Great Session Players
« Previous EntriesGreat Session Players - Hal Blaine 1970
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008As much as I enjoyed listening and learning and sharing the genius of Hal Blaine through his Top 10 records of the 1960’s, none of them had the significance in my life as these few songs from 1970. These six songs, to my ears, personify the best of pop music of the time.
Maybe I’m [...]
Great Session Players - Hal Blaine 1969
Thursday, May 29th, 2008Ah, 1969. Deep in the heart of being seven years old, oblivious to the struggles of love, money or power, scratching out 6’s and 7’s on that green paper with the really WIDE lines, relating to Bill Cosby’s take on childhood (”And now Richard will tie his tie”).
My Mom and Dad woke me up in [...]
Great Session Players - Hal Blaine 1968
Sunday, May 18th, 2008Richard Harris – MacArthur Park (#5)
According to Paul Zollo’s interview with Jimmy Webb (in the book “Songwriters on Songwriting”), MacArthur Park was invented “in Bones Howe’s head”. Howe asked Webb to write something “classical” for The Association. When they passed on Mac Park, it went “into the trunk,” Webb says, until Richard Harris invited [...]
Great Session Players - Hal Blaine 1967
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008In 1966, the world’s greatest pop band, The Beach Boys, forever changed rock and roll. Instead of giving the world another gilded album of musical chocolates, each song individually wrapped in ocean colored tin foil, they buried their music in a mix of motor oil and sand. They produced an album, a “concept” album called [...]
Great Session Players - Hal Blaine 1966
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008I’ve cashed in my 401K’s, divorced my wife, abandoned the little league and left my kids for a hermitage in the Idaho panhandle. I’ve furnished it with a cot from an abandoned Benedictine monastery, a table from Goodwill, a single light bulb stolen from a gas station restroom and an wireless card from T-Mobile.
It’s still [...]
Great Session Players - Hal Blaine 1965
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008When I die, I want my tombstone inscribed with the following epitaph:
“Herein lays a man a-rest, nothing left to do/For what killed him was his lovely wife, she bit off more than he could chew.”
It seems I’m infected with the same curse of blind ambition as my lovely red-headed wonder-wife: this Hal Blaine series has [...]
Great Session Players - Hal Blaine 1963-1964
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008Between 1961 and 1964, Hal Blaine played drums on 36 Top 10 singles. In 1963 and 1964, alone, he recorded 30 of them. Here’s a selection of 16 that defined the West Coast pop sound that, in turn, shaped everything from ZZ Top to The Ramones.
The Beach Boys - Surfin’ Safari (#3 in 1963)
I was [...]
