On the thread about the Beach Boys, I was doing some research on a Beach Boys website, and Glen Campbell was mentioned for his playing on some of their albums, and how he briefly replaced Brian Wilson on tour, but they couldn't hang on to him because at the time, he was the most sought after session guitarist in Los Angeles (prior to launching his solo career as a well known singer).

On the site, and of course we have no way to verify the accuracy, it was written that Glen was making in 1964 $100,000 a year. I looked it up on one of those "how much is that money worth today" sites, and the conversion is $630,000!

I also know that for small studio efforts around here, a session player might earn ballpark $125 per song, so to make that kind of money in a small studio situation you would have to play seven days a week, and barely have time to sleep, let alone go to the bathroom!

I think there was a thread some time ago about studio musicians scale, but I don't know that it touched on what the "big" players make.

And I wouldn't expect Paul Franklin and others to chime in here disclosing their income, but I'm wondering what some of you more experienced players who have been around the scene in Nashville have to say.

Was the idea of Glen Campbell making (in today's money) $600,000 per year absurd in 1964?

Any idea what players on today's version of "The A Team" in Nashville pull in?

Current Union session rates are:

Per Player/Per Double Scale or Leader

345.98/691.98 Master Scale

189.42/378.84 Limited Pressing

150.72/301.44 Demo

More on weekends and holidays.

Always one player designated Leader per session unless everyone is on double scale.

Plus between $15.00 and $19.00 per session per player for Health/Welfare payment (in place of health insurance)

Plus 10% of total session wages paid into their pension fund.

Plus the Special Payments Fund (only for master sessions from major labels)

You can do the math from there--many play 3 sessions a day, many don't. Some mainly play masters and some demos or LP's. Some a combination of both. There are technically 4 sessions a day possible, though rare these days.

Are they worth it? Every penny of it in my book...

You can read more at the Union site: www.afm257.com

[This message was edited by John Macy on 11 July 2006 at 05:41 AM.]

I don't have a clue what some of the top session players make today because I don't do any hee hee but I'd say that they can make a very good living here in town but remember there's only a select few that are doing these top sessions everyday here in town.

I'd say the list of players doing master sessions for artists is less than 100 musicians remember it's just a guess and may be much less or even more. I try to read as many album credits as I can and I see the same names over and over for the sessions here in town. Although on almost every CD I'll see a name that I don't recognize but usually only one or two and they are names that don't show up on other stars albums.

I know there are folks on the forum that know much more about this subject than I do so I hope they will come forward and enlighten us and even correct me if I have the wrong idea of what's going on here in town. Very good thread and I want to mention I specifically do not want to know how much money any session players are making any where it's just a fun topic to discuss. I have enough problems worring about my own finances to worry about the session players. So guy's and gal session players please understand my post for what it is just a fun topic to talk about :-) thanks

Which doesn't count the Special Payments Fund check for airplay on hits he's on, which can also be considerable. It's been a long time since I've been on any records that got airplay, so I don't know if that fund still exists. John?

Nice work if you can get it.

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