3 Rock Bands With Six 6 Drummers
Two drummers per band, that is
Yes, this is another one of my music nostalgia series with a theme that is just an excuse to mention my favorite band, The Grateful Dead.
The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead’s powerful rhythm section, Phil Lesh on bass and Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann on drums, laid down a solid floor for guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bobby Weir to jam over.
The story as I heard it was that the band started out with Just Mickey on drums. He quit and was replaced by Bill. Then Mickey wanted to come back, so they just kept both of them. Peace and love, man!
In addition to their two drum kits, the boys have “The Beast,” a collection of other drums and percussion instruments that they use during their inevitable mid-concert looooong drum solo section. (Mistral tells me that The Beast actually refers to the humongous custom-built sound system they used from 1974–1976, so one of us is wrong. Probably me.) Here, be bored by a few minutes of The Beast:
Now enjoy 22 minutes of Dark Star, the most psychedelic track ever committed to vinyl.
Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?
The Allman Brothers Band
I always liked the Allman Brothers, though they weren’t among my favorites. Probably because I, being New Jersey born, didn’t relate at all to their southern roots. (Although country music star Jerry Jeff Walker was born in New York.) In any case, the Allmans were a talented band with many great hit songs, as you know. Their two drummers helped give them a unique sound with a solid beat.
Tragically, slide guitarist Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident in 1971 at the young age of 24. The story we all believed was that he crashed his bike into a truck carrying a load of peaches, hence the title of the next album, Eat a Peach. However, it was in fact a flatbed truck carrying a lumber crane.
Doubling down on the tragedy, almost exactly one year later they lost bass player Berry Oakley, also at age 24, and also in a motorcycle accident. He hit a city bus. He was taken to the same hospital that Duane had been taken to, and died there. If I get into a motorcycle accident, please do not take me to that hospital.
Enjoy 23 minutes of Whipping Post, the greatest popular jam rock song of all time.
Who else?
I couldn’t think of another band with dual drummers, so I asked my friendly neighborhood AIs. They came up with a bunch of bands that sometimes used two drummers:
- The Doobie Brothers (Listen to the Music era))
- Santana
- Genesis
- King Crimson
- Frank Zappa
- Jefferson Airplane (?? maybe because they saw The Dead doing it?)
But the AIs came up with only one band that depended on dual drummers for their sound: The James Brown Band! Huh! Good god!
Okay, JB is soul, not rock, technically speaking. But he rocks!
Enjoy 18 minutes of James Brown and The Famous Flames incredible live performance in 1964 (although I see only one drum kit on stage here).
For two drum kits, see him live at the Apollo in 1968:
Or here in Rome in 1971:
Us white kids really missed out, not having an appreciation for James Brown back in the day.
