This always cracked me up. Session musicians can jump into any situation and pick right up seamlessly. "Can he handle our tune?" The response was such a nice takedown of Jimmy.
Imagine how funny it would have been if he went on the tv program and played exactly that riff the whole time over and over. It’s not like he lied to them lol
That guy's name is Larry Antonino, when I first started playing bass my aunt and uncle bought me an instructional video and he was the instructor, I recognized him only because I'm such a massive fan of this movie
You studied with Larry! Incredible musician and vocalist and a truly nice guy. You must be a pretty awesome player yourself. He's got some great stuff out there. I studied with Joe Pass back in '69 in west Hollywood, I was 13. I only had 3 weeks with him as we moved east, but those 3 weeks were the best guitar lessons I ever had.
He also has a great voice and is quite a songwriter. We’ve worked together over the years and he’s not only exceptionally talented, but a terrific person too. 🎶💞
The second time, it’s because he doesn’t like the vibe coming from the new guy and is trying to find an excuse not to hire him. Even if they’ve only been together a short time, T.B was their friend before they were ever in the band.
The "coincidence" of the "Marines" being in the hotel coffee shop impressing TB Player was a COMPLETE setup perpetrated by Mr. White to expeditiously replace him with Wolfman.
@@NYRyder1983 More than likely, they were slick actors hired by Mr. White and dressed as Marines with the mission to expedite the exit of TB Player. Real Marines would never take a recruit to Disneyland.
This happend once to me in the band I was in we were auditioning drummers and the guy we gave the gig to showed up and the guitar player saw him from the widow and says to me "he's so old" , the old guy ended up auditioning us, luckily we passed lol😊
Anybody in the top recording industry knows that someone working for a relatively on-the-map record company like Playtone's Amos White, with a phone call, can get a pro fill-in for a big national gig - which of course makes this scene so funny, in that these relatively musical newbies who know virtually nothing of that world are questioning the chops of a seasoned session player - and Amos White's eyebrow arches up like - got any more questions boys? - how they scurry off
@@KathySandru Where do you think Geddy Lee got it from? Everybody steals from everybody. Dave Grohl stole the opening drum fill for Smells like Teen Spirit from the Gap Band - a funk band.
Considering those guys were amateurs who never went to music school, and their original bass player played really simple lines with a pick, they were gonna be impressed regardless of what he actually did. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
In 1964, a bassist who could stick to the basic chords was good enough for most rock bands. Even Paul McCartney didn’t get super creative in the Beatles early years (not that this was necessarily a bad thing, too much craziness in the bass line can muddle up a melody). At that time, the bass was supposed to supply the beat along with the drums in support of the main melody, not be a virtuoso instrument in its own right. That’s also sort of why nobody wanted to be the bass player, which is part of the joke the movie makes by not even giving the guy a name. At that time, he was just the guy in the background, It was not until later that bassists started trying to get more creative to grab some of the spotlight for themselves.
@@tommyl.dayandtherunaways820 I agree with you for the most part but even in the late 60’s guys like John Entwhistle and Chris Squire were playing more complex bass lines than what was common at the time. On the Motown side James Jameson was also playing groovy bass lines that were more prominent in the mix and really defined the songs.
This might be the stupidest comment on this movie clip. It was 1964. That's like criticizing Page or Hendrix for not having the technical abilities of Malmsteen or Gilbert. Historical context...
This is the only part of the storyline that seemed really implausible: What teenaged musician, who just joined a band whose single made #7 on the Hot 100, becoming the quickest-charting song ever on Play-Tone Records, is going to just ditch the band to join the Marines?
just like with the front man singing job, there are thousands of expert instrument session players needing a gig - so in that recording industry world, at that national level, it's like Beyonce, sang ' I can find another you in a minute - in fact he'll be here in a minute...'
The part of Wolfman in the story is definitely inspired by the Beatles, specifically their recruitment of Jimmie Nicol, a well-known drummer from London who substituted for Ringo Starr when the Beatles toured Europe and Australia, when Ringo caught tonsilitis. Kind of a sad story actually, by all accounts Jimmie had done a great job and it's possible that Epstein and the Beatles' management may have helped to create expectations in Jimmie that he'd be the Beatles' new drummer. Obviously that was not to be, but it so happened that he got raked over the coals by the media & tabloids and couldn't find much work afterward. He tried to capitalize on his brief fame by forming new bands but they didn't catch on. Paul McCartney did influence Beatles management to refer Jimmie for some high-profile session work in the following years, but it seemed though Jimmie's chance in the spotlight had passed and he ended up abusing drugs, although later on he seemed to get his life together and had some successful business and real estate ventures. He remained very private and never talked much about his time in the Beatles, though he expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to tour with them. Although I wonder if Tom Hanks wrote a backstory for Wolfman Scott Pell and where he ended up? :)
This is going to sound mean spirited, but I don't intend it that way. I've read accounts about Jimmie's talent and his unfortunate luck after his brief stint with The Beatles, but there's something else to take into account: Jimmie was one very ugly dude. Not that Ringo was anything great to look at, but Nichol literally looked like he hobbled out of an old age home and put on a bad Beatles wig. Next to John, Paul and George, his looks made him stick out like a sore thumb. If he had only been blessed with Pete Best's looks, things may have been different.
Jimmie Nicol is actually still alive at this time of writing, although he’s living a reclusive life in London nowadays, apparently. I imagine since Wolfman is a session bassist, he simply continued on with his career - filling in for a pop group was just one job out of many for someone like him.
@@mr_bassman6685 Yeah, when the band broke up in the recording studio, Mr. White gave Wolfman his regards and said they’d get together soon. Wolfman walked off in good spirits, seeming to have full confidence that another gig would line up.
Still a common tale to this day. Chris Martin filled in for Bono. Alan White from Paul Weller's band replaced Tony McCarrol in Oasis, who was subsequently replaced by Zak Starkey - Ringo's son. Steely Dan played musical chairs with the entire LA Wrecking Crew. Sometimes, you can't replace anyone. One goes, band over. Look at Led Zeppelin. Bonham dies, band over.
More or less on Jimmy Nicol, who was called in on a couple days notice in 1965 when Ringo Starr had a severe infection of tonsillitis and had to miss two weeks of a Beatles tour. Rather than reschedule, Brian Epstein called in Nicol as a fill in. Ringo was still somewhat paranoid because he had been the last one added to the band in 1962 so he was freaking out worrying Jimmy Nicol was going to take over, so as soon as doctors let him out of bed he got back in action.
From the comments here I can tell they really tried to make all of the music and fashion as period-accurate as possible. Which makes it all the more annoying to me that the Disney scene has Mickey and Goofy costumes right out of 1996. They wouldn’t have looked like that in the 60s Still love this movie though!
And, for me anyway, this is the only part of the plot that didn’t ring true. Not that musicians aren’t flaky, but TB Player was drawn to the discipline and honor of the Corps, and he would somehow bail on the big network tv date without so much as a phone call?!? I do love the comments here that think that Mr. White hired the Marines to facilitate his replacement.
I thought the playing was great but the sound was too bright. The bass should have had flatwound strings and a mute for the darker sound that electric basses had during that time.
Anyone noticed during his bass solo that he starts to play Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" bass riff? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-g_QtO0Rhp0w.html
bc he's just a tiny bit older and more dad-looking with a five-o-clock shadow and slight paunch - and the producers strictly want to project the fresh-cut teen, pretty-boy look
Does anyone know what kind of guitar he used for the movie? If anyone knows, please type a comment 'cause for X-Mas, I hope to get his bass guitar, because my dad says Ollie and I were going get 'Guitar Lessons @ Guitar Center. Here in California.' So type a comment. If anyone can...
From the trivia section of the IMDB entry for That Thing You Do: "Once their single charts, the boys are shown playing new instruments that are historically accurate. TB Player has a Fender Jazz Bass, Lenny has a Fender Jaguar and Jimmy plays a Rickenbacker 360/12 (Model 360, 12 string). The 360/12 was introduced in 1964 with one of the first instruments presented to and played by George Harrison of the Beatles."
@@harrisonneves6007 : There are 3 basses featured in this movie. The first is a Danelectro 3412, and the second is a Fender Jazz Bass (as noted in the previous comment). However, the one in this clip is a Fender Precision Bass.
@@robgrove2149 Based on when this was filmed and because Tom Hanks wanted some authenticity, it is a '57 reissue p bass in the 2tone sunburst. Technically they shouldve used the '62 reissue for a true 60's look or distress the '57 to make it look like a working session man's guitar.
@@matambale The sister guitar to George Harrison's 360/12 Hollowbody is a solid body 360/12 that is shown on the cover of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Damn The Torpedoes. That one was the next one off the line after George Harrison's 360/12 and was the guitar heard on Here Comes My Girl, The Waiting, Listen To Her Heart and many more
“Can he handle our tune”. FFS. It’s a 3 minutes 60s pop song with standard cadences and a baseline consisting 95% of root notes. Any beginner could play it. This song is to music what stick figures are to art.
You gotta leave, fine. Leaving without saying goodbye or even just a “hey, get a new guy to replace me, I’m not coming back”, yeah, that’s kind of messed up T.B.
@@tommyl.dayandtherunaways820 There are worse ways to leave a band than run off with a few line officers to Disneyland and roll with them to Ft Dix for boot camp. He could have OD'd in the hotel room, could have gotten into a fight with the lead singer the way Felder and Frey were going at it in 1980 and again in the early 2000s after Hell Freezes Over, could have been busted for possession on the heels of making a kids album the way Steven Page in Barenaked Ladies was, or could have pulled an Elvis.