Sounds Familiar : His name may not ring any bells, but studio drummer Hal Blaine’s beat can be heard on hundreds of gold records.

The name Hal Blaine may be unfamiliar to most casual music listeners, but fans still keep his phone ringing night and day. After all, the man has performed on 362 gold records. And eight of those have won the coveted Grammy Record of the Year award.

Elvis, Sinatra, the four members of the Beatles, even the Surf Punks have all had reason to dial Blaine’s number at some point over the last 30 years. These days, Blaine needs to screen all those calls just to get some peace from young players seeking his wisdom. “I don’t mind talking to them,” says the accomplished studio drummer with a laugh. “But I can’t talk drums all day long.”

Today, living in Canyon Country (after three decades in Hollywood), Blaine is 65 and in fitful semi-retirement. He makes a rare live appearance Tuesday night when he joins saxophonist Benn Clatworthy at Common Grounds in Northridge.

He still takes session work, but it’s at nowhere near the pace he set in the ‘60s and ‘70s as one of the captains of the Wrecking Crew, that famed unit of session players who helped create some of the top-selling singles of pop music. There was Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and countless others by the likes of the Beach Boys, Barbra Streisand, the Byrds and the Monkees.

The Wrecking Crew wore jeans, but their expertise with the new pop sounds of the ‘60s inevitably meant that the blue-blazer types of the old studio orchestras had to make room for them.

“We were all learned musicians,” Blaine says of the Wrecking Crew, which included at various times Glen Campbell on guitar, Leon Russell and Don Randi on piano, and Carol Kaye on bass. “No one realized. They thought we were a bunch of guys from the street who played rock ‘n’ roll.”

While working with producer Phil Spector, the Wrecking Crew occasionally recruited other players into the mix, including Sonny Bono on percussion. “He was literally just a gofer for Phil Spector,” Blaine says of the new congressman from Palm Springs. “And I would give him some percussion to play so he could make a buck. Cher sang background. And somehow they got together. Nobody understood why.”

*

Blaine says he’s been told his playing can be heard on several pop tracks in the hit films “Forrest Gump” and “Pulp Fiction,” though he isn’t sure which ones. He has done so much over the decades, including five solo albums and the occasional live gig. These live shows included playing with the Wrecking Crew at the famed Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.

At other times during Blaine’s career, he also worked on stage with comics, providing musical accompaniment for talents as varied as Lenny Bruce and Don Rickles.

Blaine’s drumming career began after he served in the Korean War. With the GI Bill, he could afford to study drumming and piano at the Roy C. Knapp Institute of Percussion in Chicago, alma mater of Gene Krupa. He still has no patience for musicians who avoid learning to read music and developing other technical skills for fear of losing their creative soul. “That’s just ridiculous,” he says.

After graduation, he soon arrived in Los Angeles, where he became a nightclub musician. During a gig playing with pianist Carole Simpson at the Garden of Allah on the Sunset Strip, he and Simpson were noticed by the manager of a young singer named Tommy Sands. The manager was looking for a versatile group to record with Sands and invited Blaine and Simpson to the Capitol Records studios. Once there, Blaine met other producers in need of his services.

Subsequently, his drum work was put to use on hundreds of pop records, movie soundtracks and jingles for commercials. Much of his history is recounted in his 1992 book, “Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew,” published by Mix magazine.

His appearance Tuesday at Common Grounds will be an uncommon opportunity to see him at work, even for his closest friends. “My friends don’t usually get to see me play, because we are usually in a closed session,” he says. “There is obviously something special when there is an audience. It’s always the reaction that makes you do what you do. And happiness in music kind of keeps you young and vital.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

WHERE AND WHEN:

Who: Benn Clatworthy, with special guest Hal Blaine.

Location: Common Grounds, 9250 Reseda Blvd., Northridge.

Hours: 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Price: No cover; but a $2.50 minimum food or drink purchase.

Call: (818) 882-3666.