Review: ‘Immediate Family’ pays tribute to the musicians who fleshed out the California sound

Session players have long understood that the gig involves bringing what you can do, then playing what’s required. It’s a legacy of professionalism and anonymity, one that the ’60s hit-song backup stalwarts known as the Wrecking Crew understood, but which morphed into something a bit different with the ’70s musicians who make up filmmaker Danny Tedesco’s affably nostalgic music documentary “Immediate Family.”

The featured players — guitarists Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel, bassist Leland Sklar and drummer Russ Kunkel — were the heartbeat to the California sound of the singer-songwriter era forged by the likes of Carole King and James Taylor. Albums such as King’s “Tapestry,” Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James,” Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy” and Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty” secured their reputations. As liner notes began listing personnel, their skills cultivated fan bases and they came to be seen less as reliable hired hands than specialized, sought-after artists.

The movie, built around interviews, archival footage and a raft of memorable songs, is Tedesco’s generational follow-up of sorts to his 2008 documentary “The Wrecking Crew.” That project was spurred by Tedesco’s desire to record his dad Tommy’s experiences playing with that legendarily versatile, unsung group, who supported everyone from Frank Sinatra to Phil Spector and Brian Wilson.

One key difference with “Immediate Family” is implied in the title. It’s a name coined much later, the one that Kortchmar, Wachtel, Sklar and Kunkel tour under now as backup veterans stepping into the spotlight. But it’s also the warm feeling they engendered in their heyday, in the studio or onstage, playing for Taylor, King, Browne, David Crosby, Linda Ronstadt, Neil Young, Stevie Nicks and countless others. As Taylor says in the film, “I felt like I was playing in a band.”

From left, Russ Kunkel, Waddy Wachtel and Leland Sklar in the documentary “Immediate Family.”

(Magnolia Pictures)

The wizard-bearded Sklar, correspondingly, saw that period as one that allowed for individuality within their duties as session musicians, noting that while he’s probably played bass on “Fire & Rain” 10,000 times, he’s never played it the same way twice. Kortchmar, meanwhile, describes their in-demand status as not about being counted upon to copy someone. He says, “We were called to be ourselves. We were character actors.”

The big names listed above show up to pay their respects on camera, as do ’80s solo giants Don Henley (who credits Kortchmar with igniting his post-Eagles career), Lyle Lovett and Phil Collins. Sure, it’s a lovefest, but its glimpse of the last great era of live-in-studio recording is an enjoyable, personality-rich one.

Also, any time you foreground artists who can background their own egos to make great music, the breezy jam of backstage anecdotes becomes as organically melodic as one of Kortchmar’s iconic “Tapestry” solos, a Wachtel groove or a Sklar-plucked bass line. Only the occasional touch of cheap-looking animation feels antithetical to a movie about commissioned expertise: Was the Waddy Wachtel of animators not available?

If anything, you want even more stories from these guys who started out as rock and roll dreamers, transitioned to individual contractors, then came to feel part of something larger than themselves. You could try to become Keith Richards, or, if you’re as talented as Wachtel, you can get tapped by Richards to play with him on his solo record, and make that sound just as rock-god-fulfilling. It turns out that these session masters know how to meet the needs of a music documentary quite nicely, too.