Ronettes – "Be My Baby" (1963)

So won’t you say you love me

I'll make you so proud of me

The famed studio drummer Hal Blaine died earlier this week.  He had just turned 90.

Blaine, who was the drummer on some 6000 records, coined the name “The Wrecking Crew” to describe the group of brilliant but largely anonymous Los Angeles-based studio musicians that he worked with on a regular basis.  

Hal Blaine

Blaine was the drummer on no fewer than forty #1 hits by an amazingly diverse group of artists, including the Beach Boys, the Byrds, Captain & Tennille, the Carpenters, John Denver, Neil Diamond, the 5th Dimension, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Jan & Dean, the Mamas & the Papas, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Johnny Rivers, Simon & Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, and Barbra Streisand.

The secret to Blaine’s success was his versatility and his willingness to take a back seat to the singers he worked with:

I’m not a flashy drummer.  I never wanted to be a Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich.  I wanted to be a great accompanist, and that was my role on this song.  A song is a story, and if you interrupt the story with your playing, you’re not doing anybody any good at all.

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In 2011, an interviewer asked Blaine to list his very best recordings.  

He came up with the following eleven:

– “A Taste of Honey” (Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass)

– “Strangers in the Night” (Frank Sinatra)

– “Up, Up, and Away” (The 5th Dimension)

– “Mrs. Robinson” (Simon & Garfunkel)

– “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” (The 5th Dimension)

Blaine with “Wrecking Crew” pal Glen Campbell

– “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” (Simon & Garfunkel)

– “Love Will Keep Us Together” (Captain & Tennille)

– “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” (Nancy Sinatra)

– “Everybody Loves Somebody” (Dean Martin)

– “A Little Less Conversation” (Elvis Presley)

The last record Blaine named as being one of his very best was – get ready for it – Richard Harris’s “MacArthur Park”:

It’s a work of art, but what’s amazing is that it even happened.  Richard Harris got me on a plane to England, but instead of doing any recording, I wound up having a 10-day party with Richard and his actor friends, all of them big names, wonderful people and world-class drinkers.  We finally had to fly back to L.A. to get with “The Wrecking Crew” and record the song. . . .

Everybody used to laugh about this song. . . . But this was Jimmy Webb’s poetic genius.  I thought it was a masterpiece when we were doing it.  I really did.  And here’s the really mind-blowing part: the basic track was cut in one take!

Haters gonna hate, but Blaine was right: “MacArthur Park” is a masterpiece.

I would think the opinion of a legend like Hal Blaine would be enough to persuade you of the truth of that statement.  But if it isn’t, don’t forget that 2 or 3 lines also holds a very high opinion of that record.   In face, “MacArthur Park” was one of the eleven members of the inaugural class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  

Case closed, motherf*ckers!

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2 or 3 lines has already featured “MacArthur Park.”  

So today we’re featuring “Be My Baby,” the 1963 Phil Spector-produced hit that opened with an instantly recognizable Hal Blaine drum riff.  

Click here to listen to “Be My Baby,” which Brian Wilson once declared to be the greatest pop record ever made.  Beach Boy Mike Love has written that Brian was “entranced” by “Be My Baby,” which represented “pop perfection” to him: “When we’d go to Brian’s house, he would play that song over and over again, comparing it to Einstein’s theory of relativity.”  

Brian Wilson and Hal Blaine

So it should come as no surprise that Wilson chose Blaine to play drums on his masterpieces, Pet Sounds and “Good Vibrations.”

Click on the link below to buy “Be My Baby” from Amazon: