Larry Knechtel on recording "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

[elif]

How "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was recorded - as told by keyboardist Larry Knechtel

 

• bass player, guitar player, piano player
  
• 72 takes (?)
  
• The song's success resulted in him being stereotyped as a "power ballad piano player"
  
• Eventually, he couldn't listen to his own playbacks. (performance pressure?)
  

 

As a result of this interview, I listened again to BOTW, which I hadn't heard in years. I like it until the band comes in - all those strings, reverb, and the rumbly bass drum. It sounds very over produced to me now.

 

Youtube, length 5:30.

[eric]

Thanks for sharing! It's one of my favorites. I learned it when I was a young kid. Need to go brush it off and play it some more.

[KuruPrionz]

Thanks for posting.

 

Larry lived up here and gigged the "circuit". I never met him, would have made a point of it had I known he was here earlier.

I know his son Lonnie, we were in an attempted band together and have played pickup gigs a few times. Lonnie is a great bassist and horn player - Sax and EWI.

I also hired Lonnie to play bass and horns on a recording a friend got financed. He did a great job on both assignments and recommended the drummer we used as well.

 

Lonnie had lots of great stories about his dad, it's nice to see footage of Larry and get a feel for who he was. The fruit does not fall far from the tree.

 

Member of the Wrecking Crew is pretty rarified air!

[CEB]

This changed my life. Probably not for the better. ð

 

[video:youtube]

[Shamanczarek]

I was practicing this Piano part for many years almost everyday. One unique trademark thing Larry does a few times is a quick downward chord arpeggio. Never have come across this in another piece. Larry won a Grammy for his arrangement on this song.which took him several days to work out under Paul Simon's direction. Among my favorite Larry Knechtel Keyboard work is his Harpsichord on The Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" and his Piano and Harpsichord on "Lydia Purple" by The Collectors. Larry's Bass credits include Duane Eddy's late 50's/early 60s records and "Light My Fire" (Carol Kaye has claimed credit but I asked Robby about it) and a couple of other songs on The Doors first album.

[KuruPrionz]

This changed my life. Probably not for the better. ð

 

[video:youtube]

 

HA!!!! Was jamming with friends a few weeks back. Diane is a great keys player and singer, more "jazzy" most of the time or slow blues and show tunes.

All of a sudden she BLASTS out Rockin' Pneumonia and is instantly transformed from a very nice lady into a thunder thumpin' Rock and Roll Monster. Good times!

 

I love the record label, on the right center where it states: From the forthcoming United Artists LP "LA Reggae"

 

I guess "LA Reggae" wasn't very much like Jamaican Reggae?

[Docbop]

When you look back at the Wrecking Crew and those that followed there is a lot of hits and some classic recording that they made. But have to remember they made a thousands of so-so recordings in between. The thing that helped them that isn't there anymore is the sheer number of sessions a day, week, month they did. So they had lots of sessions to trying things on to find new sounds and approaches. The session scene back then was if you were on anything popular and especially on anything that hit the charts you suddenly became in demand. One of my old high school friends is still a busy bass player because he was on a number of hits, but he got the reputation of being "the bassist" for singer songwriter types. That label has kept him working to this day. Now even on a lower end my old drummer friend was doing touring for some will know people, but when off the road got into recording for a jingle writer in L.A.. He lucked into playing a one commercial that got a lot of airplay, then his phone started ringing all the time. Even being on a popular commerical would get you work. He has since quit the biz and just plays as a hobby now.

 

So it really is a business and you are only as good as the last hit you were on even if only a cookie commercial.

[KuruPrionz]

When you look back at the Wrecking Crew and those that followed there is a lot of hits and some classic recording that they made. But have to remember they made a thousands of so-so recordings in between. The thing that helped them that isn't there anymore is the sheer number of sessions a day, week, month they did. So they had lots of sessions to trying things on to find new sounds and approaches. The session scene back then was if you were on anything popular and especially on anything that hit the charts you suddenly became in demand. One of my old high school friends is still a busy bass player because he was on a number of hits, but he got the reputation of being "the bassist" for singer songwriter types. That label has kept him working to this day. Now even on a lower end my old drummer friend was doing touring for some will know people, but when off the road got into recording for a jingle writer in L.A.. He lucked into playing a one commercial that got a lot of airplay, then his phone started ringing all the time. Even being on a popular commerical would get you work. He has since quit the biz and just plays as a hobby now.

 

So it really is a business and you are only as good as the last hit you were on even if only a cookie commercial.

 

All true. Many of the songs the Wreckng Crew were hired to play were "filler" for albums and in the context of total output of the music industry in general, hit records are few and far between.

I don't have a link but I've read a few times that back then the record companies had about a 99% failure rate with recordings actually becoming profitable. The hits were like winning the lottery, impossible to do but it still happens.

if you had points on a song you could pull down some ducats.

 

I do remember buying albums when I was a kid and the first and last song on each side were usually the best ones, the rest not so much. Marty Robbins, Roger Miller, the Beatles and others are largely responsible for raising that bar and putting more good songs out per album.