MUSIC
Celebrating the Queen of Bass, Carol Kaye
The fascinating story of an unsung music legend
In the early 1960s, a simple twist of fate would bring several Los Angeles session musicians together to loosely form the powerhouse collective that came to be known as “the wrecking crew.”
Over the course of the next two decades, this proficient group would play on thousands of the most popular Top 40 hits of the era. While most of the musicians had notable backgrounds in jazz or classical music, many would be furtively hired as “ghost players” on recordings publicly attributed to such rock groups as The Byrds, The Monkees, and The Beach Boys.
One such member in this venerable assembly of criminally unheralded musical talent was the legendary Carol Kaye who would become one of the most productive and prolific bassists in modern musical history.
Her website asserts that “if you have listened to the radio or watched TV since 1958, you’ve heard Carol Kaye play.”
Indeed, to say that her creative talent could be found everywhere would be a gross understatement. Her work can be heard on an estimated ten thousand recordings, many of which you’ve known all your life. You just didn’t know it was her playing bass.
