R.I.P.: Hal Blaine, Prolific 'Wrecking Crew' Drummer

Hal Blaine  February 5, 1929 – March 11, 2019

Hal Blaine, the Hall of Fame session drummer and virtual one-man soundtrack of the 1960s and ’70s who played on the songs of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys and laid down one of music’s most memorable opening riffs on the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” died Monday.

Blaine died of natural causes at his home in Palm Desert, California, his son-in-law, Andy Johnson, told The Associated Press. He was 90, according to Billboard.

On hearing of his death, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson called him “the greatest drummer ever.”

The winner of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award last year, Blaine’s name was known by few outside the music industry, even in his prime.

But just about anyone with a turntable, radio or TV heard his drumming on songs that included Presley’s “Return to Sender,” The Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were,” the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” dozens of hits produced by Phil Spector, and the theme songs to Batman, The Partridge Family and dozens of other shows.”

I’m so sad, I don’t know what to say. Hal Blaine was such a great musician and friend that I can’t put it into words. Hal taught me a lot, and he had so much to do with our success - he was the greatest drummer ever. We also laughed an awful lot. Love, Brian pic.twitter.com/vLOX3RIKc6

— Brian Wilson (@BrianWilsonLive) March 11, 2019

“Hal Blaine was such a great musician and friend that I can’t put it into words,” Wilson said in a tweet that included an old photo of him and Blaine sitting at the piano. “Hal taught me a lot, and he had so much to do with our success -- he was the greatest drummer ever.”

As a member of the Los Angeles-based studio band “The Wrecking Crew,” which also featured keyboard player Leon Russell, bassist Carol Kaye and guitarist Tommy Tedesco, Blaine forged a hard-earned virtuosity and versatility that enabled him to adapt quickly to a wide range of popular music. According to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he played on 40 No. 1 hits, 150 top 10 songs.

Blaine also played on eight songs that won Grammys for record of the year, including Sinatra’s “Strangers In the Night” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

He may be the only drummer to back Presley, Sinatra and John Lennon.

Some accounts have Blaine playing on 35,000 songs, but he believed that around 6,000 was more accurate, still making him a strong contender for the most recorded drummer in history. In 2000, he was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame.

Out of so many notable sessions, his signature moment was the attention-grabbing “on the four” solo -- Bum-ba-bum-BOOM -- that launched the classic “Be My Baby,” a hit for the Ronettes in 1963 that helped define Spector’s overpowering “Wall of Sound” productions.

The song remained a radio staple for decades and got new life in the ’70s when it was used to open Martin Scorcese’s Mean Streets and again in the ’80s when it was featured in Dirty Dancing.




Blaine nicknamed himself and his peers “The Wrecking Crew,” because they were seen by their more buttoned-down elders as destructive to the industry -- an assertion that Kaye and others disputed. Many members of The Wrecking Crew worked nonstop for 20 years, sometimes as many as eight sessions a day, a pace that led to several marriages and divorces for Blaine.

As more bands played on their own records and electronic drums arose, business dropped off in the 1980s even as younger musicians, such as Max Weinberg of the E Street Band, cited his influence.


The son of Jewish immigrants, Blaine was born Harold Simon Belsky in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

By age 8, he was already drumming, using a pair of dowels he removed from a seat in the living room.

He was a professional by age 20 and within a few years switched from jazz to rock.