An Old Fart's Guide to the Best Drummers in R'n'R/R'n'B

The recent 4th anniversary of the passing of Levon Helm got me thinking.  He's definitely one of the top drummers of all time in my booklet so . . . who would be in my Top Ten list?  It was surprisingly easy to come up with the Big Ten but I'll have to admit that the listing of Number 11 through Number 20 could include up to 30 drummers, easily.   (Squeeeeze 'em in.)

I put together my list and then started thinking more about it (never a good thing).  What deserving (and/or favorite) drummers had I left out?  Tough question.  The only thing to do was to come up with a second list -- the Top Ten Not-So-Famous Drummers Who Rarely Show Up in Someone's Top Ten List.  


And so I will give you both my lists, starting with the Best of the Best, presented in copyrighted David Letterman Top Ten Reverse Numerical Order©.  The list of Not-So-Famous cymbal-crashers will follow later (i.e., tomorrow).

Top Ten Drummers

10)  Carmine Appice.  Influential hard hitter from Vanilla Fudge, Cactus and Beck Bogert & Appice, Carmine has played with just about everyone (to use a tired, old cliché) and is often mentioned as being influential to other prominent rock drummers.  He's always in demand and has appeared on more recordings than you could imagine.

9)  Ginger Baker.  If he only had worked with Cream, he'd still make this list.  The man who introduced the double bass drum set-up to rock, he was perhaps the first rock superstar drummer.  From his early work with Brit Blues pioneers Graham Bond and Alexis Korner, he formed Cream with Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton, then went on to work with Blind Faith, Ginger Baker's Air Force, The Baker-Gurvitz Army (highly overlooked band), while remaining a champion of African polyrhythmic music.  




8)  Mitch Mitchell.  Easily overlooked for having to play behind the singular best guitarist of any era, Jimi Hendrix, Mitchell's drumming prowess is often given short shrift.  He's a beast!  His cymbal work is some of the finest in rock and roll, a result of his early interest in jazz and his pre-Hendrix touring and recording with Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames.




7)  Roger Hawkins.  The embodiment of white boy soul, his drumming has been featured on recordings (mainly made in Muscle Shoals, Alabama) of such artists as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Etta James, Clarence Carter, Duane Allman, The Staple Singers, Rod Stewart, Cat Stevens, Eric Clapton, Bobby Blue Bland, Albert King, Paul Simon and on and on and on.  The rock-steady beat of the Muscle Shoals Sound.



6)  Hal Blaine.  The Dean of Session Players.  Blaine is the only drummer who can match Top 40 hits with Roger Hawkins, having appeared on

record with nearly every act to record in Los Angeles in the 60s (gross over-exaggeration #137).  He's recorded with the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the 5th Dimension, Jan & Dean, Nancy Sinatra, The Crystals, John Denver, Dean Martin and too many others to mention.  In fact, he has appeared on 40 #1 chart hits and 150 Top Ten hits as well as the Grammy Award Winning Record of the Year for 6 consecutive years from '66 to '71, inclusive.  

5)  Neil Peart.  Literally the driving force behind Rush, Peart is a phenomenally talented rhythmist who plays with one of the largest drum sets in existence.  Bigger does not always equate with better, but Peart's set-up is not just for show.  He can milk some amazing sounds and timbres from his kit, all the while maintaining a steady pulse behind the complex and heavy music of these Canadian progsters.  (I wonder if there's a single band who has been labeled as a progressive rock band that enjoys being referred to as 'progsters'?)  To top it all off, Peart is the principle lyricist for all Rush songs.  Amazing.



4)  Benny Benjamin.  Motown session man Benjamin was such an

incomparable musician yet his importance and influence are hard to explain.  Having appeared on most Motown hits in the 60s, his sound is so familiar that people rarely appreciate his complexity.  The simplest way to explain his prowess is to look to Willie Mitchell, owner of Hi Records and producer of such Memphis stalwarts as Al Green, Ann Peebles and O.V. Wright.  In order to replicate the sound of Benny Benjamin, Mitchell employed 2 drummers on most all of his recording sessions -- one to lay down the bass and tom-tom beat and the other to play snare and cymbals.  One of a kind, Benny Benjamin.

3)  Levon Helm.  Funky and complex, often playing in a style that some have called inside-out drumming, Levon was the anchor behind the music of The Band.  Heavily influenced by the music he heard and the musicians he saw while growing up in rural Arkansas, Helm was rooted not only in blues and r'n'b but also the pure country sounds heard on the high-wattage radio stations out of Nashville.  He also fondly spoke of being mesmerized by the traveling minstrel shows that would play all over the south in tents set up near the cotton fields of his youth.  And all that plus years of traveling the back roads of rock'n'roll with the legendary Ronnie Hawkins led to the unmistakable, rootsy sound of The Band, 4 Canadians and this good ol' boy from Arkansas.   The fact that Levon sang lead or back-up on most Band songs while maintaining that loping beat is accomplishment enough.  



2)  Keith Moon.  Pure energy in motion, this madcap genius was mesmerizing.

 You couldn't take your eyes off him in performance, no matter how hard Pete Townshend tried to divert attention away from him with his windmill guitar strokes.  No matter how many times a fringe-heavy Roger Daltrey swung his microphone cord in circles, you still could not pull your eyes away from the animated thunder of Keith Moon.  Powerful and precise.  Raucus and inspiring.  There'll never be another.

1)  Charlie Watts.  The human metronome.  The man who knows the purpose and defining importance of being THE DRUMMER.  Charlie Watts has sat behind Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for 50 years and never once had to raise his arms to pound out a beat that you could hear over the guitar amps and p.a. system.  It's all in the wrists, baby.  Charlie Watts has the strongest wrists in the business.  You'll be watching the Stones performing "Midnight Rambler" and all of a sudden you hear that BOOM punctuating Jagger's delivery of the slowed down middle section of the song and you'll think "Where'd that come from?" because Charlie hardly moved a muscle.  How'd he do that?  Quiet and unassuming off the bandstand, Charlie is a genius of tempo and counterpoint when seated at his drum kit.  Remarkable talent.

(Coming next:  The Not-So-Famous Top Ten Drummers)