Hi! I was wondering if anyone knows what is going on with Carol Kaye lately? She barely posts, but did recently post about her turning down the Les Paul award. She also had an interview posted in which she played a little riff, but said it would probably be the last time she plays bass. I’ve posted a couple inquiries to find out how she’s doing, but no response. I did delete those posts out of disappointment.
Just curious.
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Why did she turn down the award?
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I’ve observed that, too. I hope she is doing all right. Too bad the folks responsible for the Les Paul award weren’t more careful and ended up striking a bad nerve with her.
I think the post in which she mentioned the performance that was likely the last time she’d play bass (due to health reasons), she also mentioned/linked the interview with the WBGO Journal from March 2021, with Doug Doyle. But I don’t see that link or her post mentioning it on her forum now.
I do hope to get to the point where I can read music (vs. tabs), so I can give her bass instruction books a shot!
Added: @eric.kiser, apparently they messed up in their description of her history, and used some of the “Wrecking Crew” stuff, which she totally hates (the things that Hal Blaine and Denny Tedesco put out there, which she says are incorrect).
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Turned it down as in, “I decline to accept it” or just wasn’t there to receive it?
The thing is - if they list her as the award winner (which they do) you can’t really turn it down. Kinda the way awards work. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any Razzie awards. at all. And post-awards ceremony - she’s listed as the winner by both the TEC awards and the Les Paul Foundation.
She was definitely “given” the Les Paul Innovation Award, last Saturday June 4. That news story was published on June 6.
I haven’t read the forum @Johnny_Mac referenced, but maybe she wasn’t there in person to receive it? I can see how it would be concerning if something was preventing her from accepting it in person.
Not sure why’d you turn down being added to a list with Joni Mitchell (2020), Peter Frampton (2019), Slash (2015), Pete Townsend (2013), Paul McCartney (2000), etc.
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Maybe controversial opinion - but if this is true it lowers my opinion of her a bit. TEC and the Les Paul Foundation choose who they’d like to honor. I think it’s probably out of genuine admiration and gratitude for her contributions to the music industry. So some publicist somewhere botched a small portion of her bio - relying on very heavily promoted source material (from Blaine and Tedesco). Based on what’s out there - could you tell exactly what details were true or not true about specific recording sessions 50 years ago? If there were mistakes it’s clear they were unintentional - why would you deliberately try to misrepresent?
And that mistake doesn’t in any way change the admiration and gratitude that underlies their decision to award her in the first place. So it’s a bit of a petty and juvenile slap-in-the-face to NAMM, TEC and the Les Paul Foundation to utterly refuse the award because of a few sentences in a botched bio by some publicist. And for someone who’s advanced in years enough to be considering her legacy (and apparently VERY concerned about her legacy) - ingratitude isn’t flattering.
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Well, she did not write details, simply said that her exchanges with them were enough to prove to her that they didn’t care. So she chose not to accept/turn up. I don’t see her listed (yet) on the TEC page for the Les Paul Award.
Petty or not, I think her opinions are very well known. She is old enough to not care what any of us think about her.
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Ugly situation ball around.
Awards like this are totally meaningless. Her music stands the test of time. She doesn’t need a bunch of white guys telling her she can play bass.
Moving on, nothing to see.
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Carol has always been very… odd… about her own history. I don’t have any personal opinion about her but I have noticed inconsistencies with her own admissions about who played on what recordings. Most particularly the Motown stuff; not to snub anyone but Jamerson and Kaye have very obviously different styles. She’s always struck me as needlessly overprotective of her legacy
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I was not comfortable after I put her post from her forum into this thread, so I deleted it. One can see it on her forum.
I hope she is healthy and doing well.
My very first bass book was a Mel Bay book, but my second was Carol Kaye’s How To Play The Electric Bass book. That was back in 1976.
She has always been my bass hero.
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It appears that Carol Kaye posts on Facebook nowadays, if anyone can check that out to see how she is doing. I am not on FB.
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The post on Facebook that I sorted through talked about her time as a studio musician. She did have a post today about the cops being killed in California. Other than that no mention about health.
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@jclay Thank you for checking!
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I’m not in Facebook, either.