I’ve been waiting patiently to get to Carmine because he’s very much of my generation and I know there’s far more to him (and the effect he has had on music) than meets the eye. For my money, he had a great deal more to do with the development of ‘rock’ drumming than he’s been
Kenneth Spearman Clarke was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 2nd, 1914 to Charles Spearman and Martha Grace Scott. His mother was a pianist who taught him the piano until her sad death when he was just six years old. Things got worse after this disaster when his father left the family and Kenny was
‘Chick’ Webb was born in Baltimore, Maryland on February 10th, 1905 to William and Mary Webb. From an early age he suffered from tuberculosis of the spine, after a fall downstairs which deformed his back making him short and hunchbacked. Unfortunately at the time, TB was scandalously endemic in Baltimore amongst black people. Having
It’s a fair cop, I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know as much about Gene Krupa as I did about many of his contemporaries whom I’ve already written of in Groovers and Shakers. That said, other than the obvious, my knowledge seems to have been gleaned from black and white photographs of him in magazines
‘Rockie’ Blunt was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on July 29th, 1925 and even though he’s certainly not the most famous drummer we’ve investigated in this series, he has an exceedingly interesting and unique story which I thought it pertinent to share with you. Roscoe ‘Rockie’ Blunt played jazz and grew up as a Methodist in
Born Sander L. Nelson in Santa Monica, California on December 1st, 1938, Sandy was the first of the rock and roll generation to explore the possibilities of drums as solo instruments on record in the new music. His first attempt was ‘Teenbeat’ in September 1959 and features a rhythm he borrowed from another drummer he
Ok we got there at last. I give you the subject of this month’s Groovers & Shakers - Buddy Rich. We could just say: “Bernard ‘Buddy’ Rich, born September 30th, 1917 - the world’s greatest drummer, ever” and leave it at that because it’s the truth and nobody who knows anything at all about drums
In the same way Bert Weedon, or at least his ‘Play In A Day’ tutor book, turned on ‘British Baby Boomers’ like Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck et al to the possibilities offered by the guitar, Tony Meehan did the same thing to the drummers of my generation. Unlike Jerry Allison, who
If there’s one piece of music which defines America at a certain time it’s ‘Green Onions’ – certainly as far as those of us living in the UK are concerned. Even now more than fifty years after the record came out it’s still being used to pinpoint a time and place. If a film or
Louie Bellson was born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Belassoni and with Christian names like that it’s no surprise he was deeply religious. I’ve been lucky enough to meet him several times at various music trade shows and he always came across as being an absolute gentleman. I even remember visiting Remo’s Los Angeles factory in
