Just saw the word that accordionist Carl Fortina has passed away. All Beach Boys fans know him best as having played the iconic accordion parts on Wouldn't It Be Nice alongside Frank Marocco, but the man was without exaggeration one of the finest and most-heard accordion players in recent history. His credits are a mile long, as he was first-call accordionist in Hollywood's studios for decades, doing music, TV, and film sessions and having his parts heard on TV shows, and film soundtracks which have become iconic. For years he also was the studio contractor for Paramount Studios, organizing and assembling the studio bands for many classic films and shows besides playing on them as a musician.
Nino Rota's score for The Godfather became one of the most recognized movie themes and scores of the 1970's, if not in modern times period. That is Carl playing the famous accordion parts anyone who has seen the film will recognize instantly. Nino Rota at the session is said to have told Carl after hearing him play his score "You don't play with your hands, you play with your heart."
And a better compliment would be hard to find for a musician.
This is the most familiar photo of Carl:
Search his credits, they're harder to find but out there. This is just a sampling from the blog "accordionuprising":
But when you hear accordion in a Hollywood movie or a TV soundtrack, commercial, or on pop albums for the last forty years, you’re probably hearing one of two guys. Carl Fortina and Frank Marocco. Between the two of them they played on 800 movies and counting, plus many, many TV and ad gigs and pop recordings. They played together on Brian Wilson’s Beach Boys classic “Wouldn’t it be Nice?” (Listen near the beginning, and Frank’s sort of fiddle-part under, “You know it seems the more we talk about it, it only makes it worse to live without it.”
A few highlights from Fortina’s 500-some soundtrack credits: Love Me Tender, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Godfather, How the West Was Won, Witness for the Prosecution (working with Marlene Dietrich), and Jimmy Stewart’s bits in the famous accordion-western Night Passage (Jimmy knew how to play, just not so well.) Fortina’s played squeezebox on Star Trek and the Brady Bunch and adapted to Elvis, Dylan, Ringo Starr, Diana Ross, and Luciano Pavarotti.
Marocco’s 300 films include: The Blues Brothers, Heartbreak Hotel, Edward Scissorhands, Finding Nemo (every recent animated feature has to hire one accordionist), Pirates of the Caribbean, Schindler’s List, The Muppet Movie, and Revenge of the Nerds. Classics all.
Carl Fortina got his start when L.A.’s go-to accordionist Dominic Frontiere retired way back when. If these two ever retire, there’ll be a feeding-frenzy among accordionists to see who gets their session chairs. We’ll be there to report on it.I love the sound of the accordion, it can be a magical instrument and just like drummers might say with someone like Hal Blaine, I realized most of my favorite accordion players were named Carl Fortina...
And those not named Fortina were named Marocco...
Wouldn't It Be Nice is and has been my all-time favorite song for years now, it's inspiring and magical. I don't see that #1 rank changing, it is the epitome of how music connects with people no matter the location or the time/era, and part of that magic I think comes from Brian pulling an instrument out of the joke bin (where it was unfortunately residing after 1964 for many people, young and otherwise), and placing it in such a devastatingly emotional and musically progressive context as his masterpiece Pet Sounds' opening track. That accordion does as much for the song as I sincerely feel the song did for the accordion itself, it elevated it to something beyond what it was or would have been without it, mutually.
And anyone who makes a face, or groans, or otherwise disparages the accordion in conversation in any way as "unhip", "uncool", "old", or any of the sort, simply mention Wouldn't It Be Nice, "The Godfather", or any of the hundreds of classic recordings and soundtracks which featured Carl Fortina playing his accordion as only a true master could do.
A consummate musician who Beach Boys fans will always appreciate and love for even one single part he played on a Beach Boys classic - RIP Carl Fortina.
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