Luckiest Drummer List

This could be dangerous territory, but Owen and I started a luckiest drummer list and it's time to go public with it. I'll start it off with someone whom I'm sure is a very cool guy. I'm sure he's funny, down to earth, personable, etc. but Nick Mason has a net worth of $70 million dollars!!!!!! Drumming for Pink Floyd!!!!! I rest my case. Feel free to join in.....

You Gotta Check This Out......

Herlin Riley's solo in this video is a must see.
Go to YouTube and check out "Wynton Marsalis and Herlin Riley
Live 2002 (Part 1)".
It starts with a quick intro from Wynton, then this amazing solo by Herlin.
This is for everyone: drummers, non-drummers, musicians, non-musicians, people who go to the concession stand during drum solos, boys, girls, moms, dads, Democrats, Republicans (O.K. maybe not Republicans), Met's fans, Yankee fans, the whole lot.
I would have embedded it, but it was disabled by request.
Enjoy!

How about best drummers names......

In looking for an old drum book on ebay, I came across the name Dave Tough.
I had heard his name on and off, but this finally made me check him out. Dave played with some heavy hitters like Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Charlie Christian and Fletcher Henderson, among others. For people interested in learning about drumming or the music and time period in general, he was a very interesting guy.
But - me being me - Dave's name got me thinking about drummers with cool names, so I thought I'd throw some out there and see if anyone else could "beat" me!
(Let's make these guys who could play; Rikki Rockett doesn't count on so many levels).

Besides Dave Tough, how about:
J.C. Heard
Shadow Wilson
Big Sid Catlett
Ziggy Modeliste
Bernard "Pretty' Purdie
And......
?

How Could I Forget Richie?? (Greatest Drummer List)

I know when naming the greatest drummers of all time, one might leave
off one (or maybe even two) really important people. Some people could argue that some on the list shouldn't be, while others should. Fair enough.
But, in my in-depth analysis, I completely forgot about one of my (and Steve Gadd's) picks for greatest drummers: Richie Hayward.
He's one of those guys where you hear one measure and you know it's him. His sound and feel are truly his own thing. A while back, a friend had house seats at Carnegie Hall for Joan Armatrading and asked if I wanted to go. I thought ,"Joan Armatrading... o.k but..."
I went anyway.
Was I glad I did - Richie AND Bill Payne (also from Little Feat) were in her band. What a GREAT night. I highly recommend checking him out if he's not too familiar. I'd start out with Little Feat's
live album 'Waiting for Columbus'.

Update: Unfortunately, Richie lost his battle with liver cancer.
Our thoughts go out to his family.

How come he's not on the list ( best drummers of all time)?

Compared to oil spills, wars, famine, disease and Chipper Jones, the 'top drummer list(s) of all time' are small potatoes. But what exactly is the criteria for some of these lists? I googled "best drummers of all time list" and...wow.
On musicradar.com (which claims to be the #1 musicians website), they have Tommy Lee and Carmine Appice ahead of Billy Cobham and Elvin Jones. Are they sharin' a smoke with the chimp?! Then there's gigwise.com - they have the guy from Smashing Pumpkins ahead of Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and Al Jackson Jr.
WHAT?
Are they f*#@king kidding?
You should see this list, it's mind-boggling who's NOT on this list. (The guy from The Yea, Yea, Yeas is on this list and Jack Dejohnette isn't - that's like putting Pauly Shore on the greatest comedians list and not Richard Pryor!)
Not all of the lists are that ridiculous. The Rolling Stone List is good - though exclusively rock drummers. Even though I disagree with the order and some of the choices (that's the beauty of personal opinion), it's pretty respectable.There are a couple of decent lists on the web, but they're hard to find. So, why don't we come up with our own.
We'll start with the top 10 in rock, jazz and funk/soul/r&b respectively.
Let's make the criteria: talent, taste, influence and originality.

Rock
John Bonham, Keith Moon, Charlie Watts, Ringo Starr, Stewart Copeland,
Earl Palmer, Ian Paice, D. J. Fontana, Bill Buford, Mitch Mitchell.

Jazz
Gene Krupa, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Chick Webb, Jack Dejohnette,
Peter Erskine, Buddy Rich, Max Roach, Billy Cobham, Steve Gadd.

Funk/Soul/RnB
David Garibaldi, Carl Stubblefield/Jabo Starks, Al Jackson Jr.,
Bernard Purdie, Ziggy Modeliste, Steve Gadd, Benny Benjamin/
Richard Allen, Roger Hawkins, Earl Palmer, Robbie Macintosh.

This is all up for debate, so...........

What About Charlie?

How come in all the back and forths about great rock drummers - great drummers PERIOD - is Charlie Watts' name rarely mentioned?  Do I need to spell it out?  C-H-A-R....
Sorry.
Not only was he one of the pioneers of modern rock drumming (as opposed to 50's style rock drumming, which was more of a bridge between jazz and rock), his time, feel and taste are impeccable.
Many drummers have tried to copy the ubiquitous "Charlie Watts groove" (not playing the high hat when playing the snare) but have failed to capture the subtleties involved. When Charlie does it, the back beat is emphasized and the feel moves smoothly along. In the wrong hands however, this can be a groove buster.  (Remember: always hire a professional!)
Charlie's love of music is evident by what he does away from the Stones. His boogie woogie projects, the stuff he did with Jim Keltner and, most notably, his large contribution to turning non-jazz people on to Charlie Parker.  In addition to The Charlie Watts Quintet and The Charlie Watts Orchestra, his book & record "Ode to a High Flying Bird" (had the box set, lost it in the fire) was the coolest not-just-for-kid's thing ever made.
And if that weren't enough, he plays Gretsch (round badge) drums and has for most of his life. 

A Streetcar Named Treme

I don't want to go all TMZ here, but I've been watching Treme and the music is really good. It's reminding me how funky the 2nd line thing is.
I'm guessing it's influenced drummers like Steve Gadd - I know it's  affected my playing. (Nothing like being mentioned in the same sentence as Steve Gadd, even if it's me who's doing the mentioning.) 
Also, some of the N.A.R.D. (National Association of Rudimental Drummers) solos are very "second line-ish". Between the syncopation and swing factor, throw some horn parts on top of many of those solos and you might as well start peelin' the crawfish. We're going to get way into the n.a.r.d. stuff at a later date. For now, let me know if any of you have been watching Treme and what you think of the music.

Time to start the drum reno project

Here I am with my first bass drum and some guy who thought he was my father.
As I mentioned in the last post, I'm going to start working on some cool old drums. We're going to bring them up to speed and make 1 kit where there used to be 2. First we'll start with a Gretsch 20 x 14 round badge bass drum. This drum sounds great but, as Dr. Phil would say, (why am I quoting Dr. Phil?) it has "issues".
Problem number one: the original spurs are closer to the batter head.This causes some rough seas while playing. They need to be moved toward the resonant (front) head and tom mount. Since this drum has been recovered and has a Rogers "Big R" tom mount (obviously installed incorrectly), keeping it original is not an issue. Ergo, I'm having Barry and the boy's at Drummers World in NYC put on a pair of Pearl spurs - I don't like the old Gretsch spurs anyway - to make her nice and sturdy.
Now, the recovering job is problems #2 and #3.
Number 2: the covering (veneer, I think) is bubbling.
Number 3: between Gretsch drums being ever so slightly larger (I need to confirm this) than other drums, and the veneer going right up to the bearing edge,changing heads is about as much fun as the 1991 Mets (easy, I'm a die hard Met fan). So I'll be getting Barry's feedback on solving problems 2 & 3 and getting back to you.
In the mean time, anybody feel like chiming (sorry, it's past my bedtime) in, feel free.

I want a Radio King

Sorry Dorothy, you can't have one.
I, on the other hand, do have one - yes I'm trying to sound like a schmuck. It's from the 40's, I believe (need to do more research), and it has the maple finish. It's in real good shape but I need to have the butt ( I would have chosen another word) assembly brought back as close to the original as possible. Original Radio Kings were manufactured by The Slingerland Drum Co. founded by H.H Slingerland. Old Henry Heanon Slingerland got into drum making after he won a correspondence course of music in a card game. Gibson now owns Slingerland and they're re-issuing Radio King drums but....... you can't remake a great movie like The Wizard of Oz (oh wait - they did), but you get my drift.
So hit me up with any Radio King stories you may have. I have a bunch of drums I'm going to have worked on, so in the next few posts, we'll go through the process.

Any body miss these?

We'll be checking out tons of drums, but I've been longin for my 1966 blue sparkle Ludwigs (kinda like these guys but not). I had 2 sets of 'em (stolen, I'll bet baby Butch and Sundance had no idea what they got). Some how I still have one Supraphonic snare (put die cast hoops on that boy and it sure do crack). I've been seein a few of these kits floatin around, tempting..........

Favorite Drummer Poll

Vote for your favorite drummer (at the bottom of the blog). Leave a comment as to why you picked who you did and suggest who should be on the next poll.

What better way to start.

We'll be discussing all sorts of drum stuff, but I thought a good way to kick (you should pardon the expression) it off was takin a look at the great Al Jackson Jr.
For those of you (and I hope it's not many) who aren't familiar with him, he was best known for playing with The Reverend Al Green and for being a founding member of Stax house band, Booker T. and the MG's. Check him out at www.myspace.com/aljacksonjr