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Film gives due credit
Say he played on hit song after hit song, some of the most recognizable music of our time. And say, besides the industry pros, hardly anyone knew who he was.
You might go the route Denny Tedesco started a decade and a half ago: film a documentary to tell your father's story, and that of his musical associates.
And so "The Wrecking Crew" has come nearly to fruition, the tale of the late Tommy Tedesco and a host of Los Angeles-based session players whose names might not be familiar to the casual listener.
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Denny Tedesco brought his documentary to Duquesne University over the weekend for a screening, and to a standing ovation. He's been taking the film to as many venues as possible with the mission of raising enough money to have "The Wrecking Crew" released commercially.
What delays the project is the sheer volume of hit material: Excerpts from more than 120 songs are featured in the film, and Tedesco has to pay for the rights to most of them. For the record, he says trumpeter Herb Alpert of Tijuana Brass fame has waived the applicable fees.
In the meantime, Tedesco is spreading the message about a time, place and cast of characters never likely to be duplicated.
They were the Wrecking Crew ... only they weren't. The collective name seems to have been applied after the fact by drummer Hal Blaine. His is one of the more recognizable names among a loose aggregation of musicians - guitarist-bassist Carol Kaye and future stars Glen Campbell and Leon Russell are among the others - whose work could be heard on Top 40 radio at virtually any time of the day from the early '60s through mid-'70s.
During that period, they were pretty much heard and not seen, certainly not credited for their work on classics by the likes of Elvis Presley, Harry Nilsson, the Ronettes and even the Byrds.
"The Wrecking Crew" gives the musicians their due, particularly Tommy Tedesco, a family man whose day job was playing some of the finest chops to emerge from the L.A. studios. Vouching for his talents, by way of a video clip recorded by the younger Tedesco 30 years ago, is one of the acknowledged masters of the electric guitar: the late Frank Zappa.
If you're the slightest bit of a music fan, visit www.wreckingcrewfilm.com for more information about a surprising slice of history.
Online editor Harry Funk can be reached at hfunk@observer-reporter.com.
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