Greatest Rock Drummers

Second,

Ginger Baker for double bass drums.

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Tommy Aldridge

Ansley Dunbar

Neil Peart must be the John Bonham of his generation, as he is mentioned so many times in polls, particularly by non-musicians. No offense intended! Peart has his strengths, but he wasn't aware of his glaring weakness when he organized the recording of a tribute album to Buddy Rich after Buddy's death. Rich played mostly Big Band-style jazz, which is largely played in the "Swing" feel. Swing is pretty much like the "Shuffle" feel in blues.

Early Rock 'n' Roll, as played by Little Richard, for instance, often had a very pronounced Swing/Shuffle feel, but that pretty much died out in the 60's (in R & R; it lived on in Blues). Bands like Rush didn't incorporate any of the roots influences in their music, and apparently Neil Peart wasn't interested in learning how to play the Swing/Shuffle feel. That became obvious during the recording of the BR tribute album, when Peart's inability to play Buddy's music with the required Swing feel became quite obvious. It was very embarrassing to him amongst the drumming fraternity.

Yep tostadosunidos, Zak Starkey is doing a great job in The Who. I saw them with Keith Moon live twice, and he was a possessed madman. But Zak is actually a more powerful, muscular, player. He doesn't play with the humour (an overlooked quality in musicians) or individuality of Moon (who played unlike anyone else), but ya can't have it all. Keith gave the best answer to an interviewer I've ever heard; when asked if he could play in The Buddy Rich Big Band (the question intended to put him in his place), Keith replied "No, and Buddy Rich couldn't play in The Who".

aniwolfe, Vinnie is also Jeff Beck's drummer on the road. Insane chops, as good as anyone alive. Apparently that style drumming is what Jeff prefers, as he had Carmine Appice in his band for awhile. Porcaro was SUCH a good drummer; like Gadd, a Jazz-trained and proficient technician who played very musically. Too bad he wasted his talent playing schlock music in Toto ;-) .

Thanks gpgr4blu. Being a drummer, I would put it a little differently! A drummer SHOULD be, above all else, a musician---one who plays music. So there should not be a distinction between drummers and other musicians. Unfortunately, many drummers create that distinction by playing in an unmusical manner, to the chagrin of the other musicians. Playing drums is often more a display of athletic ability (purely physical) than musical sensibilities. Having chops (technical ability) is required to play drums well (with some musics requiring more technique than others), but when put above all other considerations can actually become counter-productive. Not only does the drum playing not enhance the song, the singer, or the band, it actually detracts from them, being worse than if there were no drums at all. Steve Gadd’s technique is FAR more advanced than was John Bonham’s, but he uses that technique in service to playing the best musical part---a means to an end, rather than an end unto itself.

I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating. It was told to me by Evan Johns, sometimes bandmate of the incredible guitarist Danny Gatton (legendary amongst guitarists, including Vince Gill, who nicknamed him "The Humbler"). Danny had a new drummer, playing his first gig with him at a club. On the break after the first set, Danny said to the drummer: "You know all that fancy sh*t you’re playing?". The drummer responded "Yeah". Danny then said "Don’t". Gatton had (R.I.P.) incredible guitar chops, and you can’t blame the drummer for thinking he should play as "hot" as possible.

The thing a lot of drummers don’t understand is, playing drums in a purely technical fashion does not necessarily or automatically create the feel, style, and sound a guitarist (even one playing in a highly technical style), singer, or pianist wants from his or her band. The fact that a drum part is hard to play is in no way related to it’s musical value---there is NO correlation! I have gotten gigs over more technically-advanced players because of my musically-orientated style, and have had my recorded version of a song used on an album instead of the take by a more, shall we say, "extroverted" player (think Keith Moon).

Would The Beatles music (for instance) be "better" with a drummer like Bonham? Or would it, conversely, be not as good as it is with Ringo?

For those interested in discovering the unique, unusual, and even odd (and I mean that as a compliment) bass playing of the aforementioned Rick Danko of The Band, give a listen to "Chest Fever" and "We Can Talk" on the Music From Big Pink album, and "Stage Fright" from the album of the same title. I’ve never heard any other bassist play even remotely like Rick. His parts sound so cool they actually make me laugh out loud!

Another very creative and unique (as well as musical) bassist is Joey Spampinato, formerly of the great NRBQ. He’s a favorite of Keith Richards, who employed him for the band he assembled when he made his Chuck Berry movie. Also in the band was drummer Steve Jordan, a huge fan of Levon Helm. Keith also asked Spampinato to join The Stones when Bill Wyman left, and Joey turned him down! One of my all-time favorite bassists, along with Danko.

John Paul Jones isn’t even close to playing at their level, and is not renown for his abilities on that instrument in the bass player community. He is what is known as a utilitarian player, and nothing more. In his defense, it’s hard to play great bass in a band that doesn’t have great songs, or other great players ;-).

johnto---actually, I did mention Jim Gordon, in a post a couple of days ago (it reads "Jim’s Gordon and Keltner"---my way of saying Jim Gordon and Jim Keltner). I love his playing, and his cymbals were as good sounding as I’ve ever heard, as were Levon Helm’s. Bonham’s? Uh, not so much. I have one of Jim’s Camco drumsets, acquired in L.A. in the late 90’s. They were left in a storage facility when he was "sent away" (Jim started hearing voices, which one day told him to kill his mother. He did, with a butcher knife.), and I lucked onto them when the building was sold, along with it’s contents.

Jim was not only an unusually musical drummer, but also wrote and played the piano part in the middle of "Layla" (where the song breaks down, and the band stops playing). One of my half-dozen favorite drummers of all-time. I’m going to guess Steve Cham also considers Bonham a more inventive and musical drummer than Jim Gordon. Steve and I obviously have different ideas of what constitutes musicality! And while I can understand why and how one could find the more "obvious" playing of Bonham more inventive than that of Levon Helm (Helm’s creativity is too subtle and refined for some, a little over their heads ;-), the same can not be said of John Paul Jones’ bass playing in comparison with that of Rick Danko. The bass playing on The Band albums is astonishingly great! JPJ’s playing is the very definition of pedestrian. That is NOT a matter of opinion amongst musicians---ask any really good bassist about JPJ and Danko.

The "problem" with Rock (or Pop, or Country, etc.) drummers who overplay, is that they think what they are playing is as important as the song itself---the chord sequences, the melody, harmony, and counterpoint, the arrangement, etc. They think what they are playing IS the song! They have not yet learned the role, the function, of their instrument in the big picture. Let me make a couple of analogies, if over-simplified ones:

1- The script of a movie (a film, if you insist ;-) is analogous to a song, the dialogue to a movie as the chords and melody are to a song. Now, what if there were an actor who thought that the manner in which he delivered his lines, taken out of the context of the movie, were more important than the lines themselves? Have you heard one actor refer to another as generous? Good musicians view and judge each other similarly---whether another is acting (playing) in a way as to draw all the attention to themselves, or to act (play) as part of an ensemble. It takes maturity, wisdom, and selflessness to play as part of an ensemble. THAT is the manner in which Jim Gordon, Levon Helm, and Rick Danko play music.

2- In literature, all the ideas are conveyed in words, unlike a movie. There are the raw words themselves, but they are organized into sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Each line of words is also organized, the meaning of the words clarified with the use of punctuation. It is my contention that the best Pop (which includes all sub-genres) drummers realize that the role of drums is NOT on the same level of importance as the song itself (chords, melody, etc.), that drums instead provide the definition, clarification, and organization that punctuation and other forms of grammar do in literature. It’s not that black-and-white, but you get the point. Watch Steve Gadd playing with Clapton---that’s exactly what he is doing.

There is much more to it that that---dynamics, color, phrasing, etc. But I’ll again repeat myself---if a drummer is playing parts with the main consideration being how his playing reflects on him rather than on how it effects the song itself---which exists whether or not he is playing at all---then his approach is not musical. It’s just that simple.

What Bonham does is play an overly-long (imo) run around his toms, duplicating, on his "untuned" (drums are tensioned, not tuned to notes, generally speaking) instrument (specifically his tom toms) what Page is already playing. Playing those notes all around his toms serves no musical purpose (there’s that term again), and creates a one-dimensional style of music, with no depth, no layers. True, Bonham doesn’t play that way all the time in every song, but it IS his basic approach. Recall the guitar, drum, and bass parts in "Good Times, Bad Times", for example; all three are accenting the same rhythm. SO one dimensional!

Ya beat me to it, lowrider57! About Ringo being a musical drummer, that is. There’s a saying in the Christian faith, that you can’t serve two masters. A drummer can approach a song and choose to play it in one of two ways: either in a way to make the song sound better than if he wasn’t playing (and/or make the singer and/or other musicians sound "better"), or in a way to make himself sound as good as possible. While both criteria can and have been satisfied in rare examples (by the best of the best---Levon Helm, Roger Hawkins, Jim’s Gordon and Keltner, Al Jackson Jr., Steve Gadd amongst that elite group), it is usually one or the other---one precluding the other.

I’m not here to denigrate the drumming of John Bonham; it is what it is. He was indeed very instrumental in creating the Led Zeppelin style of music, and remains hugely influential, much more so than drummers whose playing I personally prefer. Lowrider, you are very correct in saying that Bonham didn’t play "with" the bassist, as is the norm in a band with a true rhythm section. It’s hard to call two-thirds of a 3-piece band a rhythm "section"!

The over-playing in his style that I was speaking of can be demonstrated by playing any number of LZ songs, and, as you noted, involves his interaction with Page’s guitar parts. What Bonham does is play an overly-long (imo) run around his toms, duplicating, on his "untuned" (drums are tensioned, not tuned to notes, generally speaking) instrument (specifically his tom toms) what Page is already playing. Playing those notes all around his toms serves no musical purpose (there’s that term again), and creates a one-dimensional style of music, with no depth, no layers. True, Bonham doesn’t play that way all the time in every song, but it IS his basic approach. Recall the guitar, drum, and bass parts in "Good Times, Bad Times", for example; all three are accenting the same rhythm. SO one dimensional! If each would play "off" each other, rather than in unison, it would make for more interesting music, imo.

What the best drummers (and other musicians) do is play parts that compliment the playing of the other musicians, rather than doubling what is already being played. John Paul Jones often does the same thing as Bonham, playing the same notes on bass as is Page on guitar, but of course an octave lower. That is the basis of "Riff Rock" style music. It is, for those desiring depth in music, very boring.

Compare the drum and bass playing on the first Led Zeppelin album to that on the first Band album. A world of difference! The Band’s bassist Rick Danko creates almost "songs within songs"---using counterpoint, inversions, octaves, syncopation, and other techniques to enrich the music. Drummer Levon Helm does the same, leaving "holes" where the others are already playing a note, putting one in where no one else is. Listen to all the "passing of the musical baton" going on in "This Wheel’s On Fire" on Music From Big Pink. Insanely great! Every time the song comes around again to the "stop" in the middle of the chorus, the guitar, drums, and bass play their "pick-up" note in a different order from the last time. Depth, baby! Playing in this manner enriches the musicality of the song, is far more interesting, and just sounds cooler. It is also far harder to do, and requires musical taste (an understanding of what not to play), which, I’m sorry to say, John Bonham lacked. Just my opinion, of course.

jond’s nomination of Jim Keltner (of which I heartily approve and second) begs the question: what constitutes a "Rock" drummer? Before Keltner starting playing in The Playboys (Gary Lewis’ backing band) in the mid-60’s, he was, in his own words, a Jazz snob. He is Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell’s first call drummer (as well as Ry Cooder’s, and many other guitarists and songwriters), and does mostly studio work. Is he a "Rock" drummer? Does he even play what you consider Rock music?

The same can be asked about Steve Gadd, who has been working with Eric Clapton for years. I guess you could call Clapton’s music Rock, but Gadd was trained in rudiments and played in the Army/Navy Band during the Vietman War era (a good way to not have to go shoot or be shot at!). I just watched a documentary on Clapton’s 2014 World Tour, and Gadd played very few fills (the opposite of Neil Peart, who never passes up that opportunity), focusing on establishing the structure of each song, and creating the feel and groove of the band. Gadd is a fantastic drummer (one of the handful of best in the world, imo) who can, and does, play one of the best drum solos I’ve ever heard and seen. Very advanced technical ability, but he doesn’t feel the need to constantly prove it by over-playing, a rarity.

Seeing a Led Zeppelin tribute band live last night reminded me of just how guilty John Bonham was of over-playing (completely unnecessary fills which in no way advanced the song, and in fact just duplicated what someone else was playing), and how his style of playing was adopted by the vast majority of Rock drummers that followed him. Over-playing is by far the number one complaint about drummers by other musicians. Good ones, that is ;-) .

Michael Shrieve 1969 upstate NY. I was about 25 feet away from them when they did Soul Sacrifice