No Rock & Roll education is complete without getting
familiar with the rotating ensemble of session musicians now known as the
Wrecking Crew. Guitarists Tommy Tedesco and Glen Campbell, drummers Hal Blaine
and Earl Palmer, bassists Carol Kaye and Joe Osborn, saxophonist Plas Johnson,
and pianist Leon Russell are just a few of the musicians who helped bring
records for Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, The Monkees, The Byrds, Sonny and Cher,
Nancy Sinatra, The Mamas and the Papas, and too many others to life. Since they
rarely received any credits on the records they made, a documentary like Denny
Tedesco’s (son of Tommy) The Wrecking
Crew is long overdue.
And overdue it is. The younger Tedesco started work on this
film in 1996, completed shooting in 2008, and was finally able to release it
this year with the aid of a 2013 Kickstarter campaign. The age of the project
is certainly detectable in the finished product. The interview footage is all
full-screen with the only wide elements being still photos and certain pieces
of archival footage. There’s none of the animation or stylish computer
manipulation used in seemingly every contemporary pop doc. This is a
straight-up, twentieth-century-style documentary full of shot-on-video talking
heads. The filmmaker’s relationship with his subject also means that The Wrecking Crew is mostly celebratory.
Nevertheless, we do get the gist of some member’s irritation with their lack of
credits, being serious jazz musicians making records for The Association and
Gary Lewis and the Playboys, and seeing the rise of “album artists” reduce
their workload in the late sixties. The
Wrecking Crew is not a piece of audacious filmmaking, but its humble style
is a very fitting way to tell the story of a group of musicians never known for
their audacity.
The Wrecking Crew
comes to DVD from Magnolia Home Entertainment with a massive bundle of deleted
scenes. While this kind of thing is mere filler on most discs, the scenes here
actually fill out the story in essential ways. Despite being synonymous with
the Wrecking Crew, Phil Spector receives very little attention in the proper
film. The deleted scenes make up for this with pieces on his demanding working
methods and his Christmas album, one of the most significant showcases for
the Wrecking Crew’s talents. We also get deeper looks at the recordings of
specific songs (guitarist Billy Strange tells a touching tale about cutting “Sloop
John B.” that spotlights Brian Wilson’s generosity), how Beatlemania affected
the crew, and insights from several major players missing from the proper film.
