The Wrecking Crew Read Online Free Page A

up in giant piles near the exits, with those unfortunate enough to be on the bottom protected from the flames but slowly and cruelly suffocating to death.
    Hal Belsky dove under the bottom of the tent’s apron and rolled to safety in the grass on the outside, as did the bandleader and his musicians.
    â€œYou okay?” one of them asked breathlessly. Hal just nodded, too stunned to speak.
    Others were not so lucky. Those who didn’t immediately perish inside from the smoke, flames, and violent stampedes were found stumbling and crawling outside around the grounds with broken bones, incinerated lungs, and charred flesh hanging from their bodies.
    After making sure their comrades were all accounted for, most of the band members scattered, trying to help the stricken. Fellow circus performers began setting up makeshift triage areas, laying bodies out in rows. They did what they could.
    As several ambulances mercifully began to arrive, one of the drivers leaped out and shouted, “Hey, kid, give me a hand here!” Hal didn’t have to be asked twice. He immediately grabbed the end of a gurney and helped place a horribly burned older woman into the back of a waiting vehicle. He spent the rest of that day and night riding with the critically injured as they were ferried to local hospitals, making one return trip after another, trying his best to comfort the stricken.
    Witnessing all the horrible pain and suffering that day made an indelible mark on Hal Belsky’s young mind. Life was precious and for the living. He would redouble his resolve to forge a career as a professional musician, no matter what it might take, no matter where it might take him.
    *   *   *
    One came from the South, one from the West, and one from the Northeast. They shared little in common other than an innate drive, a work ethic shaped by grinding poverty, and, for now, untapped musical talent. Yet somehow, Glen Campbell, Carol Smith, and Hal Belsky—a country boy, a girl from the projects, and a street-smart city kid—all found it within themselves to relentlessly hold on to their dreams as they went out into the world.
    It would be these very qualities that would one day catapult this unlikely trio, along with a couple dozen other equally single-minded freelance musicians, into revolutionizing the music of an era—rock-and-roll music. They would become part of an aggregation known as the Wrecking Crew.

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    Limbo Rock
    Man, I can write a song better than that in five minutes.
    â€”B ILLY S TRANGE
    By the end of the Fifties, money had found the music business. Or rather, the substantial amount of cash to be made from selling popular music had suddenly caught the attention of some very shrewd businessmen.
    Building on what had begun a few years earlier with the appearances of Elvis, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard on the national scene, the operators of several small, independent LA-based record labels started to sense that perhaps rock and roll, to paraphrase the 1958 hit song by Danny & the Juniors, really was here to stay. And their gambles on a handful of new acts paid almost immediate dividends.
    Ricky Nelson, with his sultry style and teen-idol good looks—not to mention the pedigree of being Ozzie and Harriet’s second son—became a breakout star in the late Fifties for cigar-chomping, streetwise Lew Chudd at tiny Imperial Records on Sunset Boulevard. Bobby Vee, with bouncy songs such as “Rubber Ball” and “Devil or Angel,” came along just in time to save Si Waronker’s Liberty Records from the ignominy of mostly being known as the home of Alvin and the Chipmunks. And at fledgling Dore Records over on Vine Street in Hollywood, Jan and Dean made the Top 10 just before the dawn of the new decade with “Baby Talk.”
    Indie labels all, these record companies were among the first in Los Angeles to welcome up-and-coming rock and rollers with open arms. No jazz