The Wrecking Crew - documentary screening about the famed studio musicians of the 1960s and 1970s (2/9/2013)

If you're in LA and enjoy music of the 1960s and 1970s, I highly recommend you attend this 2/9/2013 screening of The Wrecking Crew, a documentary about a group of studio musicians behind many of the hit songs of the era.

From "Be My Baby" to "California Girls;" "Strangers in the Night" to "Mrs. Robinson;" "You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'" to "Up, Up and Away;" and from "Viva Las Vegas" to "Mr. Tambourine Man," the group dubbed The Wrecking Crew played on all of them. Six years in a row in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Grammy for "Record of the Year" went to Wrecking Crew member recordings.

The Wrecking Crew, a documentary film produced and directed by Denny Tedesco, son of legendary late Wrecking Crew guitarist Tommy Tedesco, has played around the world in the festival circuit with over a dozen awards and rave reviews and other accolades.

The film includes wonderful interviews with Brian Wilson, Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Herb Alpert, Glen Campbell, Roger McGuinn, Gary Lewis, Dick Clark, Al Jardine, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz as well as many of the Crew members themselves.

A labor of love by director Tedesco, the film is also ultimately a love letter to the legacy of his late father and musician friends in the Crew. Documenting the work of musicians on such iconic songs, however, can be cost -- and distribution -- prohibitive. According to the American Federation of Musicians, the film may one of the largest soundtracks of any film in history, with 131 music cues. With songs by Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, The Monkees, The Byrds, Mamas and Papas, Sonny and Cher, The Beach Boys and dozens of others, the cost of licensing the music for the film is estimated at more than $300,000.

With the help of social media and donations, the film has made great progress making the release a reality where other films of this nature never make it to the public.

Please come and join us for this special screening of "The Wrecking Crew."

The Wrecking Crew screening: February 9, 2013 8:00PM at Saban Theater. Buy Tickets

• [Lee Keeler]

  Got to see this about 4 years ago at the Savannah Film Festival. Tedesco is a great guy and the doc is solid. They are also the house band on the infmaous T.A.M.I. show…we’re talking Glen Campbell laughing and clapping in the background while James Brown melts faces. 

  • [BillStewart2012]

    It was also at the Mill Valley Film Festival a few years back. 

    It’s a great film, especially if you’re old enough to have been around when that music came out.  So much of the pop music of that period had these guys in the studio.  But even if you weren’t, it’s worth getting an inside view of how the music business works to understand what’s going on today.

• [timquinn]

  Those guys were everywhere. Once you figure that out all the music from the 60s sounds different. From the batman theme to the top forty hits and some of the hippest records of the day. Los Angeles was a smaller town then.

• [billstreeter]

  Great film, saw it at the St. Louis International Film fest a couple of years ago. Too bad it’ll probably never see a wide release. Exorbitant music rights fees are making that impossible. 

  • [John Ochwat]

    I think they’re closing in on the amount they need for the music licensing … which means one of these days, it will get out beyond the festival circuit. And that’s a good thing.

• [irksome]

  Sort of off topic but if this sparks your interest you should find “Standing In The Shadows Of Motown”, a documentary about Motown’s Funk Brothers who were the greatest hit machine in popular music. They played on everything coming out of Detroit. Great story, with a live show mixed in.

  At the end, when there would normally be scrolling credits of all the songs they played on, the song names just come falling out of the top of the screen. You name it, they played on it.

• [Wizard_of_Frobozz]

  It’s worth noting that Carol Kaye, the woman shown in this trailer, hates it and says it misrepresents them.  Check out her web site for her reasons.

• [WinstonSmith2012]

  Made in 2008, NOT on DVD that I can find.  Damn.

• [John Michlig]

  These are the musicians who made the classic MARKETTS PLAY THE BATMAN THEME album. GREAT sounds.