‘Most recorded drummer in history’ played on more than 150 top-10 hits
Hal Blaine, who has died aged 90, provided the seismic backbeat and cannon-shot snare on thousands of rock songs and scores of mid-century hits – so many that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dubbed him ‘‘the most recorded drummer in history’’.
In the heady era of 1960s and 70s rock, few drummers were as busy or respected as Blaine, who kept a dozen identical kits ready to go at all times and used a roadie to hop between seven studios in a single day.
While few listeners knew his name (he was typically uncredited in the liner notes, even while filling in for Micky Dolenz of the Monkees or
Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys), he played on some 35,000 recorded tracks, including 40 No 1 singles and 150 top-10 hits, and was said to have covered the walls of his home with gold records. ‘‘If music in the second half of the 20th century were the Empire State Building,’’ Art Garfunkel once said, ‘‘Hal Blaine would be the ground floor.’’
Blaine trained as a jazz drummer before becoming a member of the Wrecking Crew, a loose collective of Los Angeles session musicians that helped create producer Phil Spector’s ‘‘wall of sound’’, a dense, rich recording style that was employed or emulated on dozens of 1960s rock records, including the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.
He played on his first No 1 single in 1961, using a brush on the snare and a soft mallet on the tom-tom for Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling in Love. He went on to lay down the beat on the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations and the Byrds’ cover of Mr Tambourine Man, and he played on the bottom of his snare head to create an unconventional military sound for Eve of Destruction, Barry McGuire’s charttopping 1965 protest song.
From 1966 to 1971, Blaine was featured on six straight Grammy Record of the Yearwinning singles: A Taste of Honey by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass; Strangers in the Night by Sinatra; Up, Up and Away and Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by the 5th Dimension; and Mrs Robinson and Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel.
Despite his blistering recording pace, Blaine was rarely known to repeat himself and often experimented with new recording techniques and instruments. He added eight tom-toms to his kit to create a drum set known as ‘‘the Octa-Plus’’, beat on an empty water cooler for the Beach Boys’ Caroline No and struck a trio of plastic orange-juice bottles for God Only Knows.
For The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkel’s 1969 ‘‘lie-la-lie’’ single, he simply struck a snare drum during the chorus – but recorded next to an empty elevator shaft to make it sound more like a shotgun than a snare.
Blaine was perhaps best known for his drumming on the 1963 Ronettes single Be My Baby, which begins with a powerful ‘‘boom ba-boom chack’’ bass-and-snare phrase. Produced and co-written by Spector, the song was ranked No 22 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest songs and was described by Dennis Wilson as ‘‘the greatest record ever produced’’.
Harold Simon Belsky was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and the family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, when Blaine was 7. Blaine – he changed his name soon after he began drumming professionally – used the dowels of a kitchen chair as his first set of sticks. His musical education began in earnest at the State Theater in Hartford, where he watched jazz drummers like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich and sat so close to the stage he said he ‘‘could smell the powder on the performers’’.
He moved to Southern California with his family at 14 and two years later dropped out of high school in San Bernardino to join the army. By the early 1960s he was settling into an anonymous – but lucrative – studio life with the Wrecking Crew.
‘‘I was living in a gorgeous mansion with my Rolls-Royce and my yacht,’’ he said, ‘‘so who cared whether they knew my name or not? I didn’t think that way because I was taking the money and running, while some well-known groups were living destitute.’’
Blaine was married at least six times. His daughter, Michelle Blaine, worked as an assistant to Spector, who was convicted of the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson. In addition to his daughter, survivors include seven grandchildren.
In a 2011 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Blaine said he was still drawn to the rock’n’roll songs that defined his career, although listening to oldies radio stations could be a dizzying experience. ‘‘It’s an amazing ego trip since I’m on so many of the songs,’’ he said. ‘‘But it has its drawbacks. You hear your youth. I hear a day at the office, or a divorce.’’ – Washington Post
‘‘It’s an amazing ego trip since I’m on so many of the songs. But it has its drawbacks. You hear your youth.’’ Hal Blaine on oldies radio stations