About 50 years ago, a quartet of L.A. session musicians became so synonymous with the era-defining soft-rock scene — headlined by James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Fleetwood Mac among others — that they were dubbed the Mellow Mafia. In 1971, Kortchmar and Kunkel appeared on King’s bestselling, Grammy-winning “Tapestry” and were joined …
