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A group of veteran session musicians who played on records by Linda Ronstadt, Carole King and other 70s icons are celebrated in an amusing documentary

This is a music documentary for the connoisseurs and the heads. The Immediate Family is a rock band comprised of five guys in their 70s, a recently formed supergroup of alpha-level session musicians who have worked together for half a century, veterans of the west coast rock and country-rock scene, and who played on records by Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Carole King, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and many more.

They are Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar, Waddy Wachtel and Steve Postell on guitar, Russ Kunkel on drums and the massively white-bearded Leland Sklar on bass. These were musicians who benefited from the 70s trend of putting name-check credits in sleeve notes, and so became a professional aristocracy of the recording studio; everybody wanted to hire these easygoing,...

Director Denny Tedesco previously scored a hit among music fans with his 2008 film “The Wrecking Crew,” a documentary about the battalion of 1960s studio musicians whose names were little known even among the cognoscenti, until these unknown soldiers started to quietly get their due decades later. Although it took another 15 years after that film to come to fruition, Tedesco had an easy go-to for an unofficial sequel. “Immediate Family” focuses on a smaller cadre of players that soon came to dominate the L.A. recording scene and who were, for a time, known collectively as the Section. One thing the earlier movie had that this one doesn’t was a sense of injustice corrected, because let’s face it — in the 1970s, everybody knew their names.

Well, let’s not exaggerate — maybe not quite everyone was devoted to fondling LP packaging and devouring it for information, even in the physical media era.

Jonathan Glazer’s unusual Holocaust film The Zone Of Interest opens in four theaters in New York and LA today as Cord Jefferson’s satirical comedy American Fiction debuts in seven, the latest trenchant specialty offerings in a fall market full of strong titles as year-end approaches and the awards season clicks into high gear after Golden Globe nominations this week.

From A24, The Zone of Interest premiered at Cannes (Deadline review here), winning the Grand Prix, and the Fipresci Prize. The (actual) commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig strive to build a dream life for their growing family in a lovely villa and garden whose back wall abuts the concentration camp. The film opens with the family picnicking and frolicking on a lush riverbank, then trekking happily home.

In The Wrecking Crew, Denny Tedesco lovingly chronicled a legendary collective of musicians, his father among them, who appeared on countless studio recordings in the 1960s, revered within the business but unsung in the public sphere. By contrast, the names of the four players he profiles in his new documentary appeared on nearly every record they worked on. Other musicians sought them out, fan bases were born, and careers flourished. And, it turns out, besides being extraordinary musical talents, they’re exceptionally charismatic interview subjects — sincere, soulful and effortlessly funny raconteurs.

Receiving a one-night theatrical release Dec. 12, three days before it’s available on demand, Immediate Family is an affectionate and insightful group portrait and a sweet jolt of nostalgia for boomers — but more than that, it’s time well spent with delightful subjects who played crucial roles in shaping the popular music of a ground-shifting era.

As Billy Bob Thornton...

For filmmaker Denny Tedesco, making the 2015 film The Wrecking Crew, about a renowned group of L.A. session musicians that backed everyone from The Mamas & the Papas to The Beach Boys, was personal. He’s the son of Tommy Tedesco, after all — a Wrecking Crew guitarist and one of the prolific axemen in history — and sought to give dad his due.

Now, Tedesco is shining a light on a new, underappreciated group of session musicians in Immediate Family, a group that backed the likes of Steve Nicks, the Rolling Stones,...

Fifty-one years after the release of his breakthrough single “Doctor, My Eyes,” Jackson Browne has revisited the tune as part of Playing for Change’s Song Around the World initiative. He’s joined on the new rendition by the original “Doctor, My Eyes” rhythm section of drummer Russ Kunkel and bassist Leland Sklar along with musicians from all across the globe, including guitarist Char, singers Roselyn Williams and Chavonne Stewart, drummer Jorginho Gomes, and the African drum group Bayakanda.

“Russ Kunkel and Lee Sklar and I sat down and played...

Magnolia Pictures announced on Thursday that they had acquired of North American rights to “Immediate Family,” director Denny Tedesco’s follow-up to his 2008 documentary “The Wrecking Crew,” which was also released by Magnolia.

While “The Wrecking Crew” followed the first wave of studio musicians in the 1960s, “Immediate Family” picks up where that film left off and highlights the talents of session musicians from the ’70s, with commentary from music legends Carole King, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Keith Richards, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Lyle Lovett and Phil Collins.

“Denny Tedesco has given us another extremely entertaining glimpse behind the musical curtain of some of the most memorable songs of our time,” said Magnolia Pictures co-CEOs Eamonn Bowles and Dori Begley in a statement. “The musical talent of these studio players is rivaled by their incredibly engaging personalities and hilarious stories.”

“Immediate Family” tracks the rise and...

Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to “Immediate Family,” director Denny Tedesco’s follow-up to his acclaimed documentary “The Wrecking Crew.”

That earlier film, which Magnolia also released, followed the first wave of studio musicians in the ’60s. “Immediate Family” takes up the story where “The Wrecking Crew” ended, taking a deep dive through some of the most famous and influential session musicians from the 1970s.

To that end, the new documentary includes commentary from the likes of Carole King, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Lyle Lovett, Keith Richards, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, and Phil Collins. Magnolia will release the film theatrically in December.

In addition to talking to those music legends, “Immediate Family” tracks the rise and collaborations of session musicians Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel, and Waddy Wachtel as they help craft some of the decade’s most enduring hits.

The filmmakers say...

Yusuf (f.k.a Cat Stevens) has spent much of the past decade crafting his new album King of a Land, and he’ll finally reveal it to the world on June 16. Ahead of the release, the artist shared the video for its lead single, “Take The World Apart” on Wednesday.

“Looking at the jagged journey of my music, beginning as I did in the 60s, I would say this new record is a mosaic,” Yusuf said in a statement. “A very clearly defined description of where I’ve been and who I am.

Danny Kortchmar with Carole King in Denny Tedesco’s close-knit and illustrious Immediate Family states: “We got to meet and play with our heroes.” Photo: Denny Tedesco

Denny Tedesco’s close-knit and illustrious Immediate Family (a Doc NYC highlight which includes animation by Lewie Kloster and Noah Kloster), features on-camera in-person interviews with Stevie Nicks, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Carole King, Phil Collins, David Crosby, Lyle Lovett, Keith Richards, Steve Jordan, Peter Asher (of Peter and Gordon), Lou Adler, and Neil Young (on Zoom) on their seminal work with the masterful foursome of Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel, and Waddy Wachtel (featured in Morgan Neville’s Keith Richards: Under The Influence) on some of the biggest hits of the Seventies and Eighties. The impact of The Beatles looms large (as it did for Don Letts in Bill Badgley’s Rebel Dread) and a peak at Immediate Family,...

When Nicolette Larson was growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, she’d ask her friends to drive over bumpy roads so she could show off her Neil Young impression. As the truck moved up and down, she’d break out into a shaky vibrato.

Just a few years later, the singer found herself in a pickup again, this time with the very man she once emulated. Young — who first worked with Larson on his 1977 LP American Stars ‘n Bars, and briefly dated her afterward — was driving her around his Northern...

Carole King and James Taylor perform their own hits — alongside harmonizing on each other’s songs — in the new trailer for concert documentary Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name. The film premieres on Jan. 2 at 9:00 p.m. Et via CNN and will livestream via CNNgo. It will be available on demand from Jan. 3 through Jan. 9 via cable and satellite providers, CNNgo, and CNN mobile apps.

The exclusive trailer includes archival photos from the first time they performed together in 1970 at the storied Troubadour, alongside King and...

On Dec. 18, Joe Walsh will head into his basement and jam with with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench, guitarist Waddy Wachtel, bassist Leland Sklar, and drummer Russ Kunkel along with his brother-in-law Ringo Starr for the streaming concert “VetsAid 2021: The Basement Show,” the latest installment of the guitarist’s annual benefit for veterans’ causes. Tickets for the live event are available at vetsaid.veeps.com, and the show will be available to watch through Dec. 26.

“With variable Covid rates throughout the summer and fall, I wasn...

One of the great musical friendships and collaborations is getting a documentary of epic proportions. CNN Films and HBO Max announced today that it has ordered a documentary about the more than 50-year friendship and collaboration between Carole King and James Taylor. Directed by Frank Marshall and produced by the Kennedy / Marshall company, the concert documentary follows the duo’s 2010 reunion tour commemorating their 1970 show at the famed Los Angeles music club The Troubador. The film will premiere on CNN before eventually heading to HBO Max, reaching fans of all ages.

“I’ve been listening to and playing their music my whole life, so it’s especially meaningful to me and such an honor to be able to put together this special reunion concert by these two extraordinarily gifted friends,” Marshall said in a release.

One of the founders of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment before founding Kennedy / Marshall with his wife Kathleen Kennedy,...

A documentary about the creative pairing of Carole King and James Taylor has been commissioned by CNN and HBO Max, with Frank Marshall set as director and producer, the two companies announced Friday. Under the terms of the deal, “Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name” will premiere on CNN, while domestic streaming and international distribution rights will go to HBO Max.

Marshall, the producer of many feature blockbusters who is lately reinventing himself as a music documentarian, is coming off the warm reception for HBO’s “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.” One of that film’s producers, Aly Parker, is taking on the role here as well, along with the Kennedy/Marshall Company.

The documentary will focus on the duo’s 2010 world tour, dubbed the “Troubadour Reunion Tour.” The title referred to their having played together at West Hollywood.’s famed Troubadour...

Frank Marshall is dancing from the Bees Gees to Carole King and James Taylor.

The filmmaker is directing and producing a concert documentary about the legendary musicians for CNN and HBO Max.

Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name will premiere on CNN with HBO Max taking U.S. and international distribution.

The pair have been friends for 50 years and famously played together at LA’s The Troubadour in 1970. They got back together for a show at the venue’s 50th anniversary in 2007, where they played hits such as “You’ve Got a Friend” and “I Feel the Earth Move”, which sparked an arena tour in 2010. The film will document this tour.

It will also feature musicians including Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, and Lee Sklar, which backed the duo in 1970, 2007 and 2010.

Marshall, who recently directed HBO’s The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart and...

During Mipcom, Entertainment One (eOne) is launching global sales rights (excluding the UK) on BBC Two feature documentary Joni Mitchell: 50 Years of Blue.

The music biopic looks at the iconic singer’s life and career, spotlighting the importance of the landmark album Blue, which celebrated its golden anniversary this summer.

Directed by Teresa Griffiths, Joni Mitchell: 50 Years of Blue charts the singer’s life and career up to the point in 1970 when she began writing and recording what was to become Blue, and the life she has lived in the 50 years since. The documentary explains the background to the recording of her seminal fourth album through archive footage, interview material with Mitchell herself, and collaborators Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Russ Kunkel and James Taylor.

Pic is produced by Lonesome Pine Productions for BBC Two in the UK.

“This immersive documentary is sure to move audiences who fell in love...

Graham Nash has premiered an animated short film titled Dirty Little Secret, directed by New York-based filmmaker, animator, and painter Jeff Scher.

Inspired by Nash’s 2002 song of the same name, Dirty Little Secret depicts the 1921 Tulsa massacre and race riot using a photorealistic visual style reminiscent of Twenties silent films.

Nash says: “[Session drummer] Russ Kunkel and I knew that this story was a ‘Dirty Little Secret,’ so we wrote the song 19 years ago about the mass killing of at least 300 people and the destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa,...

Shortly after the release of her 1971 self-titled debut, Carly Simon received an unexpected opportunity: a five-night stint opening for Cat Stevens at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.

The singer-songwriter was hesitant for several reasons, including the fact that she had never performed solo or been to Los Angeles and had an extreme fear of flying. The shows were also three weeks away, and she needed to hire a band. She managed to secure drummer Russ Kunkel, who had suddenly become available after James Taylor suffered a motorcycle accident and delayed his tour.

A tiny number of Bob Dylan fans scored a valuable collectible on Sunday when a three-disc collection of songs cut in 1970, including the legendary George Harrison sessions, was quietly put on sale via the U.K. store Badlands.

“This release is strictly limited to 1 unit per customer,” the store wrote when announcing Bob Dylan – 50th Anniversary Collection 1970. “Extremely limited release. It will sell out instantly … Thank you and best of luck.”

This collection was released in response to a European law stipulating that recordings enter the public domain 50 years after...

On May 1st, 1970, just weeks after the world learned that the Beatles were breaking up, George Harrison and Bob Dylan met up at Columbia’s Studio B in New York City. Joined by bassist Charlie Daniels and drummer Russ Kunkel, their stated purpose was to start work on Dylan’s album New Morning. But midway through the day, they switched gears and started jamming on old favorites without any thought that the results would ever be heard by the public.

Unsurprisingly, word of their jam session leaked out almost immediately.

Charlie Daniels, who died Monday of a stroke at 83, was best known for his manic fiddle playing, his kinship with Seventies Southern rockers, and hits like “Uneasy Rider” and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” But over the course of his five-plus-decades career, Daniels also intersected with many non-Southern rockers, especially early on; he contributed to the Bob Dylan albums New Morning and Self-Portrait, was a member of Leonard Cohen’s touring band, and produced Elephant Mountain by the Youngbloods (home to two of their best songs, “Sunlight” and “Darkness,...

Their names are familiar to anyone who grew up on SoCal rock. In various combinations, guitarists Danny Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel, bassist Leland Sklar, and drummer Russ Kunkel contributed to countless albums by James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, and Don Henley, among many others.

What they’ve never done is make a record on their own, but after nearly 50 years of playing together, these veterans have finally done just that. Calling themselves the Immediate Family, a nod to their connections to classic-rock all-stars, the band — which also includes singer,...

Director Denny Tedesco scored with his 2008 film “The Wrecking Crew,” his critically praised documentary on the legendary session musicians of the ‘60s who performed with everyone from the Beach Boys and Phil Spector to Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley — so it makes perfect sense that he’s begun work on a film about legendary 1970s session musicians called “Immediate Family.”

This crew, which backed Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon and countless others, includes guitarists Danny Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel, bassist Leland Sklar, drummer Russ Kunkel and others.

Kortchmar, Sklar and Kunkel made up three-quarters of The Section, known for their studio and live work in support of some of the top selling singer/songwriters and solo singers of the era, as well as their own instrumental albums. (They were later joined by Wachtel.) Individually or together, in addition to the artists listed above, the musicians worked with Carole King,...

Thirty-nine years ago next month, Linda Ronstadt released Mad Love, her tenth LP as a solo artist. Ronstadt had previously topped both the pop and country singles charts respectively with high-spirited takes on “You’re No Good” and “When Will I Be Loved,” but Mad Love put the singer in new-wave rock & roll territory. While it’s actually one of her most adventurously vibrant efforts – not to mention Grammy-nominated and her seventh straight million-seller – reviews of the album were decidedly mixed.

Nonetheless, when young pay-cable company Home Box Office came...

Earlier this month, Stevie Nicks learned that she was going to become the first woman ever inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on two occasions. “My biggest hope is that I have opened the door due to the fact that there’s 22 men who have gone in twice and zero women,” she told Rolling Stone. “I think that’s really a little off balance. That’s what I’m hoping, that what’s happened here to me will give all the little rock and roll stars that...

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Csny 1974 (Rhino)

In my youth, which was their prime, I thought Csny was the greatest band in the world. Now I hear more to nitpick than I used to, but still, I knew I'd only be satisfied by the three-cd-plus-dvd edition of this release, which also includes a 188-page booklet (there's also a one-cd distillation available). It draws from nine concerts on their epochal 1974 stadium tour (plus a tenth, a December benefit appearance) to construct an ideal show of 40 songs, 21 with the full electric band on the first and third CDs and 19 acoustic (caveat: electric bass on a few) performances on the second CD.

Of course, these guys had already released a double live album, 4 Way Street, from their 1970 tour, but only eight songs here are included there as well. I'm not counting "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," because only a few seconds of the end were on 4 Way Street.

It was a brutal Winter (of our discontent), but it's finally Spring and there's plenty of new music to thaw even the most solid block of plowed snow. Here are ten of my favorite new rock/pop/dance/funk/folk tunes. Let us begin with this tremendous track (and album) from one of my favorite folk-rock singer/songwriters, the former New Yorker and now L.A.-based David Poe. Here he shares his muse on his debut single "When I Fly" from his soon-to-be-released long player When I Fly. Check him out on tour, too.

Nsfw aside, the "Leeches" video -- directed by Jessica Lauretti of the band This Frontier Needs Heroes -- is just one of the infectious tracks from the Shoulders album released by the terrifically talented singer/songwriter/composer Pt Walkley, who just happens to hail from NYC. So there.

Real Estate has released one of the...

Singer/songwriter/pianist Judith Owen proudly wears her troubadour influences -- Carole King, Laura Nyro, Joni -- on her sleeve. Hey, being informed by such grand company only works when you can deliver. And deliver she does on her latest solo effort Ebb & Flow. She even enlisted one of the best La backing bands ever -- bassist Leland Sklar, drummer Russ Kunkel, and guitarist Waddy Wachtel. "I've Never Been To Texas" is one of my favorite songs from her soon-to-be-released, delightful soft rock album. She's currently on tour with Mr. Sklar. Don't miss her!

1967

Jefferson Airplane: After Bathing at Baxter's (RCA)

This was the Airplane's second LP of 1967, and on it they took the studio freedom their two huge hit singles had earned them and went wild and unsupervised, making a real psychedelic album rather than the carefully contrived simulation of psychedelia that had been Surrealistic Pillow. The result had more avant-garde weirdness than hit singles (RCA had unrealistic hopes for "Watch Her Ride"), but the album actually coheres far better; for all the stylistic disjunctions and studio effects and Jorma Kaukonen's often-abrasive guitar sounds, and for that matter the nine-minute instrumental trio improvisation "Spare Chaynge," it flows organically, creating its own logic.

Cream: Disraeli Gears (I'm not even a Cream fan and I still have to acknowledge the brilliance of "Strange Brew," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Tales of Brave Ulysses," and "Swlabr")

Moody Blues: Days of Future Passed (early blast of prog-rock,...

Ever since the enormous success of Heart Like a Wheel four years ago, Linda Ronstadt has been by far America’s best-known female rock singer. Before that epochal album, her first with producer/manager Peter Asher, she had enjoyed moderate popularity as a country-rocker and a pop music sex symbol and had had a few hit singles, most notably “Different Drum” and “Long, Long Time.” But she was not a household word.

She is now. She’s had four platinum albums in the last four years, her newest, Living in the U.