I am starting this blog instead of writing a book about my career as a studio musician, back in the heyday of LA based studio players. Before I get started on that, a bit of history. I grew up in Los Angeles, my father and two older brothers were all…
Posts Tagged with Jay Graydon
The Life And Times of a Second Call Studio Musician Part 3
Here is the latest installment of my blog “The Life and Times of A Second Call Studio Musician”. A few months ago I was in Boston thinking about when I was 23 years old and playing with Eddie Kendricks at a club on Boylston St. called “Paul’s Mall”. I searched…
The Life and Times of a Second Call Studio Musician Part 6
We left off in the year 1978, when I was still doing quite a few demos for various songwriters. As I previously mentioned I was doing work for arranger/producer Don Costa. Don had a small studio in Hollywood where we recorded lots of demos for a songwriting team that he…
The Life and Times of a Second Call Studio Musician Part 8
Before I get to more recording session news I have to tell you about the very fortuitous event that happened to me in 1979. There was a club in Toluca Lake CA called Jason’s that I started frequenting with friends of mine. Great bands played there. A fellow by the…
The Life and Times of a Second Call Studio Musician Part 10
Hi all! Well I must say thanks for reading, this thing seems to be really taking off……. So last Monday we left off in May of 1981. It was around this time that I left my cartage company R&R Express to join Andy Brauers cartage and rental company. The reason…
The Life and Times of a Second Call Studio Musician Part 12
So in this installment I’m going to backtrack a little bit. While I was doing a lot of sessions and that was going really well, the goal was still to try to get a recording contract for my band The Campaign. Toto had hit big and there were other session…
The Life and Times of a Second Call Studio Musician Part 13
We left off last week with the Paul Anka record “Walk A Fine Line” and my band The Campaign trying to secure a recording contract. We got close but the negotiations fell apart with Morocco Records. Oh well, back to the drawing board. I was still doing sessions to pay…
The Life and Times of a Second Call Studio Musician Part 15
The year 1984 started out fairly slow for my session work. In my book I have a note that I did a Sheena Easton record with Greg Mathieson producing on February 21st. I didn’t recall what song it was so I contacted Greg and he couldn’t remember either but going…
The Life and Times of a Second Call Studio Musician Part 18
The European leg of the Supertramp tour in 1986 ran from January through mid-March. Upon returning home it took a while to get back into the studio scene. That’s the danger of going on the road. When you’re out of town, producers that have called you in the past that…
The Life and Times of a Second Call Studio Musician Part 20
Hey everybody, so continuing in 1987 I started a writing relationship with one Frank Musker. Frank had written hits in the 70’s and since I was having a hard time getting the doors opened in the writer/publishing arena I thought “Hey why not write with an established writer?” Doing studio…