“The Star-Maker Machinery Behind the Popular Song”

A black and white photo of a man and a woman playing the guitarLike the recent documentary on the largely unknown session musicians associated with recording studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a group that produced the sound associated with much popular music from the 1960s on, there’s an equally interesting 2008 documentary on a group of equally unknown LA-based musicians who appeared on countless albums, dating from the early years of rock and roll, but who also performed on a wide variety of other albums, movie scores, and TV themes songs.

Like the late, famed studio musician Tommy Tedesco (pictured above, with Carol Kaye) who played (among the many other well known songs) the iconic theme from this classic TV show:

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“Only Humans Can Really Get Lost…”

A man being interviewed holding a guitar

On Elvis Costello’s first season of “Spectacle” (2008) there was an interesting moment in his interview with James Taylor, in which the sort of model with which we work here at Culture on the Edge was explored briefly…

Elvis Costello: At times, I know I have a mythic map of my father’s hometown in my head, in which I move characters around in songs. Is it always a real Carolina that you’re speaking of in songs? Or is it sort of a place where longing goes? Is it an imagined place?

James Taylor: I think that that’s a very good way of describing it. It’s the sort of context of my longing, yeah. Continue reading ““Only Humans Can Really Get Lost…””