Anonymous Strains : Often heard, seldom credited; that’s life for session musicians

If nothing else, this summer’s rock ‘n’ roll controversy--dueling “Batman” albums from Warner Bros.--has focused attention on the anonymity surrounding many of the composers and musicians responsible for movie sound tracks.

Although songs from Prince’s “Batman,” released in June, play for only a few minutes in this summer’s box-office blockbuster, he has received most of the credit, much to the chagrin of Danny Elfman, who wrote the official “Batman” sound track (about 75 minutes of music). Prince’s album held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts for six weeks and remains in the Top five. Elfman’s “Batman,” released last month, holds the No. 32 spot.

Unlike many of his colleagues who write movie sound tracks, Elfman, the lead singer for Oingo Boingo, has gone very public with his displeasure. “I want people to realize that I wrote it,” he said in an interview with The Times. The controversy has also been the focus of articles in Newsweek and the New York Times.

While Prince and Elfman attract national attention, most composers and musicians who make a living by working on the scores of movies and TV shows and LPs do so without headlines, fanfare or autograph seekers.

It’s an anonymous job, but somebody’s got to do it.

“I think that most guys who get into studio work do so probably because they’re more comfortable playing their instrument than they are being famous,” said 33-year-old keyboardist Randy Waldman of Studio City. The one-time whiz-kid piano accompanist to Frank Sinatra plays synthesizer for everything from the sound track of “The Abyss” to albums by Madonna and the Pointer Sisters.

“It would be nice to get credit more often,” Waldman said. “But I don’t mind going in, playing, having them say, ‘Thank you, we love it, goodby,’ and that’s it. This way, you don’t have to deal with any of the politics, directors, producers, ad agencies and everything else.”

But a studio musician’s lot is not necessarily a harmonious one. Take for example a motion picture score written and performed by Carl Verheyen, a much-in-demand session guitarist. Verheyen, the lead guitarist for Supertramp during that group’s world tour in 1985 and 1986, composed and recorded the score in two nights, received no credit and can’t even remember the name of the movie.

It was, Verheyen explained, a one-shot, non-union deal. He didn’t want the job and named a price so high that he was sure he would be turned down. He wasn’t.

“I never heard from the guy again,” the 35-year-old sessionist said from his North Hollywood home. “And I can’t even remember his name--which is good--but I made about $2,400. That was it: my first movie score, and my last.”

The American Federation of Musicians, Local 47, has about 13,000 members, each of whom is qualified, through his or her union membership, to do recording studio work for movies, commercial jingles, television shows, LPs, CDs. But that does not mean that there are 13,000 sessionists employed in the Southland. Far from it.

“A good life?” asked Jerry Redmond, vice president of the union’s Los Angeles chapter. “Yes it is, for those who are successful at it and make a comfortable living. For the rest, it’s a struggle.”

According to Recording Musicians Assn. spokesman Laddie Chapman, of about 550 members, about 90% are making a “good living” as free-lance studio musicians, earning a basic scale of about $173.18 for three hours of work (not including overtime and “doubling”--playing more than one instrument).

Even among the successful, competition is tough. There’s always somebody new on the way up. As veteran drummer/percussionist Steve Schaeffer--a man who has played on everything from sound tracks for “The Abyss” and “Ghostbusters II” to Michael Jackson’s “Moonwalker” video--put it:

“It goes like this: ‘Who’s Steve Schaeffer?’ ‘Get me Steve Schaeffer.’ ‘Get me a young Steve Schaeffer,’ ‘Who’s Steve Schaeffer?’ That’s the cycle.”

And these days, if you don’t surround yourself with enough electronic effects and synthesizers to fill the cockpit of a 747, no matter what your instrument happens to be or how well you play it, you simply aren’t even in the running.

“Basically, the musicians who took the initiative to get in on electronics are still doing well. They’re staying busy,” Waldman said.

Indeed, Verheyen, Schaeffer and Waldman, who started their trade simply by playing guitar, drums and piano, respectively, are as much masters of electronic music as they are their basic instruments. The breakdown:

Verheyen’s gear includes a $20,000 effects and amplification system, with 16 individual racks of electronic gear computer-controlled by MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface).

Schaeffer is surrounded not only by a mass of acoustic drums and cases of percussion instruments, but drum machines, synthesizers, electronic pads (which trigger pre-programmed synthesized sound) and six independent mixers.

During a recording session, Waldman is practically invisible behind a rig consisting of four to eight keyboards and about 30 synthesizers (“disguised as little boxes with flashing lights on them”).

“You have to have all kinds of different skills, you have to be able to play music in any style, you have to be able to read music flawlessly, obviously,” Waldman said.

“And you have to always be there on time, you have to be easy to get along with, available when they call. It’s a very tricky business. . . . You’re always having to buy new electronics to keep up with what they want.”

In addition, there are always little surprises that crop up in the studio.

“The director and producer of this one film just hated each other,” said Schaeffer, whose credits include two years with “A Chorus Line” at the Schubert Theater; touring with Michael Franks, Doc Severinson and Sarah Vaughan; recording with Henry Mancini and Dave Grusin, and playing scores by such major film composers as Bill Conti and Bruce Broughton.

“Each had a different view of what was wrong with the film, and both felt that music would fix the problems. And each of them were at opposite ends of the spectrum musically. They had to be put in separate rooms , each with his own set of headphones. Then they brought in the mediator to be in charge of musical supervision.”

What happened next was “straight out of a Marx Brothers movie,” according to the 44-year-old Studio City percussionist.

The musicians would play, then the director and composer would discuss the music. The director would suggest that the guitarist play more softly, more sparingly. Then, as the composer and director conferred further, the producer would sneak out of his booth and tell the guitar player that the music needed a major guitar solo. The music would start, the guitarist would rock out and . . . “the director completely freaked out in the booth, the take stopped, I looked up and the producer and director are swinging at each other! I was dying with laughter. We did this for three days.”

Verheyen, who performed on the Oscar-winning score for “Milagro Beanfield War” and on the score for “Stand and Deliver”, not-so-fondly recalled many all-day sessions for TV where his whole rig was delivered--acoustic, electric, nylon string and 12-string guitars, mandolins and towering racks of electronics.

“I wouldn’t play one note until the last cue of the whole six-hour day! Like at 3:30, or something, I had to play four bars. It can be that easy, or as hairy as having to write the whole thing, like that movie score, or having some real serious stuff to play.”

Verheyen, who has recorded music for TV’s “Cheers” and “Midnight Caller”, recalled a session with composer David McHugh for a program called “A Year in the Life” that presented a serious problem.

“McHugh said he had written a particularly difficult piece for classical guitar and wanted to messenger it over to me so I could practice it for the next day’s session. I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to.’ Well, the messenger arrived, I pulled out the music and it looked pretty easy. I didn’t know what the whole big deal was.”

The whole big deal was that he’d been sent the wrong piece of music.

Verheyen learned the easy piece fast, slow, up an octave, down an octave, “any way I could.” When it came time to play at 9 a.m. the next day, the guitarist found himself at Universal, backed by a 40-piece orchestra, staring at notes he’d never laid eyes on before, “one of the most difficult things I’ve ever seen in my life!”

Several false starts and retakes later, he finally muscled his way through it. “I never did tell McHugh that they sent the wrong thing over there,” Verheyen said. “I probably should have, but the show got canceled anyway.”

Indeed, shows get canceled, movies aren’t released, albums are junked, scores are chopped up in editing rooms--fine playing is, often as not, viewed as part of the product.

“Unfortunately, TV is probably what I do most,” said Waldman, who has performed on scores for “Back to the Future,” “The Color Purple,” “Splash,” “Beetlejuice” as well as on LPs with, among others, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, the Pointer Sisters and Michael Jackson.

“TV and motion picture work, as far as a rhythm section player is concerned, usually requires the least amount of creativity. They expect you to come in and play a written part, and play it perfectly. On records or commercial jungles, they call you generally because they like your style. Whereas with motion pictures or TV, I have a feeling that if they could hire a robot, they would prefer it, although I a m grateful for the work.”

Waldman says there are frustrations involved in other types of studio work.

“Barbra Streisand knows when something’s right, has a very intuitive sense of when it is right,” he said. “But she has no formal music theory background. Her sessions take longer than any other sessions because she’s always trying to change things and doesn’t know a technically correct way to express herself.”

Impatience rarely gets to a session player, Waldman added, noting that he has walked out on only one job. It was a job that eventually turned into a No. 1 record:

“It was for an artist I had never heard of before. They made a point of telling me I had to be there at 8 p.m. sharp, that it was very, very important, so I did not accept a 7 p.m. session I had. Well, nobody showed up until about 9:30 p.m. and when they finally did, the artist would tell me to play one thing, then the producer would say, ‘No, no, no, I hate that,’ and tell me to play differently. Then the artist would say, ‘No, no, no, I hate that,’ and this went on for hours.

“I just got so frustrated I finally said, ‘You guys can’t agree, I’m gonna leave.’ It turned out that the artist was Rockwell, the son of the head of Motown. Michael Jackson ended up singing on the record, and it was a No. 1 hit called “Somebody’s Watching Me.’ The session was a total disaster, but the song ended up No. 1. They kept what I did.”

And the platinum record hangs on his wall today, an ironic reminder of the random and anonymous nature of success in studio musician land.