Legendary Session Bass Player Leland Sklar On “All Mixed Up”
There’s a good chance you know the name Leland Sklar, especially if you read a lot of liner notes in the 70’s and 80’s. He was on just about every record you bought.
You might not know the name Tommy Tedesco, but as a member of the legendary Wrecking Crew, he played on hundreds of recording sessions for artists like the Beach Boys, the Fifth Dimension, the Monkees, and Frank Sinatra. Tommy’s son Denny documented his dad’s work on “The Wrecking Crew,” a film that shined a light on that group of musicians who literally provided the soundtrack to our lives.
Denny is back with another recent documentary called “Immediate Family,” which tracks the rise and collaborations of another group of legendary session musicians – Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel, and Waddy Wachtel through the 1970s and onward.
Denny is joined by the legendary bass player Leland Sklar who made contributions to some of the most iconic artists in rock including Carole King, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Keith Richards, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Lyle Lovett, Phil Collins, and more.
“Immediate Family” is a look behind the scenes at another era of music. It’s currently showing on various streaming platforms.
Denny – “That’s my dad”
JIM MONAGHAN – Denny, I’m going to start with you, and it’s really more of a comment than a question. You, of course, had done The Wrecking Crew documentary, and your dad was a part of the Wrecking Crew. And all I could think of, Denny, was you as a kid with your friends, with the radio on, going, “Yeah, that’s my dad. Yeah, my dad’s on that. Yeah, that’s my dad,” watching television, “Yeah, my dad’s on that, too.”
What was that like for you?
DENNY TEDESCO – I didn’t know any of it, really. Dad went to work. He didn’t know what he did. He’s recording, let’s say, four sessions a day, four different recordings, maybe three or four different recordings. He’s doing a bunch of songs for each artist. He doesn’t even know who the artist is. Sometimes they aren’t even showing, you know, like Phil Spector.
A great example was the Fifth Dimension, when he did “Up, Up and Away,” and it was Jimmy Webb that gave him a nice charm with a Grammy on it, a Grammy charm to put on the bracelet. And he said, what’s this for? He goes, well, that’s for the song we do with the Fifth Dimension. It’s got Album of the Year and Song of the Year. My father had no idea because he was constantly working. He never really took note of what he was doing. It was impossible.
They didn’t spend time with the artists like these guys (Immediate Family) did in the 70s. These guys spent way more time with the music and with the artist. So in a sense, that my father did a lot of factory work. In a sense, it was quick and get in and get out. It sounds awful, but it’s not that bad. It’s just the way the business was.
Leland Sklar on “The Producer Switch”
JIM MONAGHAN – Leland, you mentioned working with Tommy Tedesco, Danny’s dad, and you just did an interview fairly recently with Rick Beato, and you told an amazing story. I know you’ll tell it better than I will, but Danny just mentioned the number of instruments that his dad played. You tell an amazing story in that interview with Rick.
LELAND SKLAR – It might have been a show like Airwolf. It was a tv show. And we were at Universal Studios, used to have a recording studio on the grounds where we did like Magnum PI and all these shows. And we had baffles set up that would be like this high, so you’d kind of see half of somebody’s face. So it was kind of like Kilroy in there for those that would know that.
But I’m sitting next to Tommy, and the conductor is way across the room, and there’s probably about 40-piece orchestra in there. And Tommy, he goes, could you play, like, try, like mandolin on this? So Tommy bends down to pick up a mandolin and starts playing. He goes, no, I don’t hear that. And he goes through a litany of instruments that he would, and Tommy just keeps bending over and picking up another.
Well, I’m dying because I’m looking at Tommy, and all he has is his acoustic guitar with him. So he just keeps bending over like he’s picking something else up until the guy finally heard what he wanted to hear.
And that’s when I looked at Tommy afterwards. I said, “In all my years,” I’ve been playing since I was five years old, and I’m watching this, and I said, “I just learned more in five minutes how this business works than I’ve learned in my entire life up to this point.”
And that’s when I went home and I drilled a hole in my base and put a fake. I just put a switch on it had no wires or anything going to it. So when people would ask me for a special sound, I would make sure they could see you flip the switch. Then I would just play in a different position and they’d go, cool, that’s great. But it’s kind of like there’s so much of this. It can really be smoke and mirrors.
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