Christopher Rush

This article was written in early 2020, but it has remained mainly unpublished until now.

With the passing of Neil Peart earlier this year, I’ve been thinking lately about some of the drummers who have influenced me over the years, and of course Neil Peart is high on that list.  I should say, though, most of the influence of these drummers has occurred after my main drumming days – admittedly, it’s been quite some time since you could say I was a drummer.  Still, my affinity for music and drumming in particular has not diminished, but instead it has grown as I have gotten more mature (well, older, let’s say).

With my listening tendencies toward classic rock, naturally my influences have been skewed that way, and as naturally you could likewise think of some famous drummers that I have enjoyed: John Bonham, Ginger Baker, Phil Collins, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, etc.  And then into the ’70s and ’80s with Roger Taylor, Stewart Copeland, and Larry Mullin, Jr.  That’s not too shabby a list for influences.  Perhaps if you kept thinking you’d toss out Mick Fleetwood and maybe Jeff Porcaro or go way back to Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa and Hal Blaine … and I couldn’t argue with that they are great drummers, but I’m not too sure how directly influential they have been on me (indirectly through the guys above, sure, but not directly).

The point here, however, is not to look at the more obvious names of great drummers.  Instead, I’d like to take a brief look at three, yea four, perhaps lesser-known drummers whom I have found to be pretty impressive and worth more recognition if not downright adulation in no particular order.  Enjoy.

Honorable Mention: Jim Keltner

Those in the know would likely be at least miffed at the mention of Jim Keltner as an underrated drummer, but this article is not directed to people who have a subscription to Classic Drummer Magazine.  All you would have to do to be impressed by the career and talent of Jim Keltner, without hearing a single beat from him, is to check out a list of artists who have wanted him on their albums or on their tours: George, John, and Ringo; Brian Wilson; Bob Dylan; Eric Clapton; Ry Cooder; Harry Nilsson; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Joe Cocker; B.B. King; Bonnie Raitt; Dolly Parton … I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  (Please don’t read anything into me listing John, George, and Ringo before Brian.)  Jim Keltner is beloved for his rock steadiness, his stylistic diversity, and for his willingness to work.  Just for being the drummer on the Traveling Wilburyalbums should be enough to know his work better.  Perhaps he doesn’t have any “signature” song or album, since he is so fecund in his output.  For me, what is so impressive about Keltner can be seen in The Concert for Bangla Desh and Concert for George shows, both of which are available for home viewing.  When Keltner is playing with Ringo, especially, the synchronicity between them is astounding: stroke for stroke, crash for crash, they are mirror images of each other in precision.  He may not flashy like Moon or Peart, may they rest in peace, but boy, Jim Keltner is a mighty fine drummer.

Great Forgotten Drummer #1: Graeme Edge

I can see your incredulity already: “Graeme Edge of the Moody Blues?  Lesser known?  He’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!” you say.  True.  The Moody Blues finally got into the HoF a mere 25-some years after becoming eligible.  But this is not a HoF tirade.  Our focus here is praising Graeme Edge as a great drummer.  I suspect his greatness is overlooked because, like Jim Keltner and other great drummers, he doesn’t really “show off” like the greats you can mention – at least, not memorably.  Now, if you’ve seen any of their shows, especially in the late ’90s and early ’00s, Justin and John certainly gave Graeme a chance to entertain both behind and in front of his kit.  Still, Graeme Edge, like his band the Moody Blues, seems to be one of those drummers and bands you really enjoy while you’re listening to them, but you don’t necessarily think about afterward.  And while that is fine, I think they are painfully underappreciated.

Graeme Edge, like Neil Peart, spent a fair amount of time writing songs for his band.  Many of the spoken word poems in the early albums (admittedly, rather trippy, if you will, back in the late ’60s and early ’70s) can from Edge.  That doesn’t attest to his drumming, true, but it does attest to his ability to understand multiple aspects of songcraft and artistry, which makes his ability to hold the songs together rhythmically much more impressive.  He’s not just keeping the beat for the “real” musicians in the band.

Since the Moody Blues are such a diverse, bizarre band, especially during their first stretch, it is difficult to point to one song as “here, this is classic Graeme Edge,” but I’d direct you to their final song of that initial tenure, “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band),” the last track on Seventh Sojourn (my favorite of that period).  You may object to calling it a classic Graeme Edge song, since his introduction is, perhaps, just an elaborate “click in” to the song, but if you watch the music video to it, you can see why Graeme Edge was and is a top-notch drummer.  Don’t be like the Hall of Fame and wait twenty-five extra years to recognize his worth.

Great Forgotten Drummer #2: Barrie “Barriemore” Barlowe

I said this was not intended to be a rant against the RnR HoF, so we will leave the nonsensical notion of Jethro Tull’s absence from that august body aside.  Barrie Barlowe was the drummer for Jethro Tull during what is often called their “classic years” or “classic lineup” of the ’70s, from Thick as a Brick to Stormwatch.  If you can stick around (so to speak) with Ian Anderson for an entire decade, that alone is a remarkable achievement.

It’s a tricky thing, though, the relationship of drummer and the band he or she is in: if the band “lets” you do your thing, the drummer can often flourish and be mightily impressive.  Keith Moon was fortunate enough to be in a band that let him do pretty much whatever he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it (that may have also been an unfortunate thing for him as well, but that’s for another time).  Neil Peart was fortunate enough to find a pair of guys who were willing to let the drummer be as much a part of the musicality of the band as the guitar and bass (and synths, yes).  But the relationship is likely reciprocal also: Geddy and Alex likely wrote their parts around and with Neil, knowing he was going to contribute more than just timely fills and a steady backbeat.  So, Ian Anderson, despite his, shall we say, penchant for artistic control in his band, likely wrote many of Tull’s ’70s songs knowing he had a trustworthy drummer who could create diverse and sundry sounds and rhythms and moods for the drastically different styles of that period (we can talk about Martin Barre as an underrated guitar great another time).

Barrie Barlowe’s skills can be heard throughout those Tull albums, certainly.  Listen to them again focusing on what Barlowe is undergirding those tempo changes and sensations with.  For.  Something.  Yes, they were a stellar band playing as a unified band, I am not denying that.  But without a skilled drummer who could handle all those changes, Tull would not have been what it was.  Another great way to hear Barlowe’s skills as a drummer is on the recently released live concerts from those days, mainly available in the 40^th anniversary special editions (though, sadly, many of them are apparently harder to get now than the crystalline tears of albino sea lions, so track them down now).  Barlowe’s creativity with rhythm and, I’d go so far as to say, storytelling with his solos may be even more impressive than John Bonham (in his solos) – and before you start picking up those stones to cast at me, please note Bonham himself considered Barrie Barlowe the greatest drummer England ever produced.  You can’t argue with him.

Great Forgotten Drummer #3: Ian Paice

Surely, you say, no one has forgotten Deep Purple’s only consistent member from its founding over fifty years ago (like Graeme Edge’s stable tenure with the Moody Blues – drummers tend to recognize good gigs when they get ’em).  And yes, Ian Paice has won gobs of awards as a drummer, and Deep Purple has finally been inducted into the HoF after a mere 25-year eligibility waiting game (I’m trying, really), but if you didn’t think of Ian Paice earlier when I initially asked you to name the great drummers, then he certainly needs to be credited here as a great drummer who should be on that top tier of the all-timers.

Speed is not essentially a characteristic of superior drumming – you’d think it would need to be, but it depends on the kind of music you and your band are trying to play.  More often than that, the mark of good drumming is usually just the ol’ fashioned steady tempo, fills and solos aside.  And yet, Ian Paice has both: that rock steadiness upon which Jim Keltner has built a more-than-decent career commingled with speed and flair and creativity (and durability – the man has had to cancel something like two shows in over fifty years, and those because of a heart attack).

Deep Purple has been different things over the years: pre-classic rock cover band, hard blues, orchestral, hard rock, boogie funk, and probably a few more styles – and Ian Paice has excelled in them all.  For half a century he has given hope to short, heavy set, match grip drummers the world over (and me).  Any Deep Purple album will showcase Paice’s skill, but you might as well start with Machine Head.  It’s the bees knees.

There you have it: four great drummers whose contributions to music and rhythm are worth getting to know.  You will not be disappointed.