MusicRadar

Carol Kaye in the '60s, with a Fender Precision and go-go boots, workin' on a groovy thing...and another Top 10 hit.

Some folks have to pad their resumes, but in the case of Carol Kaye, who from the 1950s and into the 1970s was one of the busiest session musicians around, laying down distinctive bass and guitar tracks on scores of Top 10 smashes and literally thousands of recordings, even a bullet-point sampling of her accomplishments boggles the mind.

Phil Spector, The Beach Boys, Ray Charles, Simon & Garfunkel, The Monkees, Joe Cocker, Sam Cooke, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, The Supremes, Glen Campbell, Sonny & Cher, Lou Rawls...just some of the artists who benefited from Kaye's low-end fretboard magic.

Next we have Kaye's equally impressive work in film: In The Heat Of The Night, The Pawnbroker, The Thomas Crown Affair, In Cold Blood, The Long Goodbye, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and dozens more. As for the small screen, you've heard Kaye on themes like M.A.S.H., Mission Impossible, Ironside, Hawaii 5-0, The Brady Bunch, Hogan's Heroes, The Addams Family - here, too, the list goes on and on.

Often called the Queen of Bass or the First Lady of Bass, Kaye, a woman very much in what was then a man's man's man's world, was an integral part of the group of Los Angeles-based musicians that drummer Hal Blaine dubbed "The Wrecking Crew" (a tag Kaye disowns). Since retiring from active studio work, she went on to become an in-demand instructor and best-selling author of instruction books.

As it's Bass Week on MusicRadar, we can think of no one better to kick things off than Carol Kaye. In the following interview, she remembers the glory days of the '60s, when she worked with some of the biggest names around. "People were surprised to learn that this little white girl was playing such funky, groovy stuff on a bass," she says. "But I was just doing what came naturally."

How did you start playing sessions?

"I was a guitar player. I had been playing since the age of 13. By 18 or so, I was out there playing gigs - jazz and bebop. It was a good way to learn and improve my ear and my ability to improvise. When somebody looked at you and said, 'Play!' well…you had to play! [laughs]

Plus, the gigs paid well, so it put food on the table. My family didn't have much money. I had gotten married very young, had two kids, and by the age of 21 I was divorced and was living back with my mother – with my two kids.

"At that time in Los Angeles, there were hundreds of clubs and places to play. It wasn't like it is now. If you were good and wanted to play, you got your chance. I was a white girl with blonde hair, but I was welcome in the black clubs. If you could play, then you were welcome. And I was welcome.

"I wasn't really looking to do sessions, because I was getting a good name in the jazz clubs. But this producer, Bumps Blackwell, came in and said, 'You want to do a record date?' By this time, rock 'n' roll was getting into a lot of clubs, so I figured I would do the session. It turned out to be for Sam Cooke."

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