William Scott Bruford was born on May 17, 1949 and he and I were without doubt contemporaries. We’ve sat together talking about drums and drumming quite a few times over the years. Argent, Yes and several others were happily beating the same progressive rock path around the world so we were often thrust together at

Avedis Zildjian III was born on December 6th, 1889 in Samatya which was the Armenian area inside the city walls of Constantinople. Avedis' father was an attorney who became a politician and who sent his son to a prestigious French school. Avedis was evidently something of a polyglot who, as a boy spoke Greek, Armenian,

I knew Aynsley Thomas Dunbarwhen he was a ‘face’ around London in the sixties who I bumped into a lot around the drum shops, ‘frothy’ coffee bars and London clubs like 'The Speakeasy' in Margaret Street and of course the Marquee in Wardour Street. We knocked about with him when he moved to California around

Bobbie Clarke may well have been the first proper rock ‘n’ roll drummer I saw at the Imperial Hall, my local dance hall in Waltham Cross, a dormitory town just outside of London. This would have been towards the end of the 1950's. However, he was known by his real name Bobby Woodman at the

Simon Phillips was born in London on February 7th, 1957 which makes him considerably younger than me. However, I’ve known him since he burst onto the music scene at a very precocious age. He went to a school called Winchester House outside of London where they weren’t able to accommodate his desire to be a

I have bumped into Bernard Purdie quite a lot at trade shows over the years. He’s a gregarious guy and we’ve had some pleasant, informative and downright funny conversations together. By the way, just in case you meet him his first name is always pronounced in the American way, with a stress on the last

Phillip David Charles Collins was born on January 30th, 1951 and as it happens I like to think I actually know him reasonably well. We played on an Argent album together back in the seventies, and believe it or not he invited me to join Genesis when Peter Gabriel left. But, to get to the

Grady Tate was born in Hayti, North Carolina on January 14th, 1932 and took up singing at four years old and drumming just a year later! Throughout the sixties and seventies when I used to listen to LP’s on the Verve label almost non-stop, he was up there with my favourite drummers mostly because he

  James Edward Gadson was born in Kansas City, Missouri on June 17th, 1939. His father Harold was a jazz drummer, originally from Texarcana, who played in local Big Bands with the likes of Jay McShann and Charlie Parker, when Joe Turner would be singing too. Because of the way his own career had turned

Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Colaiuta was born on February 5th, 1956. He was originally from Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and as you’d probably guess from his Christian name and surname was brought up a Catholic. Having started out beating on pots and pans he was given his first (non serious) paper-headed toy drumset when he was seven years old.