Bobby Caldwell. If he wants to listen to a good hard rock drummer get him the self-titled Captain Beyond album. Super playing on every song. Jack DeJohnette, very musical jazz drummer. Many great ones already mentioned here, in many genres. In listening to my Beatles albums I feel Ringo is underrated as a drummer. Billy Cobham also composed much of the music on his solo lps. I love it when I read credits to what I am listening and see that the drummers wrote the song!!
Great musicians who should have been famous except....
I'm throwing this out there as an example. My 16 yr old aspiring drummer son asked me if I had anything in the vinyl collection tonight... apparently the U Tube video tutorials finally got boring. He is really good and practices non stop but it was refreshing when he asked about ideas for sound. In a moment of 30 years past clarity I put on the B side of Van Halen 1984… Is Alex Van Halen the most under rated rock drummer of all time? And is there a better lead in to ANY rock vinyl side than that???