Meet Carol Kaye, the Unsung Bassist Behind Your Favorite 60s Hits

Car­ol Kaye: you may not rec­og­nize her name but chances are you’re famil­iar with her work.

Now 81, the lady has laid down some deeply icon­ic bass tracks in a career span­ning 55 years and some­thing in the neigh­bor­hood of 10,000 record­ing ses­sions.

Joe Cock­er’s “Feel­in’ Alright”?

The Beach Boys hits “Help Me, Rhon­da,” “Sloop John B,” and “Cal­i­for­nia Girls.” 

The theme song to The Brady Bunch?

Nan­cy Sina­tra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ ”?!?

Holy cow, talk about some­thing to tell the grand­kids.

Her inter­view for a nev­er com­plet­ed doc­u­men­tary above left me with none of the melan­choly I felt on behalf of the under-rec­og­nized back up singers pop­u­lat­ing the recent film Twen­ty Feet from Star­dom. This may be due to some rock and roll gen­der inequal­i­ty. The girls far out­num­ber the boys in the ranks of back­ing vocals, where looks play an unde­ni­able part, at least when the band’s out on the road. Kaye’s con­tri­bu­tions occurred in the record­ing stu­dio. She appears plen­ty con­tent to have num­bered among an elite team of hard work­ing, clean liv­ing Los Ange­les ses­sion musi­cians.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, she was one of a very few women in the field, though girls, take note: her web­site has 115 play­ing tips for fledg­ling bass play­ers. Boys are free to take note too…

Now that you’ve “dis­cov­ered” this leg­end, may we sug­gest set­ting an hour aside to get to know her bet­ter in the longer inter­view below? Also make sure you see our relat­ed post: 7 Female Bass Play­ers Who Helped Shape Mod­ern Music: Kim Gor­don, Tina Wey­mouth, Kim Deal & More

Relat­ed Con­tent:

7 Female Bass Play­ers Who Helped Shape Mod­ern Music: Kim Gor­don, Tina Wey­mouth, Kim Deal & More

The Neu­ro­science of Bass: New Study Explains Why Bass Instru­ments Are Fun­da­men­tal to Music

The Sto­ry of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music His­to­ry in 8 Min­utes

Paul McCart­ney Offers a Short Tuto­r­i­al on How to Play the Bass Gui­tar

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, and cre­ator of the award win­ning East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday