Personality Type?

Ranking (or even just judging) of drummers is often done using the yardstick of technical ability, especially but not limited to by drummers themselves. But you’ll notice songwriters, singers, and players of instruments other than drums sometimes use a different metric, that of musicality. Hard to define, easy to hear.

For instance, Ry Cooder would arrange his recordings around the availability of Jim Keltner (a drummer also favoured by Randy Newman and Bill Frisell). Lots of singers made the trip to Muscle Shoals specifically to record with Fame Studios house band Thw Swampers, whose drummer Roger Hawkins is a living legend (Keltner in a Modern Drummer interview stated he wished he played more like Roger). For a taste of Hawkins' drumming, listen to "Loan Me A Dime" by Boz Scaggs.(guitar by Duane Allman), and all the Jerry Wexler-produced Aretha Franklin albums on Atlantic Records.

One guitar virtuoso who didn’t like drummers who played "flashy" was the late, great Danny Gatton.

Gatton to his new drummer on the break after the first set of the drummer’s debut gig with Danny: "Hey, ya know all that fancy stuff you play?"

The drummer: "Yeah."

Gatton: "Don’t."

You couldn’t keep your eyes off Keith Moon, regardless of where on stage he was. Clem Burke has obviously watched and listened to Keith a LOT. He is seen in the video of The Eurythmics "Would I Lie To You" (love it!), but not heard on the recording. Twenty years ago I was playing with John Wicks of The Records. I got the cheap gigs, Clem the one’s paying John enough for him to be able to afford the little rat bastard ;-) .

Let’s not forget Levon Helm, who sat to the right (stage left) of the rest of The Band. There is no conversation into which I cannot drag The Band ;-) .

@wolf_garcia: Amen, brother! Another cat I love is Roger Hawkins (of Muscle Shoals’ The Swampers fame). And Al Jackson (Booker T & The MG’s), Jim Gordon (Derek & The Dominos, All Things Must Pass), Keltner, of course. Kenny Buttrey (Nashville studios, Neil Young’s Harvest) and Harry Stinson (Nashville, Marty Stuart’s great band The Fabulous Superlatives). Jeff Porcaro was insanely great (I met him in L.A., and he was as nice as could be), as is Gadd, who may be the best all-around drummer working today..

And then there is the master, Earl Palmer (the inventor of Rock ’n’ Roll drumming. Bonham copped Palmer’s intro to Little Richard’s "Keep A Knockin’" for his identical intro to Zeppelin’s "Rock And Roll"). In his later years Palmer’s 3-pc Jazz combo played at Chadney’s Steak House in Burbank (now shuttered), directly across the street from the NBC studios. Drummers came from all over the world to sit at the feet of the master. I had only to walk the two blocks from my house to watch him work. A free master’s class!

Hmm @wolf_garcia, depends on what is meant by background. I had a session for one song for a movie soundtrack, and after the first take the engineer/producer asked me to play more like Keith Moon (of whom he was and remains a big fan). The singer (a grandson of one of The Lennon Sisters!) asked "Is that 60’s?" (the movie was set in that decade). The producer said "Oh yeah, The Who were in the 60’s."

So on the second take I played a little more aggressively, but not enough more to satisfy the producer. He suggested some fills in certain passages, and I said to him "That will walk all over the vocal." To my astonishment he then said "Oh, I don’t care about that." !!!!!

The next time I spoke with him he told me that after I left he had done a take with him doing his own drumming (he is a multi-instrumentalist), and submitted it to the movies soundtrack producer. That recording was rejected. He then submitted the take with my drumming, and it was accepted.

To me the focus of the song was the vocal, to the engineer/producer it was about playing in an extroverted style. I view it as a matter of musical appropriateness, and place musicality above all else. Keith Moon was musically perfect for The Who, but wouldn’t have lasted a week as a studio musician ;-) .