Carol Kaye

Carol Kaye (née Smith; born March 24, 1935) is an American musician.

She is one of the most prolific recorded bass guitarists in rock and pop music, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 65 years.

Kaye began playing guitar in her early teens and after some time as a guitar teacher, began to perform regularly on the Los Angeles jazz and big band circuit.

In 1942 he sold a piano in order to finance a move to Wilmington, California.

She later said her father was violent towards her, and she persuaded her mother to separate from him, but music was the one thing that could unite the family.

At age 13, Kaye received a steel string guitar from her mother.

She began playing sessions in jazz clubs around Los Angeles.

During the 1950s, Kaye played bebop jazz guitar with several groups on the Los Angeles club circuit, including Bob Neal's group, Jack Sheldon backing Lenny Bruce, Teddy Edwards and Billy Higgins.

She played with the Henry Busse Orchestra in the mid-1950s, and toured the US with them.

She started session work in 1957, and through a connection at Gold Star Studios began working for producers Phil Spector and Brian Wilson.

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 realized 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.

She moved into playing on film soundtracks in the late 1960s, particularly for Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin, and began to release a series of tutoring books such as How To Play The Electric Bass.

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.

After a bassist failed to turn up to a session in 1963, she switched to that instrument, quickly making a name for herself as one of the most in-demand session players of the 1960s, playing on numerous hits.

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.

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.

Kaye became less active towards the end of the 1970s, but has continued her career and attracted praise from other musicians.

During the peak of her years of session work, she became part of a stable of Los Angeles–based musicians which went by a variety of informal names, but has since become known as "The Wrecking Crew".

Her work with the collective led to her prominent role in the 2008 documentary film titled The Wrecking Crew.

Kaye was born in Everett, Washington, to professional musicians Clyde and Dot Smith.

Her father was a jazz trombonist who played in big bands.