Drum Life

I started playing drums around 1978 before I was 10 years old.

It must've been around that time my Uncle Greg, who was more a big brother to me than a younger half-brother to my mom, put together this ramshackle drumkit in his mancave of a basement. Well, it was his parent's basement and Grandma Wright--Lord love her!--put up with our noise making! The foundation of the kit was a 4-piece, Ringo-style kit with pearlized shells, but my uncle had added other drums, like a snareless snare drum that was gerry-rigged with cable and tape as a "rack" tom and then there were the mismatched cymbals.

Let me backup and set the stage for you, so to speak...and there was actually a stage. In the northwest corner of my grandma's basement, under the guest bedroom and bath, sat what today we'd call a mancave. In there, my uncle had his workbench, a converted model train table cluttered with projects in various stages of completion. He was a tinkerer by hobby. Across the room, he'd built a one-foot high drum riser out of plywood and two-by-fours that he covered with artificial turf, the bright green scratchy kind. Atop that riser, sat his ramshackle drumkit that would've looked appropriate as part of Fat Albert's Junkyard Gang.

Now the masonry walls were painted a deep blue, a shade darker than royal, but lighter than navy. Upon that backdrop, my uncle had hand painted the Journey "Evolution" album cover and something from the Prince collection, who at that time was still the artist KNOWN simply as Prince. Now the painting may have come sometime later, probably the 80's, but this is how I remember Greg's mancave. Against the wall sat his behemoth homemade speaker cabinets with two woofers--12- or 15-inch, I'm not sure which. Suffice to say, those suckers were loud. They were powered by this pieced together Hi-Fi system that was my uncle's crown jewel!

His album collection contained the hottest rock on vinyl from that era--Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Toto and the like--so that's what he liked to play along to. The first songs I remember him playing for me were "Hot Blooded" and "Hold the Line," at such extreme volumes so as to hear the music over his heavy-handed playing. I wanted to emulate him, emulating Foreigner's Dennis Elliott and Toto's Jeff Porcaro. When I took the 5A sticks in my hand and felt the pedals beneath my feet, there was a jolt of energy and something took hold of me. Those sticks would become my magic wands, of sorts.

I played for countless hours--to my grandparent's chagrin--along with those records, trying to get every nuance of Jeff Porcaro's 4/4 blues pattern with the triplet feel and matching the power of Elliott's hard-driving pulse. I would eventually work up the nerve to try capturing Neil Peart's essence on 2112 "Overture/Temples of Syrinx." That album, brought over by my uncle's buddy Gary Davis, transfixed me for hours and launched my lifelong love affair with Peart and his band, Rush!

Long after Uncle Greg's flirtation with the drums ended, I began making magic on his ramshackle drumkit in the basement. He'd be out with girls during his high school days (Class of 82) or playing basketball with his buds in the backyard and I'd be hammering away Loverboy's "Turn Me Loose" or Journey's "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" inside. In fact, that Journey tune was probably the second song I learned after "Hot Blooded." Those two and "Hold the Line" (Toto) were the first three songs I ever played on a set of drums. Prior to that, I'd only played pillows on my bed or mom's couch with two Lincoln logs.

I'd eventually graduate to much more diverse music, starting with Styx, Rush, Led Zeppelin and Triumph, but everything I played I learned by ear. I'd already trained myself to listen to the beat of any song first, to learn the drum pattern and to play in time along with records or the radio. I think that's the best way to learn to play the drums. Playing in-time with vinyl records was better than trying to match the speed of the metronome because music has a pulse and a groove. There is no way to simulate that any other way, unless you have recorded rhythm tracks with which to keep time.

When we moved away from Indiana after my high school graduation in '86, my uncle offered for me to take his drumkit with me. It had been scaled down to the original Ringo-style foundation and a couple of cymbals, but it was the perfect size to fit our Tallahassee apartment bedroom, the one I shared with my brother. My parents would never buy me a set of drums. Apart from the expense, they didn't have the patience or hardness of hearing like my grandparents in Princeton (IN). However, they graciously acquiesced because they knew how much my passion for drumming had grown.

It was in that small apartment bedroom at Cameron at Woodcrest in Tallahassee (now Live Oak at 850), that I worked up the nerve to play publicly. So that when asked to play in front of the youth group at church, I did and I was hooked on the live playing experience. I cut my teeth playing for youth group, adult choir and orchestra and eventually the "first string" worship team at Christian Heritage Church. That's where I cut my teeth on the drums and learned various forms of music, including gospel, R&B and big band swing--everything learned by listening, "by ear." Thus launched a lifetime of drumming passion, a pursuit that continues to this day, mostly as a side gig.



It wasn't until the Spring of 2012 that I decided to join a local cover band in Fort Myers Beach that I actually played paying gigs outside of church music. I loved it so much that I've been a gigging drummer in local cover bands ever since!

Remembering Jeff Porcaro

Just found this Drum Talk video honoring drumming idol Jeff Porcaro, of Toto fame, and it reminded me of the first time I saw someone demonstrate the Rosanna shuffle groove.

And while I play this shuffle groove with much more feel and fluidity than this "vlogger," I appreciate his scholarship and he shared some things I had forgotten, like Jeff's start as Sonny & Cher's drummer.

Toto IV came out when I was in Junior High and Rosanna was the big radio hit from that album before Africa rose to #1 some months later. I loved the groove and Jeff's drum playing, the jazz piano break followed by scorching guitar solo. It was just a great song and rightly received "Record of the Year" honors at the Grammy's. But I couldn't play it. In fact, I didn't really get the Bernard Purdie shuffle feel until many years later.

Specifically, I remember being at worship band rehearsal one night at Christian Heritage Church in the early 2000's. Christie Cole, our leader, was out that week and one of her backup singers was leading. The singer's husband was a drummer and at rehearsal that night he sat down and rocked out the Rosanna shuffle. My jaw dropped. It was right then that I realized the power of ghost notes and how on that groove, in particular, they provide the undercurrent and fluid, forward motion of the "Purdie Shuffle." Later, I would learn that it was Purdie who influenced Jeff's use of shuffle in his early work, like on Steely Dan and Boz Scaggs' records. But I watched in awe that night as this drummer, unknown to me, sat down and nailed it like it was the easiest thing to play. I took notes.

Later on, as I relaxed into the shuffle and learned to play those ghost notes in time and with groove, I was able to play the Rosanna song with feel and without rushing it. Since then, I've played along with it many times, though the tom fills still give me fits! It's just one of the reasons I count Jeff among my heroes.

My first encounters of his groove and deep pocket playing were, unbeknownst to me, while listening to his songs on the radio, like Lido Shuffle and Lowdown, both childhood favorites by the incomparable Boz Scaggs. At the time, I didn't know he was the grooving force behind Michael McDonald's I Keep Forgettin', another classic and a childhood fave. My first cognizant realization of his prowess was while playing along with Toto's first album, released in 1978.

I was a 10-year-old in my grandmother's basement, listening to my uncle's record collection in his early version of a "man cave." This room, walls painted a rich blue with my uncle's custom album cover art, had a drum platform and a rag tag set of drums, where I first cut my teeth on the kit. His vinyl collection included the first three albums I ever played along with--Foreigner's Double Vision (1978), Journey's Evolution (1979) and Toto's self-titled first album (1978).

I played along with these albums over and over until I could hit all the parts in lock-step with the players, even if I wasn't playing them exactly right. To this day, Hold the Line from that first Toto album is one of my favorites. I didn't even realize I was playing a pretty basic blues groove on the chorus, but it seemed to come very naturally to me. In fact, I seemed to have a knack for picking up on syncopated kick and hi-hat patterns without too much trouble. It was playing with groove and feel that would take many more years of practice.

But that was my introduction to Jeff's playing. I would follow him for many years and would to my surprise find out that he played on many great songs I'd grown up on. As an adult, I fell in love with the body of Steely Dan's work. Found out he was a session drummer for them...and scads of other artists spanning the 70's and 80's. In fact, he even played on an album by Christian recording artist, Bryan Duncan, on a song I'd loved since childhood. On this track, as on every track he's ever played, he does it tastefully, with groove and feel, providing the band with a deep pocket. Jeff was never very showy; never tried to steal the spotlight.

Jeff was taken from us in the prime of his life in 1992. His drumming, along with Neil Peart and Steve Smith, were my earliest influences. Had I known all the great tracks he had recorded in the 1970's, I would have called him my first, but I really discovered him in 1978-79 and followed his short-lived career over the next fourteen years. I purchased the only instructional video he ever did and have watched nearly every YouTube I could find, from his performances in '76 with Boz Scaggs on Japanese TV to his later concerts with Toto, where he never even took a drum solo. His selflessness and modesty was on display in this rare interview that I just recently discovered (from the late 80's?):

I listed Jeff among my Top 5 Modern Drummers back in 2009 and even included the clip from his instructional video where he breaks down and explains the roots of his Rosanna shuffle. After that, I immediately had to go work on Led Zeppelin's Fool in the Rain.

Well, that's my tribute to one of my all-time favorites and a huge influence on my playing style--the one and only Jeff Porcaro. Rest in peace, brother.