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Carol Kaye is 'declining' her invitation to the 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony
Carol Kaye is 'declining' her invitation to the 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony
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2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees announced
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has announced its 2025 inductees, which include hip-hop pioneers Outkast and '80s icon Cyndi Lauper.
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Carol Kaye, one of the most recorded bassists in rock and pop music, announced on June 18 that she will be declining her invitation to this year's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
'People have been asking: NO I won't be there,' wrote the 90-year-old musician in a since-deleted Facebook post. 'I am declining the RRHOF awards show (and Denny Tedesco process)... because it wasn't something that reflects the work that Studio Musicians do and did in the golden era of the 1960s Recording Hits.'
During the 1960s and 1970s, Kaye was part of a group of session musicians in Los Angeles known as the Wrecking Crew, a collective which often collaborated with the Beach Boys, Phil Spector, the Monkees and more. In 2008, Denny Tedesco directed a documentary on the group, which featured Kaye. However, the 90-year-old musician has long objected to the group moniker.
In a 2015 interview, Kaye said the 'first time that phrase was used' was in Hal Blaine's book. 'I had no idea he was going to do something phoney… It's a lie. We were all independent people, there was no set band,' she said.
Hal Blaime, a 'Wrecking Crew' drummer, said in the same interview that Kaye had 'somehow forgotten' that 'The Wrecking Crew was established in the early 1960s.'
'I was never a 'wrecker' at all,' she wrote in her recent Facebook post. 'That's a terrible insulting name.'
Kaye ended her post with a strong dissent, 'I refuse to be part of a process that is something else rather than what I believe in, for others' benefit and not reflecting on the truth – we all enjoyed working with EACH OTHER.'
Kaye will still be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame despite her absence at the 2025 induction ceremony, where she was set to recieve the Musical Excellence Award. Other inductees this year include Bad Company, Joe Cocker, Chubby Checker, Cyndi Lauper, OutKast, Soundgarden, and The White Stripes.
The complete list: 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
