SKF NOTE: (April 11, 2022) – Today I added the audio for Al Duncan’s interview with me around 1981. Mr. Duncan’s nephew, Michael Haggins, is a musician too. He has three smooth jazz CD’s of his own available, and he was kind enough to let me use three photos of his uncle I never had.

SKFNOTE: Last week I found an old cassette labeled on one side,“Al Duncan,” among my old cassettes. The cassette itself needed repair, which I did. I then digitized the Al Duncan interview and, for the first time, I am posting one of my Modern Drummer interviews in its entirety.

Almost three years ago to the day I posted on my blog the original transcript I made from this tape. Mine is not a verbatim typed transcript. I transcribed information I believed, circa 1981, would be useful in the History of Rock Drumming I was writing for Modern Drummer magazine.

In January 2016, my blog intro says, in part:

“I was interested in speaking with Al Duncan because I knew — from printed sources and from other musicians, like Willie Dixon — that Mr. Duncan had played on several early rock recording sessions for Chess Records and Motown.

A quick Google search today shows Al Duncan on records by The Orioles, The Spaniels, The Dells, Little Junior Parker, Priscilla Bowman, Dee Clark, The Falcons, The El Dorados, among many others.”

Listeners will hear Al Duncan telling me he’d never heard of Modern Drummer. Also, you will hear me explaining why I was writing my History of Rock Drumming.