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Star Bassist Carol Kaye rejects Rock & Roll Hall of Fame honor

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Star Bassist Carol Kaye rejects Rock & Roll Hall of Fame honor

Bassist Carol Kaye plays an Epiphone hollowbody electric guitar in April 1966 in Los Angeles, California.

Jasper Dailey/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images


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Jasper Dailey/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Carol Kaye, one of the most prolific bassists in rock and pop history, said she does not want to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The in-demand musician, who collaborated with Barbra Streisand, Stevie Wonder, The Beach Boys and The Supremes among many other hitmakers starting in the 1960s, was listed as a 2025 Hall of Fame inductee in April alongside the late record producer Thom Bell and the late pianist Nicky Hopkins in the Musical Excellence category. The category honors artists whose “originality and influence have had a dramatic impact on music.”

Kaye, 90, announced her decision to turn her back on one of rock music’s most famous accolades on Facebook earlier this week, according to Bass Magazine and other outlets.

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The magazine described the news of Kaye’s induction as “as a triumph to her fans and to bassists everywhere.” (Very few women bassists have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Others include Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads and The Go-Go’s Kathy Valentine.)

Kaye’s Facebook post was taken down on Thursday, but Bass Magazine and other outlets shared its contents: “It wasn’t something that reflects the work that Studio Musicians do and did in the golden era of the 1960s Recording Hits…….. you are always part of a TEAM, not a solo artist at all,” Kaye reportedly wrote on Facebook. “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……..Thank-You for understanding.”

Another likely issue is Kaye’s aversion to the name “Wrecking Crew.” Coined by drummer Hal Blaine, it was given to a group of in-demand session musicians in the 1960s and 70s which included, among others, Blaine, Dr. John, Glen Campbell, and Kaye. Kaye has publicly refuted the name in the past, including in her now-deleted Facebook post: “I was never a ‘wrecker’ at all….that’s a terrible insulting name.”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame does not reference The Wrecking Crew in connection with Kaye in its current online content about the artist. But an old version of the artist’s biography on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame website does explicitly connect Kaye to this group: “A first-call member of the elite stable of Los Angeles session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, Kaye played on an estimated 10,000 recordings, making her one of the most recorded bassists in history,” the biography states.

Neither the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nor Kaye immediately responded to NPR’s requests for comment.

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In a Facebook post on Thursday, musician Benny Goodman, who goes by the moniker The Neurotic Guitarist and has close to 45,000 subscribers on YouTube, said the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, “kept saying she [Kaye] was from The Wrecking Crew over and over.” Goodman, who described Kaye as being like “a grandma” to him, added: “That name holds trauma for her.”

Kaye isn’t the first potential inductee to push back against the accolade. Dolly Parton initially rejected her induction in 2022. The county music star posted a statement on social media saying she was grateful for the nomination, but didn’t think she had necessarily “earned that right.” Despite her qualms, the artist ultimately acquiesced and went ahead with the induction.

The 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place on Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

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Why Gen Z is movie-maxxing : Pop Culture Happy Hour

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Why Gen Z is movie-maxxing : Pop Culture Happy Hour

Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston in Obsession.

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Two big horror films, Obsession and Backrooms, just smashed all box office expectations. So much of their success has been driven by Gen Z, which is now the biggest moviegoing demographic. But what makes a movie a Gen Z movie? Today we’re bringing you an episode of NPR’s It’s Been a Minute. Host Brittany Luse talks about this trend with Sam Adams and Reanna Cruz. 

If you want to hear more about these movies, check out these episodes: 

In ‘Obsession,’ love hurts. It really, really, really hurts.

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‘Backrooms’ brings YouTube horror to the big screen

Zendaya brings ‘The Drama,’ we bring the spoilers

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10 new books you won’t want to miss in July

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10 new books you won’t want to miss in July

I regret to inform you I’ll need to keep this introduction brief. Not because there’s any lack of things to say about July’s crop of notable new releases; it features award-winning journalists and several different flavors of anxiety about our bleak ecological future and data-dominated present, as well as the welcome returns of several beloved novelists.

No, these books certainly deserve some love, dear readers. It’s just that I’m finding it a bit tough to type while bearhugging a box fan. And since it seems that may be my last best chance to get through this latest U.S. heat wave here on the east coast without sweating through my shirt, I feel some urgency to get back at it.

So enough with the ado. With any luck, you’ll soon be cracking open one of these great reads on the beach — or in front of a decent air-conditioning unit, at any rate.

You Won’t Get Free of It: Stories of Mothers and Daughters, by Rachel Aviv

You Won’t Get Free of It: Stories of Mothers and Daughters, by Rachel Aviv (July 7)

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Aviv, New Yorker staff writer and finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize, has a fairly extensive purview in her role as reporter at large. Still, when reviewing her latest work, Aviv noticed a crucial throughline: “I realized that, to some degree, I’d been writing about mother-daughter pairs for the last decade,” she explained to the Paris Review. Seeing this, she decided to collect and revise half a dozen of those stories, which cover ground from a daughter’s troubling fugue states to the immigrant nannies who must leave their own children behind, to Alice Munro’s daughter, whose claims of sexual abuse went unheeded yet regularly resurfaced in her mother’s fiction.

Country People, by Daniel Mason

Country People, by Daniel Mason (July 7)

In Mason’s first novel since North Woods, 2023’s critical darling and book club stalwart, readers are plopped right back in the New England woods but the time scale has shrunk considerably. Whereas North Woods spanned centuries, his new novel confines itself to a single year, during which Miles, loving family man and lackadaisical Ph.D. candidate, plans to finally buckle down on that derelict degree of his and reassert his worth to one and all! At least, that’s the idea. But plans don’t stand much of a chance when there are eccentric neighbors to befriend and mysterious local legends to investigate.

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Jessica McCormack: How a Challenger Is Seizing the Jewellery Opportunity

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Jessica McCormack: How a Challenger Is Seizing the Jewellery Opportunity
The London-based independent jewellery label, which sells high-end pieces for everyday wear, has boosted sales by leveraging jewellery as a means of self expression. Chief executive Leonie Brantberg details in our latest report ‘Face to Face With Luxury Clients’ the brand’s strategy and expansion plans.
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