Buddy Guy – Being With the Greats Broke My Heart

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Neil Ralph was arguably my best friend at Harborfields High School. An accomplished musician, we certainly traveled many musical miles together. We certainly spent time listening to and playing Chicago blues tunes.

Fast forward to 1980 when Buddy’s Stone Crazy! arrived at my Modern Drummer desk. Great album, and the opening track, I Smell a Rat, is a pure killer.

Neil introduced me to Buddy Guy’s records. I remember especially Buddy’s A Man and the Blues album, and This is Buddy Guy – both on Vanguard records.

I spotted Buddy Guy’s book, When I Left Home: My Story, for sale at the Turner Public Library. It’s an interesting read, filling in some gaps in my blues history knowledge. And the book has a generous sample of words of wisdom from Buddy Guy.

For example:

At the same time, being with the greats also broke my heart. It broke that dream I had back in Baton Rouge that the greats were living in mansions and driving gold Cadillacs. Of all the greats, only Muddy [Waters] had a house. His was at 4339 South Lake Park, a place I’d get to know real well. The others, living in little rooms, could barely scratch up a living.

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Dannie Richmond’s Magnificent Musical Drum Solo

Posted on June 13, 2021 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: I owe so much to Charles Mingus. While listening to his small band (quintet?) at Newport 1970 jazz made sense for the first time. I’d been self-studying jazz for a long time and liked much of what I was hearing. But I didn’t really grasp the jazz form. I didn’t fully understand how jazz musicians in bands were relating to each other.

Charles Mingus changed all that.

I was intrigued by the recent reissue and remaster of Mingus at Carnegie Hall. This 2-CD set is the complete concert, rounding out the original LP which had only the second half, the jam session part of the concert.

This album reminds me again of just how magnificent was the team of Mingus on bass and Dannie Richmond on drums. I haven’t listened to the full album yet, but what I have listened to so far ended with Fables of Faubus – a Mingus classic. And I wanted to bring your attention to Dannie Richmond’s great, imaginative, dynamic drum solo. It starts at 14:21 on this digital version.

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I Didn’t Think of Roger Hawkins

Posted on May 22, 2021 by Scott K Fish
Roger Hawkins photo courtesy Drummerworld.

SKF NOTE: Reading “Muscle Shoals Sound Studio” by Carla Jean Whitley this week I am reminded of drummer Roger Hawkins’s great contribution to pop music. And I’m reminded of my failure to mention Hawkins in my “History of Rock Drumming.“

Here’s my post on what happened,

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SKF NOTE: Word of Roger Hawkins death brings to mind one of my more embarrassing and regretful moments at Modern Drummer magazine. I left Roger out of my History of Rock Drumming written for MD. When it was brought to my attention – I can’t recall exactly how or by whom – I dreaded having to apologize by phone to Roger.

But I knew apologizing by phone, since I couldn’t do so in person, was the right thing to do.

Roger Hawkins was as gracious to me as could be. I didn’t try explaining or justifying myself. The truth, I said, I simply didn’t think to include Roger.

Yes, I was well aware of – and loved – Roger’s playing. Even today, everytime a Muscle Shoals rhythm section song comes on the radio I realize how much I loved and was influenced by that music, including Roger’s drumming.

And on realizing I’d left Roger out of my History I was stunned and felt stupid, careless, awkward.

But, as I say, Roger was a real gentleman — which, after hearing several stories about Hakins, is who he was all the time.

One DrumForum.org member said he spent his whole life trying to be Roger Hawkins.

I’m sure he’s not the last drummer to take up that challenge.

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‘The Boy With a Drum’ – An Inspiration

Posted on April 29, 2021 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: I found this jewel in a box of 62 Little Golden Books. The drummer boy marches through his town, practicing his drum, with a parade of animals following along — and no one yells at him to “Stop drumming!” or to “Stop making noise.”

An inspiration.

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If We Are To Have Great Music

Posted on April 25, 2021 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Here’s a bit of universal wisdom from the great pianist/composer Sergei Rachmaninoff from a book I’m reading:

If we are to have great music we must return to the fundamentals which made the music of the past great. Music cannot be just color and rhythm; it must reveal the emotions of the heart.

Source: Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music, by Sergei Bertensson (Muriwai Books 1956)

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