Hal Blaine
b. Harold Simon Belsky, 5 February 1929, Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA. Drummer Blaine claims to be the most-recorded musician in history. The Los Angeles-based session musician says he has performed on over 35,000 recordings (c.1991), including over 350 that reached the US Top 10. Blaine began playing drums at the age of seven, owning his first drum set at 13. A fan of big band jazz, he joined the high school band when his family moved to California in 1944. After a stay in the army, he became a professional drummer, first with a band called the Novelteers (also known as the Stan Moore Trio) and then with singer Vicki Young, who became the first of his several wives. At the end of the '50s he began working with teen idol Tommy Sands, then singer Patti Page. At the recommendation of fellow studio drummer Earl Palmer, Blaine began accepting session work in the late '50s, beginning on a Sam Cooke record. His first Top 10 single was Jan And Dean's Baby Talk in 1960. His huge discography includes drumming for nearly all of the important sessions produced by Phil Spector, including hits by the Crystals, Ronettes and Righteous Brothers. He played on many of the Beach Boys's greatest hits and played on sessions for Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, the Association, Gary Lewis And The Playboys, the Mamas And The Papas, Johnny Rivers, the Byrds, Simon And Garfunkel, the Monkees, Neil Diamond, the Carpenters, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Herb Alpert, Jan And Dean, the Supremes, the Partridge Family, John Denver, the Fifth Dimension, Captain And Tennille, Barbra Streisand, Grass Roots, Cher and hundreds of other artists. In the late '70s Blaine's schedule slowed down and by the '80s his involvement in the LA studio scene trickled to a near halt. In 1990 he wrote a book about his experiences, HAL BLAINE AND THE WRECKING CREW.