Carol Kaye

At 89 years old, Carol Kaye physical status not available right now. We will update Carol Kaye's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

In 1957, Kaye was playing a gig at the Beverly Cavern, Hollywood, when producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell invited her to a recording session for Sam Cooke's arrangement of "Summertime". She realised she could make significantly more money with session work than playing in jazz clubs, so took it up as a full-time career. In 1958, she played acoustic rhythm guitar on Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba", recorded at Gold Star Studios, Hollywood. Through Gold Star, she began to work with producer Phil Spector, playing electric guitar on Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans' "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" and The Crystals' "Then He Kissed Me", and acoustic guitar on The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". Along with several other musicians including drummer Hal Blaine and guitarist Glen Campbell, her work with Spector attracted the attention of other record producers and she found herself in demand as a regular session player.

In 1963, when a bass player failed to show for a session at Capitol Records in Hollywood, she was asked to fill in on the instrument. She quickly discovered she preferred playing bass, and found it was a key component of a backing track and allowed her to play more inventively than the relatively simpler guitar parts she had been playing until then. From a pragmatic viewpoint, it was easier to carry a single bass to sessions instead of swapping between three or four guitars depending on the song. After bassist Ray Pohlman left studio work to become a musical director, Kaye became the most in-demand session bassist in Los Angeles.

Kaye continued to play guitar on numerous other hit songs in the 1960s and 1970s, including the twelve-string electric guitar on several Sonny & Cher songs. She also played twelve-string on Frank Zappa's album Freak Out! At the time, it was unusual for women to be experienced session players; nevertheless Kaye remembered sessions being generally good-humoured and united by the music.

Kaye was the sole regular female member of The Wrecking Crew (though she has said the collective were never known by this name, which was later invented by Hal Blaine), a collective of studio musicians who played on a large number of hit records from Los Angeles in the 1960s. Throughout the decade, while at the time unknown to the public, Kaye played bass on a substantial number of records that appeared on the Billboard Hot 100. According to the New York Times, she played on 10,000 recording sessions. She appeared on sessions by Frank Sinatra, Simon & Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Barbra Streisand, The Supremes, The Temptations, the Four Tops and The Monkees. She played electric bass on Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", while Chuck Berghofer played double bass. She also came up with the introduction on fellow session player Glen Campbell's hit "Wichita Lineman". Kaye later said that during the 1960s, she would sometimes play three or four sessions per day, and was pleased that so many of them created hit records.

Through her work with Spector, Kaye caught the attention of The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, who used her on several sessions, including the albums Beach Boys Today, Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!), Pet Sounds and Smile. Unlike other sessions, where she was free to work out her own bass lines, Wilson always came in with a very specific idea of what she should play. By Pet Sounds, Wilson was asking musicians such as Kaye to play far more takes than typical sessions, often running over ten passes of a song, with sessions stretching well into the night.

By 1969, Kaye was exhausted and had become disillusioned from doing session work, saying that the music had "started to sound like cardboard". At the same time, many newer rock bands disapproved of using session players, preferring to play the instruments themselves. She decided to make a change so her career evolved from playing primarily pop music to performing mostly soundtrack work, as well as writing and teaching. She wrote How To Play The Electric Bass, the first in a series of tutoring books and instructional video courses. Her soundtrack sessions from this time included playing on the themes to M.A.S.H., The Streets of San Francisco and Across 110th Street. Kaye had already performed on a number of soundtracks and had worked closely with Lalo Schifrin, playing on the theme to Mission: Impossible and the soundtrack for Bullitt. She regularly collaborated with Quincy Jones, later saying that he "wrote some of the most beautiful themes I've ever heard in my life". Kaye was also a part of Jones' orchestra at the 43rd Academy Awards.

In the early 1970s, she toured with Joe Pass and Hampton Hawes, and continued to do sessions. In 1973, she played on Barbra Streisand's single "The Way We Were", which was cut live, and was told off by producer Marvin Hamlisch for improvising bass lines. In 1976, she was involved in a car accident, and semi-retired from music. She continued to play sporadically, appearing on J. J. Cale's 1981 album Shades.

In 1994, Kaye underwent corrective surgery to fix injuries stemming from the accident, and resumed playing and recording. She collaborated with Fender to produce a lighter version of the Precision Bass that reduced strain on her back and made it more comfortable to play. In 1997, she collaborated with Brian Wilson again, playing on his daughters' album, The Wilsons, while in 2006, Frank Black asked her to play on his album Fast Man Raider Man alongside fellow session stalwart, drummer Jim Keltner. She was featured in the 2008 film The Wrecking Crew along with a cast of other studio musicians. In one interview segment, she said that she believed at the peak of her session activity she was making more money than the US president.

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