The Wrecking Crew

Hal Blaine

The studio musicians that Jimmy most often used, to lay down his basic tracks, came to be known as the “Wrecking Crew”. If you check the credits on many, many albums of that era, you will find these familiar names:

Larry Knechtel

Hal Blaine on drums

Larry Knechtel on keyboard

Joe Osborn on bass (he was the bass player on the Beatle 's "Come Together")

Joe Osborn

Mike Deasy on guitar and many others who would be used for studio work. Among those others was a young Lance Wakely, who, today, still works the busking circuit in Northern Europe as Dr. Harmonica.

I would have the enjoyment to attend most of the recording sessions. Of course, I was there to make coffee runs and such, but still I enjoyed the privilege. 

Mike Deasy in 1992

I remember one story that was interesting to me. Mike Deasy was laying down tracks, with the rest of the crew one evening. Mike was telling us about an interesting visit he had out in the desert at the compound run by Charles Manson. Yes the same Charles Manson who was convicted in the Tate LaBianca murders in 1971 and who died just recently in prison.

Mike had been invited out to the compound where the Manson family lived out on the Mojave desert on a ranch. What impressed Mike was not the Manson family, but the fact that in the middle of the desert, with amps to the max- the sound his guitar made playing to the vast, open desert on a moonlit night was overwhelming.

Lance Wakely

Lance Wakely, who was a notable studio musician, would later let me stay at his house in the Hollywood. Lance knew everybody in town. If he walked into The Troubadour (a Hollywood club where lots of musicians used to hang out), he would greet everyone and they all knew him.

Even though I was not really a musician, I enjoyed hours and hours of studio time and had quite a ride.