Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made For Walkin'
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He admits he'd probably be selling selling insurance and doing weekend Jazz gigs if not for a bit of good fortune.
Stories Behind the Songs: Chuck Berghofer
As a member of the Wrecking Crew, Chuck Berghofer helped change the sound of popular music. His big, warm bass sound has laid the foundation for artists from A to Z with recordings by Frank Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Christina Aguilera, Frank Zappa, The Beach Boys, Diana Krall, Robbie Williams, and more. It has also set the mood on over 400 movies like Rocky, True Crime, Bird, and The Majestic and TV shows like The Carol Burnett Show, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Star Trek. There’s no doubt that you’ve heard his bass playing.
Berghofer was born in Denver, Colorado, but moved to Los Angeles at an early age. It was there that his love for music – especially jazz – grew. After playing trombone and tuba in a German band, he switched to upright bass at 17. By 19 was on the road with bandleader Skinnay Ennis and then Bobby Troup, where he met legendary jazz guitarist Herb Ellis. Little did Berghofer know that his Ellis would help change his life.
“My first record date was with Herb Ellis, and it was called Thank You, Charlie Christian,” Berghofer said. “When we did that date, Herb said, ‘You know, you should look into getting in the studio thing. You’d be good at it.’ I don’t know why he thought that, but that planted a little seed in my mind. Shortly after that I did a second gig with RCA. The engineer came out and said, ‘God, I love the sound of your bass.’ He had people coming into the booth to hear it and everything. He said, ‘I’m going to give your number to a producer friend of mine.’ It turned out to be Jim Bowen, so I started doing some dates with him. I started doing more, and then I got the call to play with Nancy Sinatra. We did “Boots are Made for Walkin’” and when that became a hit, it put me on the map. Pretty soon after that I was doing three record dates a day with the Beach Boys and all kinds of stuff.”
He became a top player during the ’60s along with a group of musicians that came to be known as the Wrecking Crew. The group, which has been examined in the fantastic documentary of the same name, worked day and night to create the majority of the hits of the decade, and they did it on their own terms. “In those days, when you worked in the studio, most guys wore a suit and looked pretty sharp,” he explained. ” We’d show up in Levi’s and a t-shirt and people started saying, ‘They’re gonna wreck the music business!’”
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https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2015/04/23/stories-behind-the-songs-chuck-berghofer/
