Crappy drummers

[uwe]

"Cozy Powell couldn't groove at all if you ask me... "

AMEN!!! Where may I kiss you first, Rob? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Cozy, may he drum eternally wherever he now is, had charm, looked good and played (on) some memorable stuff, but one thing he did not do ever since his Mickie Most/RAK solo career in the mid seventies and then on through his stints with Rainbow, MSG, Whitesnake, ELP, Black Sabbath, Brian May and Peter Green's Splinter Group is swing or groove. Bobby Rondinelli had more groove than Powell and that is saying something.

I always find it curious when Powell is compared to Bonham who for all his behind the beat style (Cozy was always ahead of the beat - Blackmore has said as much), which drives me crazy, had his own idiosyncratic groove. Powell was just a powerhouse and he did everything with the same sheer brute force (though he is reputed to have played in the Motown studios once, I wonder how that sounded?!). Through all his career (and I've got all his solo albums) I do not remember one memorable bass drum pattern from him, doublebass drum or not. He was leagues behind someone like Simon Phillips or Carmine Appice in that department and Ian Paice could bass drum pattern circles around him with ONE bass drum. Cozy has done some memorable fills on various Rainbow tracks and the sheer force of his drumming live is a physical experience (and that is what people like Blackmore, Schenker, Coverdale and Iommi enjoyed with him, the physical experience of his drumming not his chops), but groove and swing? That wasn't in him. Everything he played was brutal and un-subtle, sometimes to the point of leaden. He would have demolished Deep Purple's Burn had he ever played it.

Neil Murray, who has played years with Paice in Whitesnake's rhythm section and again years with Powell in Powell's Hammer (apt name!), Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, The Brian May Band and Peter Green's Splinter, once said that in hindsight he never gelled with a drummer as much as Ian Paice who he found the most sympathetic drummer to a bass player's style he had ever played with. And he said that playing with Powell was a physical experience, but that essentially all you could do with him on bass was back him and that Cozy didn't give a rat's ass about what the bass played as long as it didn't get in his way or confounded him. That didn't work when Colin "Bomber" Hodkinson joined Whitesnake who is a great bass player, but not a thudder (and needs a sympathetic drummer for his busy style to work). During the session for Whitesnake's Slide it in, Powell stormed out of the drumming booth enraged during a take and yelled at Hodgkinson: "Let me introduce myself, I am the drummer!!!" before departing the studio. Hodkinson's parts were later erased and rerecorded by Murray for the US mix of Slide it In. And if you compare that bass playing to the recordings Murray did with Whitesnake before Hodkinson replaced him (but not for long ...) and where Ian Paice was his rhythm section foil, then you can almost begin to cry witnessing how much he had to dumb down his once melodic and rhythmically intricate, yet powerful bass playing to fit in with Powell's merciless drumming.

Listen and learn: Playing a simplistic quarter note song with swing (courtesy of Mr Paice):




... and devoid of swing (courtesy of Mr Powell plus the unable shredding hands of Herr Sykes):





And btw: Aldridge can't swing that song for the hell of it either:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VieiqTDwpLk&feature=related



I find Powell hugely overrated. People tell me that his style was totally different with the Ace Kefford Stand in the sixties, but something must have snapped with him in the seventies when he joined the Jeff Beck Group.


Good drumming to me in a hard rock context is this here, Cozy couldn't have done it had his life depended on it:



That said, Powell had charisma and an image and I saw three great Rainbow concerts with him in the seventies plus three or four early eighties Whitesnake concerts where he unfortunately hammered some songs to death. Last time I saw him before his unfortunate death was with Black Sabbath in the Iommi-led Tony Martin and Neil Murray line up. And while it seems logical to say that you cannot drum too heavy for Black Sabbath, I missed the interplay between Bill Ward's swinging and rather un-heavy drums on one hand and Iommi's and Butler's lava-thick bludgeoning riffs on the other hand even in that musical scenario.


Uwe

PS: One little trivia for the Powell fans among you: In the seventies, pre-Rainbow, Powell was slated to form a super-trio with Johnny Winter and Rick Derringer on bass. Powell was supposed to have been excited about the prospect, but - after having seen so many "projects" fail in endless search of compatible musicians - was adamant that Derringer should stay on board to be the bass player with the group. Derringer, however, had apparently only agreed to help Johnny Winter out for the session with Cozy Powell and declined a future career as the (petite!) bass player in Winter, Derringer & Powell (or whatever they would have been called ... maybe "Al & The Binos" would have been a good name too  ), so Powell (always a man of impromptu decisions, no patience and a short temper) took the plane back home to England, dabbled with ex-Humble Pie'sters Dave "Clem" Clempson and Greg Ridley (if memory serves right) to form Stange Brew (another ill-fated power trio that went nowhere) and took up car racing until the telephone rang with the Rainbow managment asking him over for auditions in LA. He got the job on the strength of a ten minute shuffle he played with Blackmore. Anybody got a recording of it?

[Basvarken]

Where may I kiss you first, Rob?

Would the kitchen seem like nice place to you? 

[uwe]

Hey, I'm a good cook, just a little messy!

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

Blasphemers! 

I still say Cozy is THE MAN! 
...or was. Had the cooolest name by far tooo

[Dave W]

Easy for me to stay out of this argument, since AFAIK I never heard him play.

[Hornisse]

Cozy was a powerhouse for sure.  I never saw him perform live and only have the Rainbow On Stage LP which I really wore out in High School. 

Keith Moon on Who's Next song Bargain is a wonderful display of the double bass drums.  Shame he died so young.



p.s. I would take Uwe's advice, but I think I already pissed the guy off.

[Freuds_Cat]

Rob and Uwe, I have to agree with most of what you are both saying. Cozy was great at that powerful straight ahead "Look at the Drummer" stuff but lacked subtlety with Grooves. And Uwe, very accurate description of Neil Murrays playing style. Love his stuff. I didnt know that about his playing on the US version of the Slide it in album. Having heard the US release version twice I was so put off by the syrupy LA style production as opposed to the more earthy and gritty European release that I didnt bother with it again.

Ian Paice was/is one of my favourite drummers to practice to. Even when playing to a recording his playing feels sympathetic to the bass lines. I'm not sure how that is possible but it certainly feels like that to me.

[Hornisse]

Ian Paice is a lefty too. 

Trivia note: He is the only member of Deep Purple to play in all of their incarnations.

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

Ian Paice is a lefty too.  

No wonder he's so goood.  

Moon the Loon was AMAZING LIVE! Saw The WHO in '73.
For showmanship he was The Best Ever!! He'd throw his sticks 30 feet in the air & catch 'em just in time to come back in!!
Double Bass AND a Double Row of Tom Toms!!



Cozy had The Ultimate Metal Drummer look & vibe!!



Like Uwe said, I suppose his MEGA CHARISMA had a lot to do with why he's so LOVED.
He sure had the POWER & was probly The MIGHTIEST of the MIGHTY DRUMMERS!!
Us METALHEADS don't care so much about subtlety. haha

All that said & considered BONZO is still my Fav Drummer Ever!
Probly cuz I stood behind him in '71 during a 45 minute MOBY DICK before he got a gong.
Carmine Appice persuaded him to buy Double Basses but Page would always have one hidden just before showtime!! Alas
Sometimes I wonder if he had lived thru the 80s by working on his physique & playing Double Basses how HEAVY Led Zep could have become!!

Someone has to carry on from where they left off!!
Might as well be me!!

[Dave W]

Victor DeLorenzo's kit is about the right size. Who needs a kick?

[nofi]

i love the femmes.

[Hornisse]

I saw them at Liberty Lunch back in the late 80's.  Great show. 

[godofthunder]

i think Night ranger sucked because they were Night ranger.

LMAO I really shouldn't laugh I still have my day job 

[uwe]

I saw Night Ranger in a small Orlando Club as Don't tell me you love me was just about to get some airplay. I liked what I saw and liked the combination of Blades and the drummer switching lead vocals in songs. Watson and Gillis were radically different but complemented each other well. As eighties pop hard rock outfits go, they were among the better ones.

Now I'm gonna put my Winger T-shirt back on ...

[Hornisse]

Was it Blades who played in Rubicon?  I always liked the funky stuff he did on that live California Jam 2 LP. 

I played another gig last night and just decided to go along with all the quirks and such.  It was a good show and I think we just need more time to work together.