace Hatchett (1909–1985), an esteemed instructor and graduate of the Eastman School of Music.  She quickly became proficient enough that she began teaching professionally the following year.  After a brief time as a guitar teacher, with Hatchett's influence she began performing bebop regularly on the L. A. jazz and big band circuit.   At age 16, Carol Smith gave birth to Hatchett's child out of wedlock.  Carol eventually married three times.  In 1953 she married her first husband, Al Kaye, with whom she had a son.  They divorced soon after, but Carol kept the Kaye last name through two more marriages.

 So during the 1950s, Kaye was playing jazz guitar with several groups on the Los Angeles club circuit, including Bob Neal's group, Jack Sheldon backing Lenny Bruce, Teddy Edwards and Billy Higgins.  She played with the Henry Busse Orchestra in the mid-1950s, and toured the US with them.  In 1957, Kaye was playing a gig at the Beverly Cavern, Hollywood, when producer "Bumps" Blackwell invited her to a recording session for Sam Cooke's arrangement of "Summertime".  She saw the potential for making  more money with session work than playing in jazz clubs, so took it up as a full-time career.  In 1958, Carol played acoustic rhythm guitar on Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba", recorded at Gold Star Studios, Hollywood. Through Gold Star, she began to work with Phil Spector, playing electric guitar on Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans' "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" and The Crystals' "Then He Kissed Me", and acoustic guitar on The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'".  Her work with Spector attracted the attention of other record producers, and she found herself in great demand as a regular session player. 

 In 1963, after a bassist failed to turn up to a session at Capitol Records, Carol switched to electric bass, quickly making a name for herself as one of the most in-demand session bass players of the 1960s.  Carol would later joke that it was easier to carry one bass to a session than to carry several guitars!  During the peak of her years of session work, she became the only female in the talented stable of Los Angeles-based musicians which went by a variety of informal names, but has since become known as "The Wrecking Crew".

 Kaye also continued to play guitar on numerous other hit songs in the 1960s and 1970s, including the twelve-string electric guitar on several Sonny & Cher songs.  She also played twelve-string on Frank Zappa's album Freak Out!  Carol appeared on sessions by Frank Sinatra, Simon & Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Barbra Streisand, The Supremes, The Temptations, the Four Tops and The Monkees.  She played electric bass on Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", while Chuck Berghofer played the famous quarter-tone descent on double bass.  She also came up with the introduction on fellow session player Glen Campbell's hit "Wichita Lineman".  Kaye's solo bass line in Spector's production of "River Deep, Mountain High", was a key part to that Grammy Hall of Fame song's "Wall of Sound" production.  Through her work with Spector, Kaye also caught the attention of Brian Wilson, who used her on several sessions, including the albums Beach Boys Today, Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!), Pet Sounds and Smile.   

 Kaye has said that during the 1960s, she would sometimes play three or four sessions per day, and sometimes (as with Brian Wilson) sessions would last all night.  By 1969 Carol was tiring of and disillusioned with session work, and she began performing mostly soundtrack work, as well as writing and teaching.  She wrote How To Play The Electric Bass, the first in a series of tutoring books and instructional video courses.  Her soundtrack sessions from this time included playing on the themes to M.A.S.H., The Streets of San Francisco and Across 110th Street.  Kaye had worked closely with Lalo Schifrin, playing on the theme to Mission: Impossible and the soundtrack for Bullitt.  She regularly collaborated with Quincy Jones, and was also a part of Jones' orchestra at the 43rd Academy Awards. In the early 1970s, she toured with Joe Pass and Hampton Hawes, and continued to do sessions. In 1973, she played on Barbra Streisand's single "The Way We Were", which was cut live, and was told off by producer Marvin Hamlisch for improvising bass lines.  

 Kaye played bass with a pick and preferred to play melodic and syncopated lines on the bass, rather than simply covering a straightforward part. In the studio, she particularly liked to use the upper register on her bass, while a stand-up double bass would be used to cover the low end.  Kaye has achieved critical acclaim as one of the best session bassists of all time. Michael Molenda wrote in Bass Player magazine that Kaye could listen to other musicians and instantly work out a memorable bass line that would fit with the song, such as her additions to Sonny & Cher's "The Beat Goes On".   Carol says that in that particular recording session, rather than the walking bass line arranged by Harold Battiste, she devised the syncopated bass line used in the final Sonny & Cher recording.  Paul McCartney has said that his bass playing on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was inspired by her work on Pet Sounds. Recently McCartney has also said that Zappa's Freak Out! influenced Sgt. Pepper.  As mentioned earlier, Carol played on Freak Out! too.

 Alison Richter wrote in Bass Guitar magazine that Kaye was the "First Lady" of bass playing, adding "her style and influence are in your musical DNA."  In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Kaye number 5 in its list of the 50 greatest bassists of all time.  Kaye played bass on a substantial number of records that appeared on the Billboard Hot 100. According to the New York Times, she played on 10,000 recording sessions over the course of parts of 6 decades.  

 Here is only a small fraction of her recorded performances: 

 •1958:  Donna and La Bamba – Ritchie Valens 

•1964:  Then He Kissed Me – The Crystals, You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' – The Righteous Brothers, The Pawnbroker – Quincy Jones (1964), The Addams Family – Vic Mizzy (1964)

•1965:  Quincy's Got a Brand New Bag – Quincy Jones, Whipped Cream & Other Delights – Herb Alpert (1965), Lipstick Traces (on a Cigarette) – The O'Jays

•1966:  Batman Theme – The Marketts, River Deep, Mountain High – Ike & Tina Turner, Pet Sounds – The Beach Boys, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme – Simon and Garfunkel, Freak Out! – The Mothers of Invention

•1967:  The World We Knew – Frank Sinatra, In the Heat of the Night – Quincy Jones, Ironside – Quincy Jones, The Beat Goes On – Sonny & Cher, You've Made Me So Very Happy – Brenda Holloway, More of the Monkees – The Monkees

•1968:  Wichita Lineman – Glen Campbell, Hawaii Five-O – Morton Stevens, Accent on Africa – Cannonball Adderley, Song of Innocence – David Axelrod, Neil Young – Neil Young, The Thomas Crown Affair – Michel Legrand

1969:  Nancy – Nancy Sinatra, The Bill Cosby Show – Quincy Jones, With a Little Help from My Friends – Joe Cocker, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – Burt Bacharach

1971:  Escape from the Planet of the Apes – Jerry Goldsmith, A Natural Man – Lou Rawls, Dirty Harry – Lalo Schifrin

1972:  A Message from the People – Ray Charles, Across 110th Street – Bobby Womack

1973:  You've Got It Bad Girl – Quincy Jones

1974:  Northern Windows – Hampton Hawes, 

1976:  Wonder Woman – Charles Fox, I Don't Know What's On Your Mind – Spiders Webb

1981:  Shades – J. J. Cale

1996:  The Wilsons – The Wilsons

2006:  Fast Man Raider Man – Frank Black

 This has been Rock and Roll Flashback…a look at The Wrecking Crew, Part 3, the influential bassist Carol Kaye.  Stay tuned for the upcoming podcast, The Wrecking Crew, Part 4, Tommy Tedesco.  I'm Jumpin' John McDermott and until next time….Rock On!