I hope someone says that about me when I die

Amen to that pal!

You haven't heard ALL the interviews. I heard an interview where he talked about John Lennon and said he was a mean drunk.

Not "was"... "IS".

Did you mean TOMMY TEDESCO?

Did you work everyday?

Hofner54 .....💕very gentle talking

Hal praised Earl repeatedly for this. He kept his humility throughout his career.

Sal Guglielmino Think of them as two kick drums and move on.

I'm not a musician and I know about him. I started reading people's comments on The Partridge Family song's videos, he was their drummer and The Monkees' drummer and The Beach Boys' drummer. He's a great drummer! So I tell people about him and about The Wrecking Crew...

Sal Guglielmino I know what your saying,Ya tell people about this mind blowing thing and they look like their lost.Its been a few years since I learned about it all and I still can’t believe it.From Half Breed to Indian Reservation to Close to you to I woke up in love this morning to A Cowboys work is never done to A little bit me A little bit you. The list goes on and on and on and on,and their all masterpieces He is the most brilliant drummer of all time.Hal Blaine,The Master of all the Masters,and a hell of a nice guy to.RIP.

Rock on!

Absolutely !!!!!!!!

👍That would be good to hear 😉

Man, to have his career...

Me too....

I share that story! It was the same for me and I only found out that one guy was my teacher until many, many years later.

Awesome

I bet Brian Wilson/Herb Alpert would have helped had they known .. .

🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪

A+

robert...yea, but he had more than earned the bragging rights to " be full of himself", and I know that you agree with that. What a fantastic career he had and what incredible musicality he added to all of the songs that he drummed for.

Elvis, Sinatra, Cash... hey, I'd be pretty full of myself if I had that CV.

He said himself elsewhere that every drummer is an exhibitionist. That’s ok.

He can back it up !

As Yogi Berra said, it ain't bragging if you've actually done it. And Hal actually did it.

Cut him some slack, he’s 84, and was recorded on 150 top ten hits, 40 number ones, that was Hal Blaine playing the drums on most of the hit songs you remember from rocks greatest years. I should be so lucky to reach 84, and still remember my own name.

That’s the thing… most people would be surprised - shocked, even - to know that the musicians who recorded their favorite songs were not who they thought they were. Most would be completely unaware that instead of their favorite band, it was this same group of middle-aged, mostly male, white musicians, even on many of the Motown hits.

Actually, it depends on which album. Karen was the exclusive drummer on their first album by the original name of Offering, which was later changed to Ticket to Ride. She played drums on some of the songs on the Close to You album, and the 3rd album, Carpenters, also on the A Song For You album, This Masquerade, and etc. She played all but one song on the Now & Then album, which had the oldies medley on the entire side 2. Hal played Jambalaya while she played all the rest of the songs for that whole album. Then on Horizon she was the exclusive drummer on Please Mr. Postman, Happy, and some of the others songs so, in a nutshell, they shared drumming duties on some of the albums. On some, she was the exclusive drummer except for maybe one song here or there. Then own some of the other albums he played most of the songs when she only played a couple. In the early years of the concerts she was the only drummer, then they added a guy for a few songs in the concerts during 1972, then by 1973 they added Cubby O'Brien to share in the drumming duties, both of them playing together, which is absolutely awesome to watch. So, yeah. Hal Blaine is awesome, and Karen definitely thought he was awesome, but she also played all, some, or a few of the songs on the albums, depending on which album. LOL! So what is being said in the interview is a little bit misleading. I'm sure Hal did not mean for it to come across that way. It's just how it was with a short interview and segment for him talking about Karen, Richard and the Carpenters music.

I haven't seen/heard Cubby play, but there are lots of videos on KZfaq showing Karen on the drums. She was no slouch in the drumming department. She was quite capable with a drum kit.

@@kb6kgx she surely was and she is the reason that I even try to play now. Lol. I was 11 years old the first time I saw her sitting behind a kit and singing Close To You. I about fell out in the floor. 1970 and a girl is playing the drums. LOL. I love to watch her play Johnny B Goode, Mr. Guder, some of the ones that have a real jazz sound, but she can knock it out on the Johnny Be Goode cover. I think the best I've seen on KZfaq though is actually the entire concert from 1972 Australia. She plays probably 3/4 of the concert or more. It's probably more than that cuz I don't think she gets up from behind the kit but maybe three songs, and then she's at the kit, the drummer throughout the concert. Freaking amazing, one of the best drummer/singers out there. Drummer/singers are a rare breed anyway. But she did love Hal Blaine. She thought the world of him and Joe Osborn. That's another thing I always loved about Karen. She never got the big head. She stayed humble.

@@SayItAintSo4real I heard Richard say in a interveiw that Karen had Ludwig build her a drum set just like Hal's. And your right about the 1972 Australia concert. I think it's one of their best live perfomances of their career. She really knocks it out of the park singing and playing the drums on the Burt Bacharach medly.

It's not about "honesty" --it's about getting the best sounding music recorded in order to have the best chance at releasing something that will be a "hit." It's a business. Studio time is expensive and session players are usually pro's pros who are accustomed to working in the studio environment (as opposed to playing live on the road) and can get tracks down quickly and efficiently, getting what the producer wants with as little hassle as possible. Session players are used because they have tremendous musical ability and versatility, as Hal's career demonstrates so well. Hal's job was not to express his personal artistic vision on every session--it was to provide the skill and the chops necessary to realize the recording artist's or producer's vision and at this he was unsurpassed. I agree, however, that in a perfect world the actual players ought to be credited on the release, but for the most part, their playing was considered as "for hire" and they were not considered as "artists" in the music industry sense of the word "artist", meaning the person or group whose record it is. Would you really rather have heard the actual Monkees playing on all their records or would you rather have heard these guys? I happen to own "Justus" the album on which the Monkees actually played. (Just Us-get it?) Trust me, you would rather have heard the Wrecking Crew.

Today's music world is a little different that it was in the heyday of the Wrecking Crew with so much more technology making it possible to produce releasable content from a home studio. I would say that the traditional studio monster/crack session player is still alive and well in Nashville, where you still have professional songwriters writing songs for artists who do not write as opposed to every artist just covering their own songs. Nashville has guys like Brent Mason, Michael Rhodes, Matt Rollings and Eddie Bayers who have a lot in common with the Wrecking Crew in that they are on hundreds if not thousands of records.

@@therealniksongs Tony Bennett can hire whomever he wants, but if I were to find out that the Beatles and Stones did not play on their albums it would be a real disappointment. Fortunately, I don't expect that to happen.

@@therealniksongsHollywood is in the business of selling fiction, and you could think of these records as fiction when it comes to the role of the musicians. However, passing off fiction as reality is not universally approved.

@@therealniksongs In a sense, it's more fake than ever, where a producer with a computer can create an entire track and "play" all the instruments. And then the credited vocalist doesn't have to be able to sing, because the computer can fix that too.

Ask Carol Kaye what she thought of Hal Blaine. There was no love between THOSE two, for sure.

@@kb6kgx ❗😮

Not sure I understand what you posted.

@@kb6kgx Carol certainly played on lots of sessions but i have lost some respect for her because she has, for some reason felt the need to claim credit for sessions and work she never did, including iconic bass lines played by James Jamerson. Hal came down on her for embellishing her resume, which is really sad because she has enough legitimate credits that she simply had no need to do that. As Hal was on most of the sessions that Carol claims bass credit for, he just felt the need to set the record straight.

@@therealniksongs Agreed. I don't claim to know Carol well enough to know all of the details of her career, but we have corresponded several times over the last few years. I know that she does not have a lot of love for Hal Blaine, and I try to not get involved in that. That's her problem. The other musicians on those sessions know who was there and who was not.

@MorbidManMusic Agreed. Hal was the cream of the crop of session players. Karen was a fine drummer but it is also entirely possible that many of the Carpenters rhythm tracks might have been recorded when Karen and Richard were on the road---the way most of the Beach Boys records were---and even on stage they used Cubby. Karen always thought of herself as a drummer who sang, but good as she was, there are many, many drummers who could surpass her. But as a singer she was without peer. Hal and Joe Osborn were about as locked in of a rhythm section as has ever been recorded--and it was Joe who discovered the Carpenters and brought them to Herb Alpert. No one can rationally argue that what they did worked for the Carpenters and for all of us who have been privileged to listen for all these years.

she was great but not as good as Hal

If you really sincerely believe that you are not a competent musician get it through your thick head❤