Artist: Spiders Webb
LP: I Don't Know What's On Your Mind
Song: "Spider's Webb"
[ listen ]
A spider on my screen door, a new documentary about session musicians in 1960s L.A. and this 1976 funk album with a sexy cover all came together in a strange series of coincidences over the past week or so. I had taken photos of this Spiders Webb album over a year ago intending to post it here, but for some reason I never got around to it and the pictures sat in a folder, unused. A little over a week ago I came home from work to find a neat-looking spider crawling on my apartment screen door and I posted this picture on Facebook.
People left comments like "ewwww" and "ick," and my sister wrote, "Better on your screen door than on your pillow!" Then last Wednesday my friend Ryan invited me to see THE WRECKING CREW, a new documentary about a group of professional musicians in Los Angeles in the 1960s who did arrangement and instrumental work on most of the hit albums of the era, without ever receiving any sort of credit or recognition for their valuable and incredible work.
It's a good film and it brings some interesting facts to light, but the main attraction for me was the sole female member of the Wrecking Crew, the extraordinary bass player Carol Kaye. She looked amazing, both in the 1960s and at the time the documentary was made, and she just seems to be filled with pep and verve.
Yesterday my friend Lindsay from work left a new comment on my Facebook spider picture, which reminded me of the comment my sister made about having a spider on my pillow, which reminded me of the spider crawling on the sexy lady's thighs on the cover of my Spiders Webb album, which reminded me that I never did post the record on my blog, which inspired me to dig up the photos I'd taken and the record itself, which prompted me to read the album's notes a little closer than I had before, which informed me that the main duo behind Spiders Webb are jazz drummer Kenneth Ronald Rice, known professionally as Spider Webb, and his wife, session musician Carol Kaye, who I had been mesmerized by on the silver screen just a few days before! I was flabbergasted.
Digging further, I learned that Carol was born just up the freeway in Everett, Washington back in 1935. She grew up in the Port Angeles area before heading south to California to live and work in a much bigger city of 'Angeles.' Ironically, Carol doesn't play bass on most of this Spiders Webb record, since she's playing lead guitar instead. She does pick up the bass for "Spider's Webb" though, the track I've featured here. Sadly, though Spiders Webb was played by DJs and on dance floors across America, the album didn't cross over to become a mainstream hit, and both Carol and husband Spider returned to doing session work after its release. You can read more about the group Spiders Webb here; go here to find Spider "Kenneth Rice" Webb on Wikipedia and find Carol Kaye's page here. You can visit Spider's webb page here and go here for the official website for Carol Kaye. There are some neat quotes here about Carol, her playing and her professionalism from a host of musical celebrities of the '60s, '70s and '80s.
[ Spider Webb & Carol Kaye ]
[ Rat City Records — White Center, WA ]
