Hidden Hit-Makers: History’s Most Iconic Session Musicians

A handful of documentaries released since the turn of the new century, from 2002’s Standing In the Shadows of Motown to 2013’s Muscle Shoals, have helped us put names and faces to the backing musicians that brought some of our favorite recordings to life.

It can be surprising to learn just how many classic recordings were churned out by the same small teams of musicians. For discerning listeners, these seasoned session players may be just as responsible for the impact of the music as the artists whose names grace the covers. Let’s meet some of the most prolific in history.

The Funk Brothers

Before the release of Standing in the Shadows of Motown, different explanations for the genesis of the ‘Motown Sound’ abounded: It was the effervescence of singers like young Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross; the Midas touch of label head Berry Gordy; even the feel and warmth of Studio A, the humble basement where the music was recorded.

None of those things hurt, but the easiest answer was often the most overlooked: the session musicians—collectively known as “The Funk Brothers”—were a constant force behind all of the Motown’s greatest hits.

When Berry Gordy needed musicians for his new Motown label in 1959, he poached them from the jazz and blues clubs of Detroit, hand-picking musicians like bassist James Jamerson to become the core of his in-house band.

To balance tones from multiple percussionists (Jack Ashford, Benny Benjamin, “Pistol” Allen, Uriel Jones, and Eddie “Bongo” Brown), keyboard players (Joe Hunter, Earl Van Dyke, and later Johnny Griffith), and guitar players (Robert White, Eddie Willis, and Joe Messina), the Funk Brothers had to operate as a unit, listening to and making space for their fellow players—dialing back performances and egos in service of grooves.

By day, the Funk Brothers provided the backbone and backbeats for a slew of hits by artists like The Contours, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, and The Four Tops. By night, they let off steam from their pressure-filled day jobs by playing jazz and blues back in the clubs of Detroit.

Ideas from a previous night’s jam session might make it into the next day’s recording session. As tambourine/vibes player Jack Ashford says at one point during Standing in the Shadows of Motown, The Funk Brothers had played together for so long that “the only thing that ever changed was the changes”.

Everyone knows “My Girl” as a classic by The Temptations, but could you imagine the song without Robert White’s iconic guitar hook throughout?

Earl Palmer

When Motown relocated to Los Angeles in 1972, essentially dissolving The Funk Brothers, drummer Earl Palmer landed on the label’s short list of local studio musicians.

An entertainer since the age of 5, Palmer tap-danced alongside his mother in black vaudeville shows in their native New Orleans, performing as “Baby Earl Palmer”. After serving in World War II, Palmer learned piano, percussion, and sight-reading at The Gruenwald School of Music in New Orleans. Soon after, he began a drumming career that spanned four decades and thousands of recordings.

In New Orleans, Palmer played on classics likes Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti”, Fats Domino’s “The Fat Man” and Smiley Lewis’ “I Hear You Knocking”. In 1957, Palmer moved to Los Angeles and found work with Ricky Nelson (“I’m Walkin’”), Eddie Cochran (“Summertime Blues”) and Ritchie Valens (“La Bamba”, “Donna”).

In the 60s, Palmer played on songs by The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, The Mamas and the Papas, and Frank Sinatra. He also branched out into film and television, providing drums for TV themes like “The Flintstones” and “Mission: Impossible”, and full-fledged movie scores like “In the Heat of the Night” and “Cool Hand Luke”. The musician’s union counted Palmer as playing on 450 dates in 1967 alone.

Though his work slowed down in the 70s and 80s, Palmer could still be heard on records by Randy Newman, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, and Elvis Costello. “The drums [are] an accompanying instrument, really,” Palmer has said. “If you don’t know how to accompany, then you’re not a good drummer, you’re just a soloist.”

Listen to The Fats Domino song, “The Fat Man”, below and you can hear—despite the mix—Palmer’s trademark backbeat driving the song. That groove, still novel in 1949, would soon become a staple of rock and roll. “That song required a strong afterbeat throughout the whole piece,” said Palmer. “With Dixieland, you had a strong afterbeat only after you got to the last chorus. It was sort of a new approach to rhythm music.”

The Wrecking Crew

In LA, Earl Palmer fell in with a collection of musicians sometimes referred to as “The First Call Gang” due to their status as the go-to session players for producers of the day. The group would evolve over time, eventually earning a new name, coined by one of its young drummers, a friend of Earl Palmer’s named Hal Blaine. Blaine dubbed the collective “The Wrecking Crew”.

Pick a record to come out of Los Angeles in the 60s and chances are that The Wrecking Crew’s fingerprints are all over it, even if their names aren’t. They helped Phil Spector create his “wall of sound” and The Beach Boys get their “Pet Sounds”. They laid down the groove for Nancy Sinatra’s walking boots and they built Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”.

As guitarist Bill Pittman put it: “You leave the house at seven o’clock in the morning, and you’re at Universal at nine till noon; now you’re at Capitol Records at one, you just got time to get there, then you got a jingle at four, then we’re on a date with somebody at eight, then the Beach Boys at midnight, and you do that five days a week…jeez, man, you get burned out.”

Not that anyone was complaining. Guitarist Tommy Tedesco– who wrote a regular column called Studio Log for Guitar Player Magazine in the 70s and 80s, documenting his studio exploits–said “When that red light goes on, whether it’s running a race or playing guitar, whatever it is, all the adrenaline goes through the body. Some guys are at their best then, some say they’re at their worst. I’m at my best with the pressure.”

Bassist and guitarist Carol Kaye‑one of the few women to achieve such success in the boys’ club that was the studio musician scene‑has commented non-chalantly that at one point she was making more money than the President of the United States.

A few members of The Wrecking Crew, notably Dr. John, Leon Russell and Glen Campbell, went on to enjoy solo careers later on, while Hal Blaine is considered by many to be ‘the most recorded drummer in history’.

In the rare studio footage below, you can hear the group in all their good vibrating glory, buoying the classic Beach Boys track with direction from Brian Wilson. (That’s a young Hal Blaine behind the drumkit).

A film about The Wrecking Crew—produced and directed by Tommy Tedesco’s son, Denny Tedesco­—was completed in 2008 after 12 years of filming, but has yet to receive distribution. The problem? Tedesco needed to raise funds to license the massive amount of music The Wrecking Crew performed on. Tedesco has since raised the money via Kickstarter, and says a commercial release of the film is coming soon.

Joey Waronker

Drummer Joey Waronker may not fit the mold of a typical studio musician. He doesn’t hail from a collective and isn’t known for his contributions to chart-topping pop hits. In fact, Waronker’s initial reaction to the idea of becoming a session musician was that “It sounded awful. [Like I’d be] like the kind of guy who would beplaying on radio commercials.”

Waronker’s technical ability in a wide range of styles, however, have made him one of today’s most in-demand drummers for those subsets of music that were once affectionately called “Alternative”. Hang out in a dorm room at a liberal arts college, zip through an iPod on the floor next to someone’s bong, and you’re likely to find at least one record that Waronker has played on.

Aside from being a mainstay in Beck’s live and recording bands for years, Waronker has recorded tracks for Elliot Smith, Smashing Pumpkins, X bassist John Doe, R.L. Burnside, AIR, Gnarls Barkley, M83, and Paul McCartney, to name a few. He’s also one of the few people not named “Bill Berry” to ever play drums for the band R.E.M. (Waronker toured and recorded with the band after Berry quit in 1997).

Waronker can currently be heard in the band Ultraista alongside producer Nigel Godrich and singer Laura Bettison, and again with Godrich, Flea, and Thom Yorke in their newer group Atoms for Peace.

Waronker’s drumming can be heard on the Beck song “Novacane” below, interspersed with sampled drums. (Waronker’s drumming begins at 25 seconds).

Booker T. and the M.G.’s

Detroit and Motown had The Funk Brothers. Memphis-based Stax Records had Booker T. and the M.G.’s.

As part of the house band for Stax in the 60s, Booker T. Jones (organ and piano), Steve Cropper (guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass) and Al Jackson, Jr. (drums) provided the backing tracks for artists like Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Bill Withers (until 1965, when Steinberg was permanently replaced by Donald “Duck” Dunn).

Grantland’s Steven Hyden makes the case that Booker T. and the M.G.’s might have been the American rock band of the mid-60s. They were perhaps unique for a major group of session musicians in that they put out their own instrumental albums in addition to session work. The M.G.’s were also one of the first fully-integrated rock bands in America, hailing from the South no less.

“Hold On, I’m Coming’” by Sam and Dave or “In the Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett would be fine examples of Booker T. and the Mug’s’ prowess as backing musicians. But since studio musicians are so rarely given the spotlight of the stars, instead check out the band’s original instrumental–and #1 hit–“Green Onions” below.

The Swampers/The Muscle Shoals Sound

Less than 200 miles from Memphis, in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, something similar was happening: As with Stax, white and black studio musicians were working together every day, this time to create grooves that crossed the lines between R&B, soul, and country.

Producer Rick Hall, along with partners Billy Sherrill and Tom Stafford, started FAME Recording Studios in the heart of Muscle Shoals in the late 50s. (Hall would later assume sole ownership). Hall used the proceeds from the label’s first hit recording in 1961, Arthur Alexander’s “You Better Move On”, which was soon covered by The Rolling Stones, to build a new studio on Avalon Avenue, where it still sits today as an Alabama Historical Landmark.

Muscle Shoals is often praised for its magical environment, and the effect it has had on visiting musicians and their music. (The Rolling Stones and U2 both recorded there). FAME’s homegrown talent provided plenty of other reasons to visit, though.

As Lynyrd Skynyrd name-checked in “Sweet Home Alabama”: “Now Muscle Shoals has got The Swampers/And they’ve been known to pick a song or two.” A bit of a conservative estimate. The Muscle Shoals rhythm section aka “The Swampers”–originally Barry Beckett (keyboards), Roger Hawkins (Drums), David Hood (Bass), and Jimmy Johnson (guitar)–actually played on over 75 gold and platinum records. They backed up Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Etta James. That’s them underneath The Staples Sisters’ “I’ll Take You There” and Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman”.

Despite these hits, the musicians themselves were so unknown that more than once, a popular black performer asked to record music with a ‘really funky black rhythm section like Muscle Shoals’ (The Swampers themselves were all white).

In 1969, The Swampers left FAME to start their own recording studio nearby, called Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. This splintering move did not diminish the great output from the quiet town on the banks of the Tennessee River. Instead, it doubled. . Rick Hall brought new musicians into FAME and never missed a beat, recording hits from the Osmonds, Clarence Carter, and Mac Davis in the 70s. Hall was nominated for a Grammy for “Producer of the Year” in 1970. Across town, The Swampers played on records like Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” and The Staples Singers’ “I’ll Take You There”. They also introduced more mainstream artists, like the Stones and Bob Seger, to the town and the studio, affirming its place in musical lore. In 2009, The Black Keys recorded their album “Brothers” there.

Listen to Wilson Pickett’s “Land of 1000 Dances” below and get a load of Roger Hawkins’ indelible drum breaks at 40 seconds and a 1:20.

The Dap-Kings

In 2001, in a modest Bushwick, Brooklyn brownstone, Gabe Roth and Neal Sugarman set out to make their own version of Motown—a tight-knit family of polished funk and soul musicians working together to make unforgettable music. So far so good.

Daptone Records rose from the ashes of Roth and Sugarman’s previous venture, Desco Records, and its current success stands in stark contrast to its messy, humble beginnings. As Roth attempted to turn his brownstone into a viable recording studio on a shoestring budget during a brutal New York winter, his label’s future stars helped him wire his electricity (Sharon Jones), install radiators (Charles Bradley), and knock down walls (The Budos Band).

In 2014, Daptone is a thriving outlier in the music industry. For one thing, its label heads, Roth and Sugarman, are members of The Dap-Kings, Sharon Jones’ backing band. Guitarist Thomas Brenneck began with the Dap-Kings, then joined the label again with his own group, The Budos Band. He now leads the Menahan Street Band, the house band of his own Dunham Studios (Dunham Records is a subsidiary of Daptone), and Charles Bradley’s backing band.

Artists like Hank Shockley, Mark Ronson, Amy Winehouse, and Michael Bublé have all used the Daptone Musicians for their own recordings. Listen to Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” below, and from the first drum hits and bassline, you can hear a sound unique in the current musical landscape.

James Jamerson

The tortured geniuses are supposed to be at the front of the stage, but legendary bassist James Jamerson made his career as a sideman. Many would argue he was the most brilliant player to ever provide low-end.

An original Funk Brother, Jamerson and his mother moved from the South up to Detroit during the auto boom of the 50s. As a child, Jamerson would take a long stick, attach a rubber band to it, and go behind his house to ‘make the ants dance’. He soon learned to play the piano, at his cousin Louise’s house, but wouldn’t touch an actual bass until he was a high-school student in Detroit. As friend Clifford Mack explained for the book Standing in the Shadows of Motown, he and Jamerson met in the hallway on the way to the music room and “When we got there, we started checking out different instruments trying to figure out what we wanted to play, and after a while, James noticed the upright bass laying on the floor in the back of the room. He picked it up and started strummin’ it and he said, ‘I’ll be playing this within six months’.

Jamerson’s son, James Jamerson, Jr. recalled that his father saw and heard music everywhere, even in the ba-dump ba-dump movement of a large woman’s backside as she walked by outside the studio one day.

In Standing in the Shadows of Motown, The Funk Brothers recall that Jamerson was usually the first to kick off a groove, or the first to join it once it had already started, and that he had a preternatural understanding of his instrument. And he did it all using just “The Hook”, the nickname of his right index finger, the only finger he used to pluck the strings.

Jamerson was undoubtedly a virtuoso, even in spite of himself. One famous story revolves around the recording of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? Gaye–desperately wanting Jamerson to play bass on his album–stopped by a club where Jamerson was performing one night and asked him to visit the studio afterward. Jamerson obliged, but being both loaded drunk from binge drinking and exhausted, he could barely sit upright to play. So he didn’t. Jamerson played the charts to one of Marvin Gaye’s all-time classics while drunkenly lying on his back on the studio floor.

That was the talent and musical love of James Jamerson. Listen to an isolation of Jamerson’s bass and Gaye’s vocals on “What’s Going On?” below and note how you can almost hear the whole song just in the bass. For a bonus, check out the following video made by Jack Stratton of Vulfpeck (another modern collective of studio musicians) that shows a visualization of one of Jamerson’s most unforgettable basslines, Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in my Life”.

Blake Madden is a musician and author who lives in Seattle.

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