Listening to Tommy Tedesco

You probably love listening to Tommy Tedesco.  If you are anywhere near my age, you might listen to him regularly.  You may hear him daily, if you listen to rock music from the 1960s and 1970s, or if you watch older television shows and movies from the 1960s through the 1980s.

You have heard Tommy Tedesco’s guitar on hits by Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, The Mamas and Papas, The Association, Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke, The Everly Bothers, Barbra Streisand, Frank Zappa, Cher, and dozens more.  Tommy played the theme songs for Bonanza, Green Acres, The Twilight Zone, M*A*S*H, Batman, and countless more television programs.  He worked on dozens of movies, including The Godfather, Jaws, and The Deer Hunter.

Tommy Tedesco is the most recorded guitarist in history.  For a stretch of time in the 1960s, he played in recording sessions for five days out of each week.  Tommy was part of a group of studio musicians called the “Wrecking Crew.”  Glen Campbell and Leon Russell rose to wide fame from this same select group of studio musicians.

Tommy Tedesco, and various members of the Wrecking Crew, bounced between recording studios in Los Angeles—notably, Capitol Records studio, and Phil Spector’s studio (where they became The Wall of Sound).  During the beginning of the rock and roll era, studio musicians such as Tommy played on the recording sessions for both solo artists and established bands.  Everyone wanted to work with them.  These studio musicians rarely received credit—even when, through their own musical innovation, they brought radio hits to life.

Tommy Tedesco died in 1997.  Though he never achieved widespread fame, he framed the sounds of our lives.

--Mitchell Hegman

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