Bassist Carol Kaye performs an Epiphone hollowbody electrical guitar in April 1966 in Los Angeles, California.
Jasper Dailey/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Photos
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Jasper Dailey/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Photos
Carol Kaye, one of the prolific bassists in rock and pop historical past, mentioned she doesn’t need to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame.
The in-demand musician, who collaborated with Barbra Streisand, Stevie Marvel, The Seashore Boys and The Supremes amongst many different hitmakers beginning within the Sixties, is listed as a 2025 Corridor of Fame inductee in April alongside the late file producer Thom Bell and the late pianist Nicky Hopkins within the Musical Excellence class. The class honors artists whose “originality and affect have had a dramatic affect on music.”
Kaye, 90, introduced her choice to show her again on certainly one of rock music’s most well-known accolades on Fb earlier this week, in line with Bass Journal and different retailers.
The journal described the information of Kaye’s induction as “as a triumph to her followers and to bassists all over the place.” (Only a few ladies bassists have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame. Others embrace Tina Weymouth of Speaking Heads and The Go-Go’s Kathy Valentine.)
Kaye’s Fb put up was taken down on Thursday, however Bass Journal and different retailers shared its contents: “It wasn’t one thing that displays the work that Studio Musicians do and did within the golden period of the Sixties Recording Hits…….. you might be all the time a part of a TEAM, not a solo artist in any respect,” Kaye reportedly wrote on Fb. “I refuse to be a part of a course of that’s one thing else slightly than what I imagine in, for others’ profit and never reflecting on the reality — all of us loved working with EACH OTHER……..Thank-You for understanding.”
One other possible difficulty is Kaye’s aversion to the title “Wrecking Crew.” Coined by drummer Hal Blaine, it was given to a gaggle of in-demand session musicians within the Sixties and 70s which included, amongst others, Blaine, Dr. John, Glen Campbell, and Kaye. Kaye has publicly refuted the title previously, together with in her now-deleted Fb put up: “I used to be by no means a ‘wrecker’ in any respect….that is a horrible insulting title.”
The Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame doesn’t reference The Wrecking Crew in reference to Kaye in its present on-line content material in regards to the artist. However an outdated model of the artist’s biography on the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame web site does explicitly join Kaye to this group: “A primary-call member of the elite steady of Los Angeles session musicians generally known as the Wrecking Crew, Kaye performed on an estimated 10,000 recordings, making her one of the recorded bassists in historical past,” the biography states.
Neither the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame nor Kaye instantly responded to NPR’s requests for remark.
In a Fb put up on Thursday, musician Benny Goodman, who goes by the moniker The Neurotic Guitarist and has near 45,000 subscribers on YouTube, mentioned the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame, “saved saying she [Kaye] was from The Wrecking Crew time and again.” Goodman, who described Kaye as being like “a grandma” to him, added: “That title holds trauma for her.”
Kaye is not the primary potential inductee to push again towards the accolade. Dolly Parton initially rejected her induction in 2022. The county music star posted a assertion on social media saying she was grateful for the nomination, however did not assume she had essentially “earned that proper.” Regardless of her qualms, the artist finally acquiesced and went forward with the induction.
The 2025 Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame induction ceremony will happen on Nov. 8 on the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
