In Memoriam: Drummers Part II

We continue featuring drummers who died in 2022. Part I featured Jet Black (Brian Duffy), Jerry Allison, and Dino Danelli, and you can read that here, if somehow you haven’t read it already. We’re proceeding oldest to youngest, and Part III should be posted soon. 

Alan White—White was best known as the drummer for Yes, although I admit that I always think of him as “the drummer for Yes who replaced Bill Bruford.” Bruford is my favorite rock drummer, so White was never going to measure up, but he was a fine drummer in his own right, and played on many great Yes songs. 

Born in 1949, White joined his first band at 13, turning pro at 17. In 1969, White received a call from someone claiming to be John Lennon, looking for a drummer for the Plastic Ono Band. White thought that someone was yanking his chain, but it turned out to be a genuine offer. White, given three days to prepare, performed with them for a show, and later played on Lennon’s Imagine album, the song “Instant Karma,” and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. This led to a brief enlistment in Ginger Baker’s Air Force, and work with Steve Winwood and Terry Reid. 

White shared a London flat with Eddy Offord, who worked as an engineer and producer for Yes, and occasionally hung out at the studio with the band. Once, when Bruford had to leave a rehearsal session early, White sat in. Later, after Bruford left Yes to join King Crimson in 1972, White was asked to join the band, and again was given three days to learn their repertoire before the Close to the Edge tour started. You can see and hear White playing on “Roundabout” from that tour here:

 

White played drums and percussion on more than 40 studio and live Yes albums, and occasionally added piano parts and collaborated on songwriting. He also released one solo album and had a few side projects. 

White was one of 8 of the myriad members of Yes inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 (as was Bruford, who is not also in as a member of King Crimson, because that band has somehow never been inducted. Don’t get me started.) 

After what was described as a “brief illness,” White died on May 26, 2022 at the age of 72. Sadly, two months before his death a large number of personal items, including musical instruments (the drum set he played with the Plastic Ono Band, for example), and platinum records, were stolen from a storage unit. 

John Hartman-The original drummer for The Doobie Brothers, John Hartman died on September 22, 2022. Hartman originally moved to Northern California at the request of Skip Spence, who wanted him to participate an a revival of Moby Grape. That never happened, but Spence introduced Hartman to Tom Johnston, and eventually they, along with Pat Simmons, formed The Doobie Brothers. Here’s Hartman playing “China Grove” on the BBC in 1974:

 

Hartman drummed with the band, sometimes with a second drummer, until 1979, straddling their early days as funky, bluesy rockers fronted by Johnston, to the smooth purveyors of “yacht rock,” led by Johnston’s replacement, Michael McDonald. He returned for a benefit tour in 1987, and two more Doobies albums (with Johnston and not McDonald) but retired from the band for good in 1992. 

After that, Hartman attempted to become a police officer, but the drummer, described by the band at his death as a “wild spirit,” found it hard to break into law enforcement due to his previous drug use, despite having graduated from a police academy. Hartman was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a Doobie Brother, but because of COVID, plans for a performance by the original members were scotched. Interestingly, Hartman was the only living major figure from the Doobies not interviewed for the 2021 biography documentary, Let The Music Play. 

Ric Parnell-You know how the drummers in This Is Spinal Tap! all died in strange ways? Remember how Mick Shrimpton spontaneously combusted? Real drummer Ric Parnell was Mick Shrimpton. When Spinal Tap recorded its two albums, and did TV performances and live shows through 1992, it was Parnell who handled the drums. But, you ask, how did he do that if Mick Shrimpton was dead? Turns out, Mick had a twin brother, Rick Shrimpton, who was also a drummer! 

Spinal Tap was not Parnell’s only claim to fame. Born in London in 1961, to a drummer father and with two drummer brothers, percussion was basically the family business. In 1968, due to one of his father’s jobs at a TV station, Parnell got to see Jimi Hendrix perform on Dusty Springfield’s TV show. 

Parnell had two stints with Atomic Rooster, initially briefly replacing a pretty fair drummer, Carl Palmer, and then rejoining and playing on their last two albums. You can see Parnell’s Bonham-influenced drumming here, on Atomic Rooster’s “A Spoonful of Bromide Helps the Pulse Rate Go Down” from 1972:

 

After that, Parnell played in some Italian bands before becoming a sideman for artists including Michael Des Barres and was the drummer on Toni Basil’s hit “Mickey.” He was offered a chance to join Journey, but declined, which probably cost him a ton of money. But if he had joined that band, I would not have written this, because I really do not like Journey. So, he clearly made the right call. 

Parnell settled in Missoula, Montana, where he would gig locally, and for a while Parnell hosted a radio show called, yes, “Spontaneous Combustion,” where he played basically whatever he wanted and told stories. (Boy, I miss doing that on the radio....) 

On May 1, 2022, Parnell died at the age of 70 from a blood clot in his lungs that led to organ failure.

In Memoriam: Three Vaguely Prog Musicians

Jon Hassell/Brian Eno: Chemistry
[purchase] 

Kansas: Cheyenne Anthem
[purchase]

Brand X: Nuclear Burn
[purchase] 

Part of it, I guess, comes from the fact that prog rock era musicians are getting to that age, but it seems like almost every year at about this time, I’m writing about some of them. This year, I’m taking a broad view of the genre, with one musician probably best known for ambient music, one for a distinctly American take on prog, and one who is more from the fusion world, but I like to do group In Memoriam pieces, and this is the best excuse I could come up with to write about these three artists together. And for no real reason, I’ll discuss them in the order that they passed. 

For some reason, I assumed that trumpeter Jon Hassell was European, but he isn’t. He was born in Tennessee in 1937, but did study serial music in Germany, where he befriended the future founders of Can, before returning to the US, where he performed on Terry Riley’s first recording of In C. He also was part of LaMonte Young’s Theater of Eternal Music (which also spawned John Cale) and also studied Indian music. 

I first became aware of Hassell when he collaborated with Brian Eno in 1980 on an album called Fourth World Vol.1: Possible Musics (and he also played on Eno’s 1982 album Ambient 4: On Land). Hassell used the term “Fourth World” to describe his work as “a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques.” Hassell used lots of electronic processing and effects on his trumpet, leading to strange, otherworldly sounds. He also appeared on the track “Houses In Motion” on Talking Heads’ Remain In Light, on Peter Gabriel’s Birdy and Passion soundtracks, along with a bunch of solo and group recordings, and guest spots with artists as diverse as David Sylvain, Jackson Browne, Ani DiFranco, Ry Cooder, Tears For Fears, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, and k.d. lang. 

Hassell had been in bad health for about a year before dying on June 26, 2021 of natural causes. 

I’d argue that Kansas was, during their strongest period, the best American prog rock band (I also love Happy The Man, but most people have never heard of them). Kansas fused the mostly European prog sound with American music, fitting for their origin in the country’s heartland. Most reviews of the band refer to them mixing prog with “boogie,” and I’m not sure I can really describe what that is, but you know it when you hear it. Their albums Leftoverture and Point of Know Return were staples of FM radio during my high school years and one key to the band’s sound was violinist/vocalist Robby Steinhardt. 

Steinhardt was born in Chicago in 1950, but grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, where he started violin lessons at age 8, and was classically trained both in the US and Europe. In 1972, he joined a band in Topeka, White Clover, which eventually became Kansas. Steinhardt was mostly known for his violin work, but sang harmony on most of the band’s songs, and lead on more than a few. He also acted as the “MC” during live performances. 

I started losing interest in Kansas after 1979’s Monolith, after which the band turned toward a strong Christian influence and began to splinter. Steinhardt left the band in 1982 for “personal reasons,” although one article I read referred to his substance abuse during this time. He was part of a band, Steinhardt-Moon, and performed with other acts until rejoining Kansas in 1997, but tired of the pace of touring, and left for good in 2006. In 2013, Steinhardt suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery but began making guest appearances with Stormbringer (which had formed from Steinhardt-Moon). 

In 2020, Steinhardt began work on a symphonic prog-rock project that included contributions from, among others, Ian Anderson, Steve Morse, Billy Cobham, Patrick Moraz, Chuck Leavell, Liberty Devitto, Pat Travers, and Lisa Fischer. Unfortunately, the album, Not In Kansas Anymore, was not released until October, 2021, a few months after Steinhardt died on July 17, from complications of acute pancreatitis. 

Back in 2014, I wrote a short piece about Brand X for our “Side Projects” theme, because it was, for Phil Collins, a side project from Genesis. But one of the few consistent members of that band, and one of its founding members, was guitarist John Goodsall. Goodsall was born in 1953 in England and picked up the guitar at age 7. He went pro at age 15, touring with a few bands, including Atomic Rooster (which also included drummer Ric Parnell, who later played Mick Shrimpton in This Is Spinal Tap, the drummer who spontaneously combusted, and then toured with the Tap as Mick’s twin brother Rick). Brand X performed and recorded from 1975-1982, and to my ear produced a great deal of interesting music. 

Starting in 1979. Goodsall moved to Los Angeles, and also worked as a session musician, appearing on albums with Peter Gabriel, Bill Bruford, Bryan Adams, and yes, even on Toni Basil’s hit “Mickey.” He was a member of Zoo Drive in the mid-1980s, and after that, the Fire Merchants, before reforming Brand X in 1992. Later, he appeared with various combinations of musicians and recorded music as a leader and session musician. According to Wikipedia, Goodsall appeared on a few soundtracks, ranging from mainstream films such as No Small Affair, Can’t Buy Me Love, and Point Break, and the somewhat less mainstream Anal Intruder 9. 

Goodsall died on November 11, 2021, possibly of complications from pneumonia.

Fake Bands: The Wonders

The Wonders: That Thing You Do
[purchase the film’s extended cut in which it seems that Hanks’ character might be gay]
[purchase the soundtrack]

I’ve written about, or at least mentioned, a bunch of fake bands, including The Archies, The Monkees (which some would argue turned into a real band), The Commitments, Spinal Tap, The Blues Brothers, and The Rutles. But never The Wonders.

In 1996, Tom Hanks was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. He had recently done A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump (a move that I found to be overrated and uncomfortable to watch), and Apollo 13. And many of these roles won him Oscars, Golden Globes and other awards. But Hanks, like many actors, it seems, wanted to write and direct a film. While doing the lengthy publicity tour for Forrest Gump, Hanks became tired of talking about himself, and banged out a screenplay in 30 days, which 20th Century Fox agreed to produce it as long as Hanks agreed to star in it (which he did, as a record company executive).

Hanks, who had a love for early 60s music (particularly the Dave Clark Five, who he inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame That is Missing Many Great Acts and Includes Some Terrible Ones), wrote a story about a 60s band’s rise and fall, and even wrote much of the music for the soundtrack. The film, That Thing You Do! was filled with then-unknown actors, many of whom later became stars, including, in rough order of future fame, Charlize Theron, Liv Tyler, Tom Everett Scott, Giovanni Ribisi, Steve Zahn, Ethan Embry and Johnathon Schaech (and many of Hanks’ family and friends in smaller roles or cameos). And it was a charming, fun movie that was well received by both critics and the general public.

But one song that Hanks did not write was the title track, “That Thing You Do” (without the exclamation point). It was written by Adam Schlesinger, who wrote it at roughly the same time as his band, Fountains of Wayne, was working on its great debut album. Schlesinger (who I just found out is a cousin of Jon Bernthal, TV’s “The Punisher”) had just gotten his first publishing deal, and someone from the company told him that there was a call out for a song that would sound like something that an American band in 1964 would write, after being blown away by the Beatles. Schlesinger, who considered it a writing exercise, wrote a bouncy pop song, and recorded a demo, with Mike Viola, of The Candy Butchers, singing lead vocals because, as Schlesinger later stated, “He’s just a much better singer than me.” He got the gig.

In the film, “That Thing You Do” is originally a ballad, but when the band’s new drummer joins, he plays the song faster, and it becomes a hit. In the movie, the song hits #7, and the liner notes to the soundtrack album state that it peaked at #2. But, spoiler alert, the band breaks up before any more of their songs become hits. The real world also liked “That Thing You Do.” It had moderate chart success in the United States and overseas. Schlesinger was nominated for both an Oscar and Golden Globe for the song, losing out to a tear-jerker from Evita sung by Madonna.

The version of the song that appeared in the film was not played by the actors, who nevertheless learned to play their instruments so that it looked convincing, but instead was a re-recorded version of the demo. In 2017 three of the four actors got together and performed the song live—missing was Steve Zahn, who was the lead guitarist and who was replaced by someone else wearing a Zahn mask.  Ethan Embry, who played the bass player, and in a running gag, was never named (and whose character was listed in the credits as "T.B. Player), did perform.

Remarkably, the song has been covered a number of times, including by another Beatles’ influenced band, The Knack (although it failed to make my piece on their covers), and by ‘NSYNC.

May/Might: She May Call You Up Tonight

The Left Banke: She May Call You Up Tonight 
[purchase]

When you think of the Left Banke, if you do, you probably think about “Walk Away Renee,” or maybe “Pretty Ballerina.” And maybe, just maybe, you think about “She May Call You Up Tonight.” After that, though, I bet you are drawing a blank. Certainly, those are three great songs that helped to define a style referred to as “baroque rock,” but after that, the Left Banke’s musical output is pretty much unknown.

I’m in the camp of people who know about those three songs, and basically nothing else about the Left Banke. Luckily, though, I have access to the Interwebs. Turns out, the band has one of those stories that is all too familiar. Early success, internal bickering, revolving door membership, even competing versions of the band, and various reunions over the years, with varying lineups. There are even some brushes with future fame—versions of the band included, at times, Michael McKean, better known as an actor, including as David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap, and Bert Sommer, who played Woof in the original Broadway production of Hair in 1969-70 (and whose actual hair was immortalized on the Playbill). A young Steven Tyler sang background vocals on the band’s little-heard second album. But you cannot deny that the Left Banke’s sound was influential well beyond the band’s output or commercial success. You can hear their influence in early Linda Ronstadt, in Eric Carmen, and Belle & Sebastian, among many others.

I’m pretty sure, though, that while I may have heard the original version of “She May Call You Up Tonight” at some point, I really paid attention to it when I heard Richard Thompson do it live, with son Teddy, at the Tarrytown Music Hall. I remember thinking that it sounded familiar, but was totally unable to place it. There’s a recording of it, with Teddy, on 1998’s live album Celtschmerz. There’s also another version on Thompson’s Chrono Show album, featuring performances from his 2004 tour. The Wikipedia article for that album says that Thompson had been doing the song live since the 1970s, and it must have been something that the Fairport Convention crowd was into (Thompson has been quoted about his love for the Left Banke’s debut album)—The Albion Country Band, led by former Fairport member Ashley Hutchings, played it live in 1972 (with a gender change), with Richard and Linda Thompson guesting, Ian Matthews (who left Fairport in 1969) did a cover of it in 1980, and Linda Thompson did the gender-changed version of it on her solo album in 1985, after breaking up with Richard.

1984: Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight

Spinal Tap: Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight

[purchase]

This is Spinal Tap is a truly great achievement of film, transcending its own trappings (being both a mockumentary and affiliated with Rob Reiner) to be recognized as not just an all-time great comedy, but an all-time great in and of itself. The songs that comprise the backbone of the fictional band’s celluloid glory (in the meta-world, not on their ill-fated American tour supporting Smell the Glove) deserve substantial credit for the film’s place in the canon of American pop culture.

Yet it seems that the Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest’s in-character sojourns as a real life incarnation have been filed by most of us somewhere between the Monkees (claims to legitimacy, drowned in TV-manufactured hysteria) and Hannah Montana (phenomenally popular with a specific audience, totally irrelevant to the world at large.) The best we were ever willing to offer the men who are the Tap was they wrote some pretty decent songs, for a bunch of actor/comedians. The worst was that, well… they wrote merely jokes.

But doesn’t this reveal a double standard when applied to “real” musicians and their works? The masses didn’t demand the retraction of “genius” as descriptive of the Beatles’ legacy just because of Yellow Submarine. And it’s not like anybody was clamoring for the definitive Smile because those totally killer versions of “Vega-Tables” and “Barnyard” were tearing up the internets. But to consider these pieces of bigger pictures without any respect for their ultimate contexts is unfairly and unrewardingly limiting (seriously, take iTunes off shuffle and start listening to music like a grown-up.)

It’s easy to say that the unappreciated dimension of such “novelties” as the music of Spinal Tap is that good parody reaps amusement from dedicated research and mastery of a form, but this a something of a backhanded compliment. It implies a measure of inorganic artifice, reducing the talented and capable writing and playing of Guest, McKean, Shearer and collaborators. And, hidden in such discussions of the Tap’s 1984 opus, is the suggestion that the music is good for being an imitation of bad music.

In truth, This is Spinal Tap is a fantastically sharp lesson in the history of hard rock, making comic fodder of the twin phenomena of career reinvention and revisionism, and in the process, offering a convincingly earnest homage to hallowed countrymen and the music we all love. The fictional development of Spinal Tap could have ended at Blue Cheer By playing in the periphery of reality, they put a finger to the ever-beating pulse of the genre-developing intersections of pop, rock, folk and blues. That they also managed to blur the lines of satire and tribute while generating a true touchstone of modern music and film is even more a reason for praise. Nearly three decades later, “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight” is still blaring- without irony- in countless living rooms worldwide courtesy of the Guitar Hero franchise. To anyone who still thinks the music of Spinal Tap remains a novelty: “mere jokes” aren’t supposed to hold up this well.