The Wrecking Crew Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.5

The Wrecking Crew Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 31, 2025

Hi, I'm Jeff, and I am an album credits junkie. Hey, this is Album Credit Readers Anonymous, isn't it? For those of us old enough to grow up at least partially in the later LP era which then morphed into the CD era, one of the nice adornments that started accompanying rock and pop albums in particular as the sixties started wending their way into the seventies and beyond was that the actual musicians on tracks were listed. As a fan of any number of bands that tended to feature vocalists prominently, I became familiar with such names as Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye and Larry Knechtel basically when I was still a kid, since I was so enamored of poring over credits for the music I was listening to, and those three, among many others, were regularly listed. The Wrecking Crew is a loving documentary done by Denny Tedesco, the son of another name frequently listed, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, and documents the absolutely amazing number of classic hits that a coterie of session musicians collaborated on in Los Angeles. Everything is (to quote just one famous song these players contributed to) "lollipops and roses" in the documentary, with Blaine, Kaye and many others both sitting around a table communally and in separate interviews relaying their history. Unfortunately, it turns out that Kaye and Blaine in particular evidently were not on the best of terms to begin with, and this documentary reportedly soured their relationship even further (there's quite a bit of online information available about the brouhaha for those interested).

Years ago on an internet forum I habituated devoted to a label featured rather prominently in this piece, none other than Carol Kaye* herself showed up for a while and engaged with fans, even then trying to dispel certain "myths" about not just her, but some of the other members of the "usual suspects" who tended to be hired for sessions. That same forum also saw a visit from legendary marimba player Julius Wechter (who sadly passed shortly after this visit), often part of this particular cohort, and he and I in particular shared several emails due to his friendship with the late, great Dave Frishberg, who lived out his "golden years" here in my hometown of Portland and whom I got to know when I produced a concert for him. Speaking of Mr. Frishberg, I first bumped into him in a post office (!) here in Portland, where he was actually mailing a chart to a wonderful local singer I had just done a cabaret with featuring a song co-written by Dave and Alan Broadbent, so we had a long talk right there, and one of the things that absolutely surprised me was that I as an admittedly geeked out fan seemingly had a better memory of what songs Frishberg was a sideman** on than Dave himself. My hunch is these legendary players who were so highly sought after played so many sessions over the years that they all kind of became a blur, though in that regard, the "featured players" (pun intended) offered in The Wrecking Crew seem to have very vivid memories of certain sessions.

Anyone with a love of Los Angeles recordings from the sixties on will find a, well, goldmine (industry rag pun unavoidable) of information about various sessions and the way they were recorded (even if Kaye in particular has since gone on record claiming at least some elements of the documentary are pure bunk). The soundtrack of this piece is like revisiting a greatest hits package covering the biggest songs of a decade and a half or so. The talking heads alone are a who's who of music industry giants, both well known and otherwise.

*I just mentioned the term "synchronicity" in my Knock Knock 4K Blu-ray review, and kind of wonderfully one of the public relations people I deal with for product to review shares Carol Kaye's name, and she in fact handles music Blu-rays.

**Fans of Dave will no doubt know he wrote a fantastically jaunty tune called "I Want to Be a Sideman" which is worth checking out and which is in its own way rather salient to the subtext of The Wrecking Crew.

The Wrecking Crew Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Wrecking Crew is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Magnolia Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p ostensibly in 1.78:1, though actually in a whole gamut of aspect ratios as can be seen in various screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. This documentary includes both archival and contemporary segments, and as such video quality is pretty highly variable. A lot of the interview material (framed more or less at around 1.33:1) is kind of shoddy looking and may have had some kind of interlaced component in the workflow. Other segments, like the shot of Chuck Berghofer seen in the first screenshot accompanying this review, has what I'd term "true HD" quality. While old television footage and other archival material looks its age, almost all of the bounteous stills included are in great shape.

The Wrecking Crew Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Wrecking Crew features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that does offer some intermittent engagement of the surround channels in the interstitial musical moments, but this is in sum a "talking heads" effort, albeit one suffused with more music than normal. As such the 5.1 track may not be consistently immersive, but it offers absolutely secure fidelity (with an understanding that some archival moments can falter a bit). All of the spoken material is delivered cleanly and clearly. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are available.

The Wrecking Crew Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Magnolia in all their wisdom (?) has authored the supplements kind of oddly, with groupings and separate "chapters" for various interviews. Suffice it to say all of the bonus content has incredible background information on various artists and sessions, and several more iconic talking heads ranging from arranger Perry Botkin to legendary keyboard player Mike Lang are featured.

• Deleted Scenes

The Songs (SD; 10:14, 10:39, 11:21, 6:47, 6:24, 2:09, 2:25, 1:13, 7:28)




Themes (SD; 4:08, 3:19, 5:45, 2:34, 3:16, 11:30, 3:21, 6:09)




Musician Jokes (SD; 6:24)




Guitar (SD; 46:59, 5:22, 7:50) celebrates several guitarists, including Tommy Tedesco.




Engineers (SD; 10:27, 9:06, 7:58)




Artists (SD; 11:42, 7:32, 23:57) offers more time with Barry McGuire, Richard Carpenter, The Monkees and others.




Bass (SD; 9:07, 7:09)




Drums / Percussion (SD; 23:27)




Piano (SD; 5:05, 7:31, 33:47, 8:27)




Producers / Arrangers (SD; 5:01, 9:13, 11:18, 9:08, 10:37)




Horns (SD; 11:47)

• Song Credits (HD; 2:51) offers data aggregated from AFM session sheets.


• Dedications (HD*; 2:05) offers various dedications tied to various iconic songs.


• Donors, Sponsors and Kickstarters (HD*; 7:29) thanks those who helped fund the documentary.


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:27)

The inner print of the keepcase sleeve offers song credits.

The Wrecking Crew Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Despite any controversy that may have broken out after this documentary was released (Hal Blaine's "people" are pretty active on social media, downplaying any issues), The Wrecking Crew is an absolutely outstanding account of how a relatively small group of musicians helped to shape the sound of American pop and rock in the sixties and seventies in particular. Technical merits are generally solid (with an understanding that this is cobbled together from disparate sources), and the supplements, while largely in SD, are absolutely amazing. Highly recommended.