Who Hit The Wrong Note In Unchained Melody?

I believe CK played rhythm guitar on that one, not bass.

 

Carol Kaye's web page says she played guitar on that. Top of the list.

The Official Carol Kaye Web Site

 

I guess it says a lot about me and a tin ear, but I listened at 2:15 about a half dozen times I still can't make out a wrong note. Time to go back to kazoo I guess.

 

Great, thanks. I never noticed it until you pointed it out. lol
That said, perhaps it was a slide up to the note because they recovered ever so quickly.
I'm sure out of the 628,487 notes we play as a bass player yearly, we're bound to make a mistake here and there.
Back when this was recorded it was on tape and probably with multiple musicians playing at once.
Not so easy to just "fly in" the correct note like in ProTools nor Logic nor cheap to do.
Besides, as sterile and digitally correct as today's music is, it's refreshing to hear the human touch even when it's wrong.
As I recall, pre-digital age, I regularly heard slight mistakes on albums and songs.
I remember when everyone thought this entire lead solo was one long mistake or something...
Starting at 1:18

 

I'm kinda wondering about the reason for creating a thread specifically about CK playing a wrong note. Which apparently she didn't do in this case. There are other threads here about mistakes in recordings and no shortage of examples.

Mistakes on recordings

Just saying.

 

Agree. And in the interests of fairness I think the thread title really needs to be ammended.

 

Thank you for changing the title.

I've done some googling and can't find anything about who the musicians were for that session, except for CK playing guitar. There are claims that Phil Spector didn't like the song so he made it a "B" side with no producer credit on the record. DJs liked it and it became a huge hit. Then Spector started claiming he produced it.

Heck it has its own webpage for licensing: http://www.unchainedmelodypublishing.com/index.php

 

Very.

Nice to see we're all doing our part to help prevent the propagation of alternative facts.

 

It's an eminently forgettable bassline either way. Anybody hanging around the studio could have played it IMO. Even Phil himself.

 

Maybe, but as part of one of the all- time great pop arrangements. I've seen a lot of bands play that song and they never do it justice. That song has been around since the early 50s and this version is just out of this world.

 

WIth Happy Birthday it's not so much anything expired as it was ruled by the courts to be an invalid copyright claim on the part of Warner/Chappell. Story here.

 

To each their own I guess. Not my cuppa. It's overproduced, over emotional and maudlin to my ears despite my generally liking the Righteous Brothers...

Considering the number of copies it's sold, and the number of requests that get made for it at gatherings (and the number of times I've played it), I'm well aware I'm in the minority in my negative opinion on that particular song.

I will agree however that most groups don't do it what justice they could. There's something about it (like the Etta James classic I'd Rather Go Blind) that seems to bring out the worst examples of wretched excess by many vocalists.

What can I say? I don't care for it. But I wouldn't mind having been the person who wrote it. It makes a lot of people happy at weddings. And a royalty check is a royalty check, regardless of what you've earned it for.

 

50 years later and someone is nitpicking a recording over one note

 

Now when I screw it up I'll just say, "That's how it is on the record."

 

I highly doubt that.

 

Wall of Sound, and all that.

I mean, Spector ain't famous for his light touch.