In the 1960's, the greatest band was largely unknown. I'm talking about "The Wrecking Crew" who was a group of studio musicians who were heard on so many hit songs by so many acts that is almost unbelievable. Just a few well known musicians that made of the group were:
Hal Blaine on drums
Glenn Campbell and Tommy Tedesco on guitar
Carol Kaye and Ray Pohlman on bass
Don Randi and Leon Russell on keyboards
There were several others over the years as well. For more info, here is the wikipedia article about them
en.wikipedia.org
Some examples of their work.