Mitch Mitchell was my favorite sixties drummer. A tasmanian devil, whirling dervish powerhouse with the sticks, I personally dug him more than Keith Moon, Bonham, Baker, Watts. Amazing that the lone trio could put so much thick music out. He was a vital part of their sonic appeal. A devotee of jazz and an admirer of Elvin Jones, he could swing as well. My friend Stan, who was a road manager that knew all these guys, said that Jimi really never told them what to play, they just blazed right out of the gate. Now all three members have left this time signature.
Peace.
(1947-2008)
23 comments:
...Mitch was terrific and for sure the right drummer for Jimi, as were Keith, John, Ginger or Charlie for their respective bands....btw, my favorite sixties drummer is Ringo, followed by Dave Clark...
Ringo is on record saying that he was the greatest drummer on earth. And he had everything except a sense of time...
i'd like to know when and in what context Ringo said that purportedly...imo he had great time, great feel and soul, which counts for a lot more in my book than possessing monster Elvin Jones-like chops, by the way Elvin was great with Trane but i recently listed to an Art Farmer album that Elvin played on and he absolutely ruined it for me, sometimes it's better to keep it simple...
What about Cassidy?
From Spirit? Randy's stepfather? Or Carl Palmer...
John Densmore, another fantastic drummer from that era ...back to Mitch, though: i feel bad that he gave out in a hotel room on the road at age 61 playing in a tribute band, rest in peace my brother and thanks for the memories....
Densmore, the man who has held his former bandmates hostage in some weird homage to the hotel frontman... never thought of him as a great drummer myself. My favorite drummer in the last couple decades, at least from the rock perspective is Stewart Copeland, beautiful light touch on the cymbals.
My friend John Morris, who now lies recuperating from back surgery in a Los Angeles hospital was the technical director at Woodstock, managed the Fillmore East at inception, was the promoter at the Rainbow Theater and pretty much saw everybody.
I asked him once who his favorite drummer was and the answer surprised me, the Airplane's Spencer Dryden, now deceased. He had a martial, rudimental style of drumming but very tasteful.
"Densmore, the man who has held his former bandmates hostage in some weird homage to the hotel frontman"...if memory serves, John, Robbie and Ray did one or two albums together after Jim passed, he chose however not to make a career out of being an ex-Door (which Ray has, and Robbie to a lesser degree), which I have to respect him for...
...one drummer i feel compelled to dump on is Mickey Hart, to me the guy's playing is as stiff as a board, Kreutzman is way better (am preparing myself for an avalanche of hatemail from all the aging Deadheads out there)...
I totally concur - guy's an embarrassment. Loved the long extended jams in early seventies before Mickey came back and mucked it all up.
Old Joke #17
"What did the deadheads say when they finally came down?"
"This Music Sucks!"
As you know I love the dead but find that an extended session with sirius radio's dead channel is like a painful tooth extraction. Lord, please make it stop...
When asked if Ringo was the greatest drummer in the world, John Lennon quipped "He's not even the greatest drummer in the fookin Beatles".
If you buy a TV set, I'll give you a dvd of the entire concert. Oh, and Jeremy Gelbwaks (The 1st Chris Partridge) gets my vote for best drummer. Nobody ever made it look easier.
Thanks for chiming in Bill. Let's not forget Karen Carpenter - if Mama Cass Elliot had only split that ham sandwich with her, they'd both still be alive...and just like me, she longs to be, well, close to you.
What about Frosty? Alan White of Yes, the Foofighters drummer? Gene Krupa? Buddy Rich? Stix Hooper?
Jon Bonham?
The list goes on and on.
We're talking rock for the purposes of this conversation, backbeats and mullets, all right? No Cozy Cole or Joe Jones or DeJohnette. Alan White, hmmm. More of a Bruford man. Funny you mention Frosty. My first "sunshine" excursion was at a Lee MIchaels/ Country Joe concert where McDonald's accompanist played a large galvanized trash can. Heidy hey, and I'm off to the races...
Pro musicians that I know said that Jeff Porcaro held the tightest groove ever. There was none better in session work.
...well, if you wanna talk session drummers back then, the guy who played on more albums than God was Hal Blaine: he, Glen Campbell and Joe Osborne(bass) were the nucleus of the infamous "Wrecking Crew", i believe he even played on some Beatles albums (though not listed, of course)...Robert, i'm glad you at least agree with me about Mickey, but can we once and for all dispense with the Cass Elliot/Karen Carpenter jokes?, they were two of my favorite girl singers of all time, their loss pains me to this day, it wasn't funny then and it ain't funny now...
okay, sorry!
...if you wanna talk sheer quantity, Terry Bozzio had the biggest drumset i've ever seen, sometime in the 90s i saw him play an instore at the Hollywood Virgin megastore (with Mick Karn and David Torn, what a band that was), Terry's set just spread out for days, all black too, frames and heads, he was a very good drummer too, i guess you had to be to play with Zappa...
Bozzio was a great drummer, saw him with Jeff Beck as well, - Carl Palmer had a bigger drum set, methinks...And Steve Gadd is a tasteful monster.
"tasteful monster" is a bit of an oxymoron, no?...for sure, Steve Gadd was (and probably still is) "tasteful", a first-call session guy who played on more albums than you can name, but therein lies the problem, for me he represents that whole era of the 70's and 80's when rock became so polished, so "tasteful" as to be unlistenable, an aural dead zone...i'll take Mitch and Ginger and Keith over guys like him any day...that's what i love about the Dead, they never sounded polished, they were loose, maybe even a little sloppy, but so what? would you rather listen to Larry (Carlton) play guitar, or Jerry? if you answer Larry, i pity you.. i rest my case....
Hey Grumpster - I'm all for passion, but come on, you have to have to have time, technique and tone. As you know my guitar teacher is a professional drummer and from the Larry Carlton, Tommy Emmanuel school of chops in terms of his guitar playing. Twelve bar bores him because there's a big world beyond it. If it was all emotion we'd still be listening to the Seeds or Standells.
Before a musician expresses himself, it is important to have something to say and an emotion to convey. The problem with music is that a lot of these guys were the total geeks that we knew in high school, their acne cleared up and they found themselves elevated to some perch without ever becoming human beings first.
I will be the first one to admit that anything over 20 minutes of smooth jazz will send me running for a razor to do myself in but I don't know that we want to listen to Vanilla Fudge when we are riding the elevator either.
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