SKF NOTE: A brief exchange between Mitch Albom and Ringo Starr from WVOM-FM 103.9 on June 27, 1998.
Ringo was promoting his new album, Vertical Man. Mitch asked how the musicians in Ringo’s band got the gig. That’s followed by Ringo’s assessment of telling “Beatles stories” on the road.
SKF NOTE: In August 2014, a few months after starting my blog, I posted my recollection about a Roy Burns drum clinic I had attended around 1974. I was newly living in Davenport, Iowa — the Quad Cities area of Davenport and Betterndorf in Iowa, and Moline and Rock Island in Illinois, with both states on either side of the Mississippi River.
I believe Roy Burns’s clinic took place at a music store in Moline. Perhaps someone will see this and either confirm or correct my memory.
Until two days ago I didn’t remember still having a cassette I taped of the Burns drum clinic. Sometimes it’s fun to be a musical pack rat.
The very beginning and ending are missing here. I think I realized at the time, with only one 60-minute tape to use, I wasn’t going to be able to record everything. So I skipped Roy’s intro and started the tape rolling during Roy’s demonstrating on the drumset. And I just ran out of tape before the clinic ended. Also, there is a four-second delay here between the original Side A ending and Side B starting.
One more thing. In parts of this tape you may notice remnants of a piano trio in the background. It is the Millard Cowan Trio, a group I played with at the time. I’m sure I taped the Burns clinic over a Millard Cowan Trio tape and the new sound didn’t quite wipe out the old sound.
Anyway, there’s some good info here. And for listeners who missed it while he was alive, it’s one more opportunity to hear Roy Burns teaching drums.
SKF NOTE: Sorting through another box of my audio cassettes, I found the third and final part of my interview with Freddie Gruber circa 1982. We were seated at the kitchen table in Buddy Rich’s NYC apartment. Here’s my original post about our interview.
So this final part of the interview is 30-minutes in total and includes some insightful remarks from Freddie Gruber which I will post as time permits. I haven’t listened to this tape in more than 30 years. It was fun listening to it again for the first time.
In this segment, Freddie has just finished answering my questions about his part in the founding of DW Drums. I ask what drums he played when he was an active player. Freddie showed me an “advertisement photo” of him with a set of Leedy & Ludwig drums.
He tells me he now, of course, plays DW Drums, adding, “Not that I do that much playing, because I actually don’t.” Freddie reminds me he has been teaching 24-25 years, longer, he says, if we count the years post-Leedy & Ludwig when Freddie was “teaching in kitchens of after hour places” with whatever drums were available — even if they were borrowed drums.
SKF NOTE: This is part of a conversation with Neil Peart circa 1987, when he had recently endorsed Ludwig drums. We talk about why he switched, but more interesting, how he switched. Neil talks about having six identical drumsets from six different drum companies in one place, where he could play-and-compare. It was the sound of the 9 X 13 toms that finally made the difference.
My original cassette recording had a fairly prominent hum throughout. I reduced the hum, which makes the voices easier to hear. But the voice audio fidelity was compromised a bit in the process.
SKF NOTE: Denzil Best has always been somewhat of a mystery drummer to me. In all my studies of drummers, Denzil Best was always praised by drummers and other instrumentalists as a swinging, supportive drummer. Best was a trumpet player who switched to drums after an attack of tuberculosis. He was a player in the same vein as Connie Kay and Dave Tough. I’ve never come across a great deal of biographical information about Best.
This video of the George Shearing Quintet seems to be live, not overdubbed. Tight, swinging, and the best footage I’ve seen of Best. Great brushwork on a jazz classic written by Denzil Best. I wish the cameraman would’ve zoomed in on Best’s hands at least once, but…. This is a great clip of a great drummer with a classic jazz group.
Life Beyond the Cymbals
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Life Beyond the Cymbals
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Life Beyond the Cymbals
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Scott K Fish 
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