Veteran session bassist and 2025 Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame inductee Carol Kaye stated she will not be attending this yr’s ceremony, claiming that it does not mirror “the work that studio musicians do and did within the golden period of the Sixties.”
Kaye was inducted into the Corridor this yr through the Musical Excellence class. The 90-year-old bassist has performed on an estimated 10,000 recordings, together with works by the Seashore Boys, Simon & Garfunkel and Frank Zappa, and was a part of the Los Angeles-based musical collective the Wrecking Crew.
The pioneering bassist revealed her determination to not attend the Rock Corridor ceremony in a Fb publish, which you’ll be able to learn under.
Why Is Carol Kaye Declining the 2025 Rock Corridor Ceremony?
“Folks have been asking: NO I will not be there,” Kaye wrote. “I’m declining the RRHOF awards present … turning it down as a result of it wasn’t one thing that displays the work that studio musicians do and did within the golden period of the Sixties recording hits.”
Kaye stated she additionally declined the “Denny Tedesco course of,” referring to the director of the 2008 documentary The Wrecking Crew, which featured her. Regardless of being part of the collective, Kaye stated they weren’t identified by that identify whereas they had been energetic, and that drummer Hal Blaine got here up with it years later.
“You might be all the time a part of a TEAM, not a solo artist in any respect,” she continued. There have been all the time 350-400 studio musicians (AFM Native 47 Hollywood) working within the busy Sixties, and known as that ONLY. Since Thirties, I used to be by no means a ‘wrecker’ in any respect — that is a horrible insulting identify.”
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Kaye then detailed how she switched from guitar to bass out of necessity and have become one of the vital prolific recording artists to ever decide up the instrument.
“Simply so you realize, as a working jazz musician (soloing jazz guitar work) within the Fifties working since 1949, I used to be unintentionally requested to report data by producer Bumps Blackwell in 1957, received into recording good music with Sam Cooke, different artists after which unintentionally positioned on Fender Precision Bass mid-1963 when somebody did not present,” she defined.
“I by no means performed bass in my life, however being an skilled recording guitarist, it was plain to see that three bass gamers employed to play ‘dum-de-dum’ on report dates wasn’t getting it. It was straightforward for me to invent good bass strains. As a jazz musician, you invent each be aware you play, they usually used lots of jazz musicians (and former big-band skilled musicians on all these rock and pop dates too).”
Kaye stated that finally, she feels the Rock Corridor ceremony does not correctly acknowledge the group contributions of the myriad classes musicians with whom she labored. “I refuse to be a part of a course of that’s one thing else moderately than what I imagine in, for others’ profit and never reflecting on the reality,” she wrote. “All of us loved working with EACH OTHER. Thanks for understanding.”
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These exclusions are significantly egregious.
Gallery Credit score: Bryan Rolli
