I started playing drums in the sixth grade. Scratch that. That's not right. This is: I started playing drum in the sixth grade. Singular. One drum: snare. My parents and I--in so far as I can recall, and I can't recall much, not accurately, so I may be misremembering (which happens often)--went to a band meeting, and my parents bought me a snare drum. Two other guys bought snare drums, too, and one of 'em could play a roll--that night. I thought to myself that surely, since he can do it, then I can do it, too.
As soon as my parents and I returned home, I opened up the case, set the snare on its stand, picked up the pair of drumsticks that came with snare and stand and case, and tried to roll. I failed. I tried again. I failed. I tried for what I think I remember seems like hours (though it was probably closer to under thirty minutes), and I never could roll. I cried. Not proud of it, now, but yeah, I cried. My parents tried to console me, but I wasn't going to be consoled, for their words could not make me forget that I couldn't roll, and that other guy could. In bed that night, before I went to sleep, I promised myself that never again would I cry openly, and that never again would I not be able to be as good as any of my peers on the drum. Hah!
Of course, I've not lived up to that promise, as I've cried openly since (and often, too), and I've been bested by others in drum competitions (not quite as often). But for awhile, I kept up my end of my vow...at least during the sixth and seventh grades. When I was in eighth grade, I was bested at chair tryouts/rankings by two juniors and one senior, and I was disappointed. Deeply saddened, I believe I cried that night...but not in front of anyone. I put Elton John's Greatest Hits, Volume 1 tape in my Walkman, lay down on my bed, and wept as Sir Elton sang about how Levon's son Jesus took one of his father's cartoon balloons and left his father behind to die. I wept at that song because I thought "Levon" was an analogy of my situation, and that if I didn't win first chair the next time, then it would disappoint my father (metaphorically killing him), a drummer himself. After wiping my eyes, I promised myself to practice even more, so that I could be as good as I thought I was expected to be. The next year...first chair. I was sure of it.
And I was wrong. The next year landed me second chair. The less-than-stellar ranking disappointed me again, but I didn't cry this time, as I was consoled by Rush's drummer, Neil Peart. After the results from tryouts were posted the next day, someone--I don't remember who--noticed that I seemed despondent, and this person told me not to feel so bad, because I'd outranked a senior who could play Rush's "Tom Sawyer" on the trap set. Nuh-uh? Really? Do-tell!
Yup, the third-chair senior indeed could play that most difficult of drum parts (not counting solos) on the set; I asked him to show me, and he did. I was in awe. I asked him how in the world he wasn't first chair if he could play "Tom Sawyer," and he told me that he had natural rhythm, but he just couldn't remember all those rudiments. He then told me he acquired that natural rhythm (yeah, I know, if it's natural, then he shouldn't have had to acquire it, but these are his terms, not mine, and this is also a guy who once told us at band practice to stay parallel with each other while marching by using our "parental vision") by first listening to R&B records--especially James Brown records--and practicing all those syncopated licks over and over again, so that his "right hand wouldn't know what [his] right hand was doing." Sounded like sage advice to me.
I went home that day, and started playing my dad's JB records, and--oh my goodness--I...I just couldn't do that. I'd heard all those songs before, but I'd never really listened closely to the drumming. How in the world would I ever learn how to play all that off-beat, split-time sticking? I grew frustrated, but I wouldn't let myself quit. Nuh-uh. I wasn't going to fail again. I was just going to learn how to play naturally one song at a time. I decided to learn what sounded like the easiest beat/pattern first, and stick with that one until I'd mastered it. That beat/pattern was the one at the end of "Funky Drummer, Pt. 1.," played by Mr. Clyde Stubblefield.
At least four days a week, at home, I practiced that lick, and by my tenth grade year, I had it mastered, and I won first chair, and all was right with the world. I played that lick again and again and again...and the other drummers began mocking me, as they played it, too...again, and again, and again (and how in the world they picked it up so quickly, I don't know). They--we--played it so often, that other band members started playing it, and--other than our cadence--that became our drum line's signature sound. * We--moreso the other drummers than me, and they'd usually do it whenever I'd walk in the band hall (not in admiration, though, nuh-uh, no way)--would play that lick, and soon, other band members would start to nod, or shuffle, or dance. One day, we were playing that lick in the band hall, and the band director walked in and gave us the "Shut up you buncha morons" look (we termed the look thus because after giving us the "Shut up you buncha morons" look he would invariably follow by shouting "Shut up you buncha morons!"), and before he could say anything, a trombone player** told him, "Mr. B___, just let them play that drum thing right there. We don't need no practicing; we just let them play that on the field, and we'll dance, and that's our whole show!" Mr. B___ didn't like that idea (which was offered sincerely) and forever forbid us from playing that in his presence again because "that's not music; that's just drumming."
Ah, but that trombone player knew better, and so did the rest of us, including Amerie. Yeah, I know, she wasn't in the band hall that day, but she might as well have been, and she might as well have been that trombone player, because what he told Mr. B____ is exactly what she told Columbia Records executives when they told her that her song "1 Thing" wasn't radio ready because it sounded--to them--too skeletal. They refused to promote the song, so Amerie and producer Rich Harrison--who should get as much accolades for this record as Amerie does, for the sampled drum part was completely his idea--leaked the song to radio stations across the nations, and when Columbia discovered this conspirational act, they tryied to supress the song, but the radio stations would have none of it, because listeners loved the song. Why did they love it?
Primarily, listeners loved (and some still do, including me) this song because of the drumming. The drum part comes about 2/3 the way through the Meters' instrumental version of "Oh, Calcutta!" back in 1970. The Meters--and they're still around--are a cajun/zydeco/blues/R&B/funk act out of New Orleans (and they're one part Neville), and they provide a key component in the link between funk, R&B, and New Orleans' blues and second-line music. They took what Professor Longhair and Earl Palmer*** and Fats Domino started, added a little JB and a little Booker T to the shuffle, and developed the basis for a goodly-sized portion of the Cajun-R&B-rock/blues style that's played today. The Meters' drummer was Ziggy "Zigaboo" Modeliste, and he combined Palmer's syncopated, shuffle-rock style with Stubblefield's more jazz-inflected**** fills and rolls.
In the original Meters' track, Modeliste's fill plays point/counterpoint with the guitar, a short, rhythmic back-and-forth. Here, producer Harrison takes away almost all of the guitar, leaving mainly just the drum track, and the result is not only funky, but it's also primal. Its primarily (pun only slightly intended) the only instrument on the track, and this nakedness gives it energy, provides it with a fury, an attack, a power often found in African or Native American (more the former than the latter on this track) tribal drumming. With drumming this powerful, what else is needed? Amerie's vocals--and they're good, too, all breathless and urgent and high-pitched, the latter bringing a balanced counterpoint to the bass-y sound of the drums--are just gravy. Gravy's good, mind you, but what's essential is that biscuit. It's what provides the sustenance, the energy to move. The singing's just music, though; it's not drumming.
*I was also soon to notice that "our" signature sound--Stubblefield's "Funky Drummer" lick--was also the signature sound sampled on about two dozen-or-so early rap records. Purely coincidental. Promise.
**That trombone player prompted our band director's second most-quoted phrase. We were on our way back from some football game, and the trombone player took a slice of cucumber and threw it to the front of the bus, and the slice hit Mr. B____ in the back of the head. Mr. B____ then turned around, all red and puffed up, and shouted, "Alright you buncha morons! Who--threw--the PICKle?"
***Earl Palmer (who died last year at 89) was a drummer. Prolific, dexterous, singular, and innovative, Palmer was not only an important drummer, he was an important musician, one of the most important ones of 20th century popular music. It's past two o' clock in the morning now, so I'm too sleepy, and I don't have time now to share with you all his accomplisments. Suffice it to say, that one day--in the next five years, if I'm still around--I'm going to compose a list of the most important drummers in 20th century popular music. And on that list, you'll find Earl Palmer. And you'll find him on top. #1. Bar none.
*****Most early (1960s and earlier) R&B drummers were jazz drummers, first.
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