This is my blog about growing up in the 60's. I was 10 in 1964 and music was a big part of my life.
For the last nearly 15 years I've been producing music using FL STudio as my DAW , about 130 tracks are on soundcloud and about 40 are on youtube. This track is probably typical of my output.

Back in the day the radio supplied the music and  the Beatles was the music.
The BBC had the home service and the world service and the Goon Show and Jimmy Clitheroe for humour. Not much else worth listening to.
As the decade moved on so music migrated, the BBC was seen as fuddy duddy and old hat. At night we heard Luxembourg fading in and out, but some great tunes, like "The Days of Pearly Spencer" by  David McWilliams and then the Pirate Radio from boats moored just outside The UK Territorial waters. The music was more than the Beatles, a lot of American hits were played on Radio Caroline and Radio London.

One thing that was a puzzle to me was that, and whether this was an artifact of the broadcasts, or my cheap tranny but the sounds were very similar.
By that I mean the sound of the guitar or the kick drum or the snare.
It would be many decades before I discovered the real reason for the West Coast of America Sounds being so similar yet apparently sung by many many Groups.
So I will be profiling the Wrecking Crew as Musicians and also mentioning some of my favourite songs too.

This blog is also to Share my recollections of growing up in those times and to discuss the amazing music created by about 30 to 40 musicians in Studios in America. Within that number,  I'm going to include Motown and Stax, so that would be the Funk Brothers at Motown, (although when Berry Gordy started the move of  Motown from Hitsville, Detroit to LA .
He then started to use some of the Wrecking Crew to create the hits in the Studio) and the MG's in Memphis, famous for the hit  Green Onions and others
I won't delve into those musicians to deeply as the Wrecking Crew were predominate in creating a very diverse sound whilst Motown and Stax were Soul music.
Albeit some of the best music around.

If you look at the 100 top songs on the Billboard 100 and strip out the UK Bands. All the other hits were produced and recorded by a small set of musicians. For now ignore Motown and soul. Snd what we are left with is around 75 to 80 hits all performed and recorded by the Wrecking Crew. This is simply phenomenal.
100 chart hits 1964

So how did this come about, well it was a coming together of strong commercial pressures with Unionized Studios and Musicians.

Studio Bookings were in block of time. 3 hour slots, which meant that if time went over 3 hours then the musicians got paid overtime.
So the Producers endeavoured to have the best musicians recording the music. Vocals and strings would be overdubbed later.
The old school Musicians in the studios would wear white dress shirts and bowties, they required sheet music to play the music. But as the 50's gave way to the 60's so producers turned to younger and more "hip" musicians. Many of them had backgrounds in Jazz. The were used to "improv" on melody and creating ostinadoes.
The older Musicians viewed these upstarts as likely to "Wreck" the music business.
Now as good examples of "the sound " and to get what was happening. Lets look at Phil Spectre and his "Wall of Sound"
In a  nutshell Spectre had multiple guitars and horns and Double Bass.
This caused the sound to be caught in multiple microphones thereby making the sound feel huge.
One thing you will notice if you listen to Spectres work is that the vocals were dubbed on later.
You can tell this because whilst the music continues to the last bar, the words don't so the vocalists sha lala or dooby dooby till the end
As an Example listen to the Ronettes "Be My Baby" fades out with the backing singers repeating the refrain..
This occurs on many many hits by Phil Spectre as the Producer.
The words run out but the recording using The Wrecking Crew finishes to the Bar
Hal Blaine on Drums for this drops a stick and so misses the snare on beat 2 Ithink, so we get that distinctive 'Bum-ba-bum-BOOM'