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???
telemarcer
Gavin Harrison is his current favorite so I hope I assuaged all of the major VH concerns. What a great response to this thread, so appreciate it. Does Gavin hit your radar?
bomd +1 / DMST is a great band!

 A couple more great drummers (I suspect you already know about LOL): 
Billy Martin from "Medeski, Martin, & Wood"
Yasunori Takada from the band "mono"
Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Vinnie Colaiuta, Lennie White, Chester Thompson  - “under rated”. I think not -  all of them are some of the most respected and well revered players in the business - dead or alive ( tony) -  they have never been under appreciated.  

Perhaps Roy Haynes might make that list - or Jeff Hamilton - possibly Brian Blade and Bill Stewart - but these are all drum gods - along with many others - hardly under appreciated - they may not have the wealth and exposure of the arena rock power house drummers - but they are appreciated highly by their contemporaries and musician fans 


Bill Stewart is astonishing...I've seen him over the years with Scofield, and 2 current heavy rotation albums around my house are "Toy Tunes" with Larry Goldings and Peter Bernstein, and "Band Menu" with Larry Grenadier and Walter Smith III...highly recommended!
@boxer12

Yeah. Familiar with Billy Martin, not Yasunori Takada though. Looks like his band, Mono, did some output in Tzadik Records which I can get behind. I’ll check ‘em out!