Oh, Carol!
The acclaimed Carol Kaye at a glance...
family to support, and while I worked with the finest musicians and earned just about as much as they did, it wasn’t enough to raise a family, so I had to get day jobs.” She raised three children – two from her first marriage and one from her second – and also supported a household of six, including her mother and a live-in housekeeper/nanny, while doing studio work. Her illustrious career as a studio musician began in 1957 at the offer of producer Bumps Blackwell, and it was a life-changing move. Her first session was with Sam Cooke. Kaye’s musical chops, as well as her ability to play well with others – both literally and figuratively – opened the door to steady recording dates, and her ascent to being a first-call session player, award-winning musician, educator, and respected author of instructional books, beginning with 1969’s self-published How To Play The Electric Bass. Born in 1935 in Everett, Washington, Carol Kaye began playing guitar at 13, gigging at 14, and was on the road with a big band at 18. “My husband was the bass player and I was the guitar player,” she told BP a while back. “We travelled and played in the nicest places throughout the country. I was young, but back then, at 18, you grew up fast. When you were born in the Depression years, there were no entitlements. If you wanted to eat, you got out and worked.” Kaye began working at age nine to support her mother; at 15, prior to going on the road, she was a working musician, playing jazz and bebop guitar in Los Angeles clubs, and also worked as a technical typist. “I was cleared for top secret because I was typing manuals for the missiles they were building back then,” she says. “I had a