SE: (laughs) I wanted to ask you about some of the drummers that came out of the British invasion like Ringo. What did you think of his playing? 
HB: Ringo did his job with The Beatles.  His job was to be Ringo.  Ringo hired me to do his vocal album.  He was a good guy.  Just like Charlie Watts.  Charlie sits there and just plays that boom, bap, boom, bap, boom, bap.  Ringo sits there and goes boom, bap, boom, bap, nothing fancy in what they do.  Not that they’re not capable of doing fancy stuff.  Charlie’s a great big band drummer.

SE: I found it interesting that The Beatles used to record ten second snippets and splice them into a song later, and with no click track.  Ringo’s meter never fluctuated.
HB: Sure. They played a very straight time thing.  Ringo was an accomplished drummer.  He played with all kinds of bands, so they knew what time was about.

SE: You also worked on some Elvis soundtracks?
HB: Elvis the Pelvis! I was traveling and working with Patti Page, who’s just a sweetheart!  Just an absolute darling.  She was married to a guy who was a choreographer at Paramount Pictures.  His name was Charles o’Kearn.  Real nice guy.  One time, when we were off the road, he said to me, “I’ve got a special job coming up…”  Meanwhile, I had been working in the studios, and with big time people.  Charles knew this, and he knew my track record and that he could count on me to work with him on this next project.  I agreed to work with him, as long as I would have enough notice.  He gave me a couple of dates when I was supposed to report to Paramount Pictures to a certain conference room. I had already been working at Paramount Pictures as an actor, and these people knew me as an actor.  When I walked in a musician, they said “We can’t use you as a musician, we need musicians, not actors.”  It took some convincing (laughs) to prove that I was really a musician.  Anyway, this whole secret project was Elvis Presley.  Elvis walked in to this room and it was like a Sinatra thing, I guess you might say, everybody was on fire.  Nobody knew what the hell was going on.  This was a secret, hello-meeting, get together… It turned out that Elvis did not like strangers around him. When he was working with people he wanted people that he knew, or people that knew that person. And I guess that Buddy Harman and DJ Fontana had convinced the people at Paramount that I would be a good guy to work with Elvis. I think the movie was “Girls, Girls, Girls”, and anyway, that’s how I got the call, once again it was like who you knew. And Charlie O’ Kearn got me in on that, and I did the music and they wanted Hawaiian stuff. The contractor at Paramount Pictures said “bring everything that you own that looks Hawaiian.” So I went to a drum shop and I rented every fuckin’ drum, percussion thing that looked anything like… I don’t care if it was from Turkey, or Taiwan it became Hawaiian! As a matter of fact I kind of became technical advisor for Hawaiian movies. (Laughs) Which is a whole other farce.

SE: (Laughs)
HB: But that’s when I met Elvis, and Elvis knew about my work and he was extremely nice, he really was a gentleman. He had all of those guys with him that were countrified guys, but good guy’s. But of course… and I’ve told this story many times, that no matter what, if Elvis said “I’m a lil’ bit thirsty” Fifteen guy’s would bust their ass to get to him with the coca-cola. Fall over chairs, music stands, anything to hand him the coke. So the first couple of years working with Elvis I’d gotten to know these guy’s real well. Joe Esposito who later came with us with John Denver, Lance Lagalt was a guy that I accidentally hired, he passed himself off as a bass player and I had no idea, I brought the guy in, and he and Elvis were Karate experts and they just fell in love instantly you know, cause Elvis used to do that shit, he’d walk across the room and without anyone knowing it he would turn on one of the guy’s, HI-YA! You know, throw a punch at em’, or kick em’ in the nuts, or knock them down or something. And these guy’s loved it! So naturally they were all studying Karate. Anyway, we always had a wonderful, wonderful time working with Elvis, good bread! Never worked so hard that it killed you. What used to killed me was that you would see a couple of new songwriters… now Ben Weissman wrote a lot of those songs, a helluva nice guy! But sometimes you’d see new songwriters and Elvis would be rehearsing their song, and you’d see these two people maybe a man and a woman, and they would just be smiling from ear to ear… they’re just so fuckin happy. They’re gonna make millions… (laughs)… and then all of a sudden Elvis would say “Ah don’t think ah like this song!” And that’s the end of it!

SE: (laughs)
HB: And you’d see these two people melt down to the floor, you know?

SE: Yeah.
HB: I guess all those stories were true… I guess. Colonel Tom would… and that’s another thing, see I go back with Colonel Tom because Colonel Tom was managing Tommy Sands. And I was with Tommy Sands and we would be having dinner all the time with Colonel Tom so I was a person that they knew they could depend upon, you know, to come in and work with Elvis. Anyway, worked with Elvis, did movies with Elvis, was on camera with him, and it was really fun. And he was a great guy. I never had any problem ever with him or any of the guys, but I did use some psychology on them. One time when I got a call from MGM where they were doing an Elvis movie…so this guy Micky at MGM says, “We need ya for the weekend of so and so…” I looked in my book, I said, “Well, I’ll tell ya, I’ll be free every day except that week”…cause these calls were like two in the afternoon til midnight. I said, “I’m free every day except Friday. I’ve got a date Friday night and I have to do that date. It’s been booked for some time.” “Well, can’t you get out of it?” “No I can’t get out of it man, you know, I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t do that to Elvis. I wouldn’t do it to anybody. Once I’m booked I’m booked!” So he said, “Well, we’ll have to get someone else.” I said okay because always had lots of drummers… Bennie Madison. They had a whole bunch of guys.

So then the phone rings a couple of hours later… “Well, Elvis really wants you and we’re gonna work it out. What’s the deal?” I said, “Well, I’ve gotta leave Friday from Culver City by 4:30 in the afternoon… because there will be heavy traffic…to get me up to Hollywood for this date. It’s an 8pm date, but I need time to take a pee and eat something.” So they say, ” Okay. No problem. You’ll get out of here!” Well we worked a week..on Friday night we’re approaching 4pm and I see we’ve still got a little pile of music to do. At that point I knew I was in trouble and if I walk out of here the shit’s gonna hit the fan because the other guys didn’t read a whole lot of music when it came to arrangements. Anyway, so I put the old psychology to work. I went to Red West who was one of the big guys with Elvis and the whole gang and I said, “I know that Elvis Presley is the star of this whole thing, but I know that you run this fucking outfit. “You’re  goddamn right to run it!”

SE: (laughs)
HB: When I got hired for this week, they told me that I could leave here at 4:30… no later than 4:30. I said, “I’m scared. There’s still a little music.” “Well goddamnit, when you’re supposed to leave, you leave! You leave it to me and don’t worry about it!” (laughs) And then I want to Joe Esposito… same thing, ” You’re goddamned right Hal, I run this fuckin outfit!” Then I went to Lance, every one of em. About five I went to…and I said, “I realize that Elvis is the star of this, but I know you run this son of a bitch!!” “You’re damn right!” So I left and about a week later I get a call from Jimmy Bowen who I worked for all the time. And Jimmy said, ” What’s this about you walking out on an Elvis Presley date?” I said, (laughs) “Where did you hear that?” He said, “Well, I had dinner with Colonel Tom the other night and he told me that you walked out on a fuckin session because you refused to cancel a session you had with me.” And I said, “That’s right!. I don’t cancel people out. I don’t do that to people.” He said, ” Goddamnit. Don’t ever do that to Elvis again!” I said,” Look Jimmy, I don’t give a shit if it’s Elvis or Frank Sinatra. If I’m booked, I’m booked!  What am I gonna do?” So he said, “From now on any time you work for me you’re gettin double scale, that’s it! Just mark double scale!” And I did…I made alot of money off Jimmy Bowen…out of the goodness of his heart. He didn’t have to do that. Then we do the ’68 comeback special with Elvis..big fuckin NBC special! And I gotta tell ya man, I listen to that every once in a while, and I played my ass off on that thing! You don’t see me…a couple of time you almost see me…but boy, you hear me on that special. At the time we finished it I was working Vegas with Nancy where I was flying in the morning back to Hollywood doin the Andy Williams..or whoever the fuck it was. I was working half the day and then I’d be back on the airplane by five o’clock and get back to Caesars’ by 6:30, take a fast shower and a shit, got the tuxedo with the bow tie and the blue jacket, and be back on stage with Nancy for the seven o’clock dinner show. And then we’d do a late show at eleven. It was a tough, tough grind. I was making a fortune. She was paying an absolute fortune! I mean a king’s ransom! Well then, I came off stage one night and you know, you’re coming off these bright lights and you walk into black and somebody grabs me from behind and picks me up…and it was Elvis. And it was really nice you know. Happy to see him. But he said, “I’m openin up at the Hilton an’ you gon’ be with me!” I said, “Elvis, I can’t be with you man. It’s impossible.”  Anyway, from there it went on and on where Colonel Tom was calling me saying, “Well, goddamnit Elvis loves you and he wants you to be in his band…” And I tried to tell Colonel Tom, I said,” Colonel Tom, it’s not a matter of money or love or anything else, but I’m working. I’m booked all the time. I cannot commute! And I know when Elvis calls a rehearsal at 3 in the morning you’re liable to rehearse for three hours..” So he says, “So what is Nancy paying you?” Now remember this was 1968. I said, “I’m getting $2500 a week, 10,000 for the month, there’s a car at my disposal. My wife had just died so I had a nanny for the kids at the hotel and there’s a driver. I said I’m commuting practically every day. He said, “You’re getting $2500 a week?” I said, “Colonel Tom what the hell are ya talking about?” He said, “There ain’t a goddamn drummer in the world that’s worth over $100 a day!” I said, “If you’re telling me to go fuck myself, okay. I’ve known you too long and I understand. But…” I said, “There’s no way”…and it would’ve been great to work for Elvis, The guys that did go with him they had a great time. But it was a tough gig for them man… They worked hard and they were always rehearsing. Elvis was getting bigger and heavier and doin’ what he was doin’… He was being Elvis. In fact, after he died, I was then with John Denver who was paying me five grand a week. I mean, here’s a guy who was paying me twenty thousand a month! And one of the sweetest people in the world, one of the nicest people anyway, as fate would have it. We hired Joe Esposito who was kind of road managing because John needed a road manager. Then we hired Burton and a couple of guys off the band. And that was the last four years I was with Denver.

SE: Have there been producers that you enjoyed working with more than others?
HB: Well, yeah. I loved working with guys like Bones Howe. He was a drummer. I worked with Dick Glasser who died recently… fine producer. Joe Saraceno… we were doing “No Matter What Shape You’re Stomach’s In.” We were doing The Ventures… all of these people he was producing. 

SE: You did The Ventures?
HB: Yeah, we were doing that on the QT. They were almost always in Japan and we were doin Ventures records that Joe Saraceno produced. “Hawaii Five O”…just a whole mess of em! 

SE: Ah. The later Ventures.
HB: I’ve got pictures of me working with Mel, their drummer, who died a couple of years ago. Anyway, there’s so many producers out there…I mean, I’d have to think about…Roy Hallee, who was kind of producing Simon and Garfunkel. They were so good! God, they were wonderful.

SE: What’s the story about you doing “The Boxer” with them?
HB: That has become a legendary story. Whatever studio we were in, Roy Halee would walk around clapping his hands looking for kind of an echo effect. And we were at Columbia in New York on the sixth floor I believe it was, and from the studio you kind of walked out and down and it went around almost like a ramp to the elevator. And he found a spot right in front of the elevator that had a tremendous echo and he loved it! This was a Sunday and we were doing “The Boxer” and they had me set up… I set up two giant tom-tom’s right in front of the elevator where Ray had found the great echo. And of course there was a line coming out for my headset, so I was obviously the only one who could hear the music…(singing) lie la lie POW! lie la lie la lie la lie lie la lie POW! And at one point my hands came down to hit that smack and the elevator door opened and there was an elderly gentleman in a security guard uniform,. And I guess he thought that he just got shot! it was like a shotgun, POW! His eyes were wide open, and scared shitless! And the doors closed and I never saw him again.

SE: (Laughing)
HB: So that’s the story, that actually happened to me.

SE: I’m surprised that you made it through the track without cracking up.
HB: The other guy’s didn’t even know what was going on, and they never did hear… his opening the elevator door and my hitting were completely in sync. I don’t think you could’ve heard the elevator ring or anything else, it just opened as I went “POW!” And this old man… he didn’t even know that anyone was in the building so it of course scared the hell out of him. And I told the guys later, I think Paul apologized to the head of security or something. But the thing I was afraid of was that the guy might have been armed!

SE: Oh yeah.
HB: I started thinking about that later, he might’ve pulled a gun out, it scared him so fuckin bad. But anyway, that’s the way shit happens.

SE: There’s another legend about how Brian Wilson came to your house and gave you all of his gold records after his dad sold his music?
HB: I don’t know if that coincided with his father selling the publishing but he did come to the house one day and he had these five giant R.I.A.A gold albums from Capitol records to Brian Wilson and he said “Hal, you should really have these.” I said, Brian you’re crazy! they’re made out to you, these are your trophies! That’s very sweet of you… I had a lot of gold records in my little office from all kinds of people. And he said “no, these should be on your wall.” and on, and on… I said, no, please Brian, please take them back home, they belong in your house! So eventually he said “okay”. And at one point I went to the bathroom or something, and I came back and my maid came in and she gave us some cookies or whatever, and we sat there bullshitin’, and soon Brian made a call home and said “okay, I’m leaving” or something, and he walked out holding gold records. And I thought it was all of them, I didn’t know. Then a couple of hours later the maid came in and said “Mr. Blaine, your friend he left something” and there were three beautiful albums. Unfortunately those albums along with all of my gold records and awards had to be sold due to my divorce.

SE: You’re kidding?!
HB: Nope. as a matter of fact about three years ago… there’s a wild thing that happened, a friend of mine, she and her husband are rep’s for west coast Rhythm Tech. They invited me to a birthday party, they said “this really nice guy, he’s a real big fan of yours and his name is John Schwartz and they call him Bermuda Schwartz, he’s Weird Al Yankovic’s drummer, a real nice guy, a big fan, and it’s his birthday” So I said sure, you know, I had nothin to do. And it was very nice, I met John and his wife Leslie, and we really had a good time. So, I was leaving, I said, I’ve gotta go, so John grabbed me and said “wait a minute, you can’t leave without a present” I said, what are you talking about? it’s your birthday it’s not my… He hands me this package, everybody’s standing around and I opened it up, and it was a John Denver gold album that he had found somewhere, one of those that I had to sell. Now I have it right here on my wall.

SE: You had to get rid of them all?
HB: Every one of them was sold except my giant one, I had one from John Denver, a great big one with ten albums in it.

SE: Are there any projects in the works right now?
HB: Well, I’m getting ready to start mixing an album that we did…  We did a live album a couple of years ago for a Japanese company but they only wanted two sides. But I recorded the whole evening, and I gave them the two sides, which they absolutely love. There’s an album out called Legends of the Drums. I know that Earl Palmer did a couple of sides, Bernard Perdie did as couple of sides, and a bunch of different drummers did two sides each for this company. Anyway, the whole evening was recorded, and there was a part of the wrecking crew. We did it at the Baked Potato and it came out great. So just this week I called the engineer from Stupid on Wheels or something like that, and I want to get in and put another album out of the rest of the songs. I hired a bunch of my friends to come in and just play you know and just shake tambourines and all kinds of shit. It was really fun. We took this great picture right out front of the Baked Potato. They were doing the Subway in Hollywood and here was this great big earthmover. And I said, lets take a picture of this thing and we all got in this thing. I was sitting at the steering wheel and there was the wrecking crew. It was great. It was great.

SE: And this album isn’t out in America?
HB: There’s two of them as far as I know. They’re in Japan. But anyway, I’m gonna put this album out and I’m just gonna call it “Party of Seven” or whatever, by the Wrecking Crew – recorded live at the Baked Potato. We just had a ball! 

SE: Have you thought about doing a beats record for DJ’s to sample from?
HB: Well, there’s all kinds of samples out there. I remember Shelley Manne called me one day saying that he saw an ad in a magazine that said, we have Shelley Manne and Hal Blaine sampled. His lawyer took care of it and they squashed that real quick. But it’s not against the law I mean. You know people do it all the time. Someone just recently told me that there was a guy at RCA, they’re talking about doing a CD version of my “Deuces, T’s, Roadsters, and Drums.” That was an album I did on RCA with a great picture on the front of me sitting at the drums surrounded by hot rods. And that was an album with Glen Campbell, Leon, and that whole gang, and they asked, “did RCA call you about this?” I said no, they don’t have to call me. They can do anything they want, if they spent ten grand on it (in those days was a lot of money) if they spent ten grand on it. And they only sold seven thousand dollars worth of records if maybe not even that much. I probably still owe them five grand.

SE: (Laughs)
HB: You know, on advance, that type of thing. So I said, they don’t have to call me. I don’t have to sign anything, and I said, even if they sell a bunch of them… Now RCA might be different but the rest of them are all thieves out there. You never see anything. You never get anything.

SE: Probably until you call them, yeah.
HB: Even when you call them, MCA owns everything. Even when I call and talk to them they say, “Well, you know, you’ve got a royalty of thirty four dollars coming but we don’t write checks for under a hundred dollars.” Something like that. So I said, so meanwhile for the whole year that thirty-four dollars, you’re gaining interest on that, that I could be getting, you know? “Well I’m sorry, that’s the way it is.” So you’ve gotta go hire a lawyer and spend ten thousand dollars to get five hundred dollars.

SE: That’s why everybody’s doing their own manufacturing and shipping. Soon, they won’t need the big labels anymore.
HB: Oh of course! The way the business is today, that’s why Capital is closed. Now all they do is re-package. RCA, repackage. Columbia, repackage. This new record, you know, my daughter will handle it. She handles my website. I want no part of any of that shit. But I’ll do an album and she can sell it.

SE: I printed your discography from the web. It’s about ten pages long but it still looks a little incomplete.
HB: There’s just over eight thousand singles.

SE: Jesus!
HB: I know! It’s crazy.

SE: You mentioned that you worked with Keely Smith. Did you play on her early solo albums?
HB: I did on her reprise stuff yeah. But I also worked with Sam Butera and the guys. I did some of that stuff with them early on. Their original drummer Jimmy Vincent was a friend of mine.

SE: Is Jimmy still with us?
HB: You know? I think he is, but I’m not positive.

SE: I recently saw him on a Louis Prima documentary. But a lot of the interview footage was kind of old.
HB: Well I think I saw Jimmy on there being interviewed. He looked rather heavy. He used to be a skinny little guy like all of us. But at one point, Louis had fired his band, and the band was Jimmy Vincent and Rolly Dee and those guys and they went out and became the “Goofers.” And I wanna tell ya, they were one of the biggest things to ever hit Vegas. And Jimmy Vincent used to do this number (Laughs) where they’d be on stage, and it would be dark and you’d here the drums start pounding and the spotlight would hit him, and it was a gorilla.

SE: Laughs. Kind of a la Ernie Kovacs
HB: Well sort of yeah. But this was Jimmy Vincent wearing a big gorilla thing over his head and he’d just beat the shit out of the drums and he would do funny bits on stage. This was one of their famous bits. And at the end of the thing, they’d play a big ending and Jimmy would stand up and take a bow and everybody’s screaming. And he’d reach up (laughs) and he’d pull this big head dress thing off and underneath he was wearing another one and he looked like a ninety year old man, bald headed… It was hysterical! Just hysterical! And the Goofers for a long time were one of the hottest acts in Vegas.

SE: And this is when Louis fired the band?
HB: This was after Louis got rid of the band, when he married Keely. Seems he didn’t want the band around.

SE: But he brought them back eventually?
HB: After they got divorced (laughs). Anyway, they were great guys and when I first met them, I was in one of those funny hot bands working Vegas. Same kind of shit lounges. We did pantomime and all that kind of shit. I had married a gal from New Orleans and I had met the guys in Vegas and we became friendly, you know. Fellow Drummer, and Rolly Dee. He was a good bass player, upright bass which looked good while he was playing. Then eventually here I was, I became sort of a big studio drummer and then they came into town and I don’t remember what the circumstances were with Sam and the Witness’. And of course I know all their shit backwards,  everybody did.

SE: Have you had a chance to go over some of the TV and movie soundtracks you did?
HB: You know? (Laughs) It would take about two weeks… Okay, I have in front of me a list. There’s, let’s see… seven pages top to bottom.

SE: Jeez!
HB: There’s Elvis’ “Girls, Girls, Girls,” “Blue Hawaii,” the movie “In Like Flynt, “Payton Place,” “Batman,” “Beach Balnket Bingo,” “Hell’s Angels,” “Monterey Pop Festival,” “The TAMI Show”….

SE: The Monterey Pop Festival?
HB: I had the house band. We played for everybody. Let’s see, “Burt Bachrach Special,” “Petula Clark Special,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “Movin’ With Nancy Sinatra,” “Hanna- Barbara Cartoons,” “The Graduate,” “The Happening,” “Roustabout,” “Elvis 68 Special,” “Mannix,” “ It Takes A Thief,” “The Monkees,” “The Brady Bunch,” “Ride The Wild Surf,” “Psych Out,” “Speedway,” “Outa Sight,” “The Matt Helm Films.” Too many to list. “Live A Little Love A Little,” “The Partridge Family, “The Sterile Cuckoo,” “Myra Breckinridge.” I’m just sort of jumping over some of these… “The Mod Squad,” I did an on- camera thing, “Simon and Garfunkle Special,” “Muscle Beach Party,” “Fun In Acapulco,” “Love Story,” “Valley Of The Dolls,” “Dirty Dingus McGee,” “Carpenter’s Special,” “This is your Life.” I don’t remember who the fuck it was…

SE: (Laughs)
HB: “Bless The Beasts And The Children,” “Bobby Sherman Show,” “Walking Tall,” “Sigmund And The Sea monster,” “The Blob,” “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” “The Nutty Professor,” on camera in that one. “Bloody Mama,” they’re showing that one a lot lately. “The Raquel Welch Special.”

SE: Yeah!
HB: “American Pop,” “Any Which Way You Can,” “Every Which Way But Loose,” “Barefoot In The Park,” “Break Out,” “Cannonball Run.” Well anyway, this is only the fourth page. I mean, it goes on and on and on here. “Mork And Mindy,” “The Ropers,” “The Ringo Starr Special.”

SE: Oh, the Ognir Rrats thing?
HB: I have no idea.

SE: (Laughs)
HB: “Laverne and Shirley,” “The Barry Manilow Special.” Steve, as I said it just goes on and on and on. “George Jones and Friends,” “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” “Knots Landing,” “Streets Of Fire,” “John Denver Special.” Too many to list. “Bernadette Peters Special,” “S.W.A.T,” “The Bionic Woman.” It just goes fucking on and on. “The Barry Manilow/ Nelson Riddle Special,” “Back To The Future,” “Dirty Dancing.” I forget when we finished this but it says here, “at this writing there have been many many more film scores that have used the old records as a part of their soundtracks. There’s too many too list.”

SE: What do you think about the fact that in the last fifteen years that most soundtracks consist of mostly old records rather than original scores?
HB: I love it!

SE: Really?
HB: Yeah, because we get paid.

SE: (Laughs)
HB:     That’s one of the greatest things about the union. It really does help, especially when you’re retired and there’s no more work and your fucking ex-wife got it all.

SE: What about the “odd couple,” TV or movie?
HB: I don’t think I did that.

SE: I think that was Neal Hefti.
HB: Might have been Neal, yeah. I did Batman originally with Neal.

SE: The drums on the TV version of the Batman theme sound huge!
HB: I was shooting my gun and hitting the big gong. I just had an idea, “Let’s get some gunshot’s goin.” So Emil Richards went into his bag of tricks and he pulled out a little starter pistol and it went ‘pop.’ It did nothing. So I reached into my briefcase and pulled out my thirty-eight, filled it full of blanks, and kept firing it at this great big gong. That was great, and they loved it.

SE: And that was used in some of the background music?
HB: I think we were doing Batman album at the Big Studio at RCA as I recall. There were a lot of musicians.

SE: Am I correct in assuming that you also played on Glen Campbell’s records?
HB: I played on a bunch of em, yeah. I didn’t do all of his major hits, I did “Galveston.” But I was Jimmy Webb’s drummer with “Macarthur Park” and all that stuff. But the thing is when Glen got his contract and started doing his stuff, most of us by then were busier than hell. It was impossible to do stuff unless you wanted to get us at three in the morning which was not possible. But there were a lot of dates that we’d do late at night with Glen. Then we did a lot of stuff that he did with Anne Murray  He did a bunch of records with her.

SE: You also worked on the John Lennon “Rock and Roll” album. Was that through Phil Spector?
HB: Through Phil Spector, yeah.

SE: So you played on all of the tracks that Spector produced?
HB: Right. We worked on an album out there.

SE: What was that experience like?
HB: It was great! Lennon was a real gentleman… early in the evening!

SE: (Laughs)
HB: And then he became a monster after all the booze and finally Phil had to just cut him off. He said “no more nothing!” “You can’t start drinking until we finish the session.” But I had some nice talks with John. The Beatles knew who I was. I had worked with George, Ringo and so forth. I was not a complete stranger and I usually got in there early enough to double-check my set because I was playing double drums with Jim Keltner. And John was usually there tuning up. And we just had some really nice talks about the old days and the Beach Boys and all that kind of shit. But he was very nice. He came down and hung out on my boat. We had a nice morning together. Took a little ride then we had brunch. He was then estranged from Yoko. He wasn’t a real happy camper.

SE: Didn’t you play on a Ray Charles album also?
HB: Yeah.

SE: Which one was that?
HB: Well I wish I could tell ya.

SE: (Laughs)
HB: Ray was a complete gentleman.

SE: Was this during his later “ABC” records?
HB: I’m not sure. It was done at Ray’s studio. Ray did all his own engineering. He sat at the board and got it all down the way he wanted it. He did it!

SE: Wow.
HB: He’d say “shut it off!” and someone would hit the off button and he’d go in there and listen to it. He did all his own mixing. Ray was a nice man. I took some pictures of him that I recently loaned to MTV. They use a lot of my photographs. I remember that when I went in… I was a shutterbug. I was taking pictures all the time when I could. I was never obnoxious about it. And at one point we were on a break and Ray was doing some work at the piano, so I got my camera and took some pictures of him. His manager at the time.. shit I don’t know if I knew his name then. He’s manager was kind of a well known disc jockey before he got with Ray and he became Ray’s manager. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he started yelling over the talkback, “Hey drummer! Don’t be taking them pictures of Ray!” I said, “Oh I’m terribly sorry, I meant no offence”, you know. Ray said, “Hal, take all the pictures you want man! Shut up in there!” So I did (laughs). I took a few more. Nine or ten pictures, but as I say, I was not obnoxious about it and get up in somebody’s face.

SE:     Was there ever any competition, or whatever you want to call it. Between you guys (the Wrecking Crew) and Motown musicians?
HB:     No, not at all.

SE:     Because that was also another strong crew of musicians.
HB:     Well the thing was… I’ve mentioned the fact Berry Gordy… oh, in the last few years he’s admitted that we did the first Motown records out here.

SE:     I never knew that!
HB:     Well, most people don’t.

SE: Which songs?
HB: Well, we don’t really know because we did these untitled songs and then Hal Davis, the guy that worked for Motown, he would take all the tapes back first class on the same airplane. Then they would run all of these groups through and whoever was the best you know…. Because we’re pretty sure that we did “Baby Love” and a whole bunch of the really early stuff and of course they never said that we did. But in the last few years Gerry Gordy admitted that we did the first stuff out here in L.A.

SE: Wow, that’s something I’ve never read or know about!
HB: Well, as I said, most people really don’t know. But we did not do all of them.

SE: Where did the name the Wrecking Crew originate from anyway?
HB: The Wrecking Crew was just a gag name that I came up with because the old guys used to say that we were going to wreck the business.

SE: Do you feel that the studio guy’s today equal the studio guy’s 30 or 40 years ago?
HB: Well, it depends on the guys. A lot of the guys here moved to Nashville. There’s a whole bunch of guys that are great studio players down there. I don’t know if they get to play the variety that we played. We could go from a classical date to a nine piece Rock n Roll scream n hollering date.

SE: Most guys from today were brought up on Kiss and Saturday Night Fever.
HB: Right.

SE: But guys from the 60’s… like you said, could play Dixieland, or Jazz, or Be-bop, or Rock, or whatever. Just really well-rounded.
HB: Sure, I don’t know this to be a fact, but it seems that the kids today, they’re into Motley Crue and just play as loud, and as hard, and as fast… and put the cymbals up as high as you can stand up to reach them. You know, it’s all show. And when I do clinics and I tell the kids that if you want to do that kind of thing, just tune into VH1 every night and watch that show “Where Are They Now?” because they’re all fuckin junkies that wound up with no money, no families, no nothing! But then you’ve got Jim Keltner who’s really doing it in LA. The guy that I was with all the time in the studios, was Earl Palmer, Earl and I were doing everything! If they couldn’t get me, they got Earl. If they couldn’t get Earl they got me. That type of thing. And we were doing everybody! And as I said, I would leave from Henry Mancini doing “Love Story, to (laughs) God… some outrageous, Loud Rock, or maybe Dixieland with the mamas and papas. The point I’m trying to make before I get too far off track is that most of us got into the studios because we were doing demos and we were learning how to play in the studios. We were getting techniques and after a year and a half, two years of basic training, then you’re ready to step into the so called Big Time. Because you know what you’re doing. Because you have the experience. Today I don’t know that the kids have the experience. They’ve been rehearsing in a garage for a year and they’ve got a band together and they’ve been recording in this garage good, bad, or indifferent. But it’s only one particular style…. Now I’m sure that there are lots of drummers out there who are studying and learning about various things. When I went to school in Chicago, there were five hundred drummers and in the first hour you were studying Rumba, second hour Tango, third hour Dixieland, you know. It went like that. They were really listening to everything. Today I don’t know if kids do that. A lot of these kids have great chops and they can play rudiments all day long. I don’t know that they can play with the band. So that’s kind of a tough one. Who knows where it’s going? I don’t know.

SE: Yeah. There’s a lot of crap out there.
HB: The thing is that some of that so called ‘crap’ is crap to us but I’m sure a lot of our stuff in the beginning, the older folks said the same thing. “What kind of craziness is that?” You know, they were talking about Rock n Roll in those days… it was just Blues, you know. We were just playing backbeats! It’s hysterical.

SE: Well sir, it has been an honor to speak to you. Thank you so much for a great interview.
HB: Sure Steve, anytime. My pleasure.