The Beat Goes On For The Wrecking Crew Documentary

With a little financial help, 2008 documentary 'The Wrecking Crew', which features Cher, may see a release in the near-future!

The Wrecking Crew, a group of elite but largely anonymous session musicians in Los Angeles during the 1960's, were responsible for some of the biggest hits during the decade. They worked with the likes of The Beach Boys, The Monkees, The Mamas & The Papas and of course, our favourite duo Sonny & Cher.

To gain the 'crew' some belated public recognition, Denny Tedesco, a son of one of the most prolific of those session players, spent more than 15 years making a 95-minute documentary film about the ensemble.

The film, which shows archive footage of Sonny & Cher in the studio, also features an appearance or two from Cher herself, recorded shortly before the film's 2008 planned release.

But there’s just one problem which has prevented the documentary film, simply titled "The Wrecking Crew", to be commercially released since its completion over four years ago; the film includes dozens of snippets from songs that the Wrecking Crew played on but the record companies that own the recordings want so much money from Denny Tedesco, whose total budget was less than $1 million, that he has turned to a fund-raising campaign, including an event scheduled for New York in mid-June, to meet their demands.

51-year-old Tedasco shared, “There are 132 music cues in this film, and you’ll know 99.9 percent of them but when I asked one record company for a quote, they said it was going to cost $2.5 million.”

He has managed to bargain the labels down, but, he added, “I’ve still got about 25 songs left to pay off and need to raise $175,000 before I start to see the light."

With the complications surrounding the record companies, manufacturing the film for sale has not yet been a possibility for legal reasons. However, a lucky few may have caught the film as it was screened at several festivals.

Check out the following trailer to 'The Wrecking Crew' to see a glimpse of Cher, and also one of the Wrecking Crew's most prominent member's, Carol Kye, talk about how she came up with the memorable beat to Sonny & Cher's 'The Beat Goes On'.



Further information about the film can found at its website 'wreckingcrewfilm.com'.

For more insight into The Wrecking Crew's prominence in Sonny & Cher's 1960's recording career, visit the (brilliant) website 'Behind The Making of Sonny & Cher'.