Customer Reviews

Classic Rock Drummers - The Way They Play Series Book/CD (Way They Play, The)

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This installment of the "Way They Play" series is a welcome addition to anyone's music library. The series uses the styles of original professional musicians to illustrate the techniques that made their drumming great. Accompanying the text is a CD of audio examples, a crucial tool in understanding their lessons. For this edition, the authors have chosen not only titans like John Bonham, Charlie Watts and Ringo Starr, but also iconoclasts like Keith Moon , Ginger Baker and Mitch Mitchell, and somewhat less well-known greats as Richie Heyward and Jeff Porcino, who tragically died when he was only 38.

For this book, the historical context is provided by Ken Micallef, one of the great drum specialists in rock journalism. His breadth of knowledge and experience in drumming provides a detailed yet concise analysis of each drummer's bag of tricks. Using archival footage, official and bootleg recordings, and copious interviews (many of them conducted himself), Micallef covers their early influences, how they sat at the kit, tuning methods, equipment, style, how they evolved throughout their careers, and everything in between.

Though clearly geared towards musicians, rock historians will not be disappointed in this book, as technical jargon is kept to a minimum and the wealth of biographical and musical information will keep even the casual reader interested. For instance, Micallef is able to draw interesting comparisons to drummers from all kinds of musical milieux, such as the identification of Gene Krupa as Keith Moon's principal forerunner as the "first drum maniac." Also, he often exhibits a propensity for humorous turns of phrase, delivered deadpan, and forthright opinions, such as a passage about Charlie Watts, whose "crotchety feel and slack strokes" nonetheless produce "exquisite, slipping, sliding drum breaks." This result is even more surprising, as Micallef points out that Watts "seems to miss rim shots, his timing is a little off, and he glances cymbals like a blind man." The secret to Keith Moon's style is perhaps even more chimerical, as Micallef advises that the key to playing like him requires "the ability to become very excited, perhaps even traumatized, before you sit down at the kit."

The drum lessons are provided by Donnie Marshall, a well-known drummer who has worked with Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and Bonnie Bramlett. On the CD, he plays expertly in the styles of each example drummer, providing audio lessons that are easy to follow and a pleasure to listen to. Overall, this is a great package for anyone interested in rock drumming.

Contrary to appearances, this it not an instructional manual for drummers; it is far more than that. Additionally, if you, like me, think that books can't teach as clearly as DVDs, you're in for a surprise here. While DVDs tend to illustrate various "how-to's," they rarely if ever get inside the heart and soul of an artist's style or offer any clues to the unconscious motivations that form an artist's approach. But this unique and easy to grasp little tome presents an intelligent and succinct overview of 11 classic drummers that does just that. Dressed out with a biographical overview, individual gear and setup specs, equipment histories, style & technique, a lesson that includes each artist's major essentials with written examples, and more, you walk away from each chapter feeling you've gained insight into each artist's visceral dimension that you never considered before. The typically dry accounts of technique and exercises found on most DVDs rarely provide that. Musicians want and need more than mathematical analyses, and this delightful little page turner fills the bill for beginners, intermediates, and anyone else interested in discovering that personal something extra that each of these classic drummers contributed to musical history. Ultimately, what we all get when we're inspired by the sound and style of any classic artist, are new ideas about how to approach our own music, and thus refresh and add to our own style of playing, over time.

Profiles here feature Charlie Watts, Mitch Mitchell, Ginger Baker, Jon Bonham, Stewart Copeland, Richie Hayward, Keith Moon, and Ian Paice, plus this typist's favorite chapters, those on Ringo Starr, Levon Helm, and Jeff Porcaro.

A book like this is invaluable in helping to cut the time and arduous process of "getting the ultimate clue" that always seems like some zen koan that can't be achieved without suffering and madness. Messrs. Micallef and Marshall take a lot of the pain and mystery out of it. Note: Highly recommended for GB drummers who have to learn various major styles in a short amount of time before the audition or gig.

Drummers will benefit most from this book, but it's a good read for any musician. Very highly recommended. - JMM

Metcalf and Marshall delve deep into the world of classic rock here, with smart descriptions, good biographical information and excellent audio drum examples. Who knew Ginger Baker made his first set of drums from perspex, or that John Bonham's tuning was as essential to his style as his massive groove? The book covers all the classic rock drummers in great detail, with equally colorful and informative drum examples.

While well-written and easy to read, the information about these rock drummers is essentially pretty basic: a brief biography followed by a few words on equipment and style. It's interesting as far as it goes, which is not very far. There's not really enough information to give you any insight into what made these drummers so special.

After finishing this book, I was left wondering how the authors chose which drummers they wrote about. It seems to me that at least a couple pretty influential rock drummers were omitted.

Most importantly, this book contains some information that is just plain wrong. The authors should have done a little more research or a little more fact-checking.

The sample clips on the CD are so short as to be almost useless.