I've known Bobby Elliott since 1963 when we were both starting out on the path to fame and possible fortune. We’ve kept in touch over the last 58 years and before I read his book, I thought I knew a great deal about him. ‘It Ain't Heavy It's My Story” is therefore something of an
Trilok Gurtu was born in Mumbai, India on 30 October, 1951 to Hindu Bramin parents. This was at a time when the city was still called Bombay and it wasn’t until a quarter of a century later, in 1996, that it was changed to its more ethnic, less colonial name. Trilok was born into a
Pete York was born in Middlesbrough on the 15th of August 1942 and came to drumming from a slightly different angle to the rest of us ‘baby boomers’ in the UK. He played jazz first. I interviewed him once for Mike Dolbear when he was ‘snowed in’ in Germany and like all responsible Englishmen of
(Editors note - Try as we might, none of us could find ANY photos of Frank Ippolito or the Professional Percussion store. If you happen to have one and would allow us to put it into this article, please get in contact) I struck up a rather special friendship in the very late sixties with Frank
This month's subject shouldn't be too difficult to write-up since I’ve known him, and the rest of the guys he played in the band with, rather well for coming up to sixty years. Mick was in the Kinks, and as it happens, so was I. I won't go into why Mick left because reams have
Roy Burns: November 30, 1935 - May 5, 2018 Roy Burns came from Emporia, which is in Kansas and around a hundred miles from Kansas City. Roy was one of the very few players who built a career which encompassed just about every aspect of drumming and the business of music. He was not only
I used to bump into Max Weinberg every now and again when we were touring around in my Kinks days and doing the odd gig with Bruce Springsteen. I'm pretty sure I remember playing with him in a street festival in Belgium when I was in a band called GB Blues Company, but he wasn't
Charles Connor was born in New Orleans on January 14, 1935 and is best known as a member of Little Richard's band The Upsetters. And, we’re reliably informed that ‘Little’ Richard Penniman’s shout of "a-wop bop-a loo-bop, a-lop bam-boom" at the beginning of his recording of "Tutti Frutti" is said to be a reference to
I didn’t actually know Ed Shaugnessy although we always nodded to one another backstage at Johnny Carson’s ‘The Tonight show’ when I was in Burbank plugging one record or another. I certainly did the Carson Show with The Kinks, and with Don McLean, but I’m afraid my memory fails me after 50 years as to
I first bumped into Mick Fleetwood when he was playing in jazz and blues clubs in my music-rich part of North London - places like The Fishmongers Arms, Cook’s Ferry Inn and of course Klooks Kleek in West Hampstead. We would see one another at stupid o’clock in the morning on the way home from
