WHEN DID DRUMS become a required asset for c/w music?

[Mike Neer]

I love drums.

[Ken Lang]

I had a friend who was in a band of brothers, 3 of them plus a good friend bass player. For years my friend played a D-28 as a great chop player. As time wore on, and to become more up to date, he took up drums and never looked back. The bass man got an electric.
It's OK to think about the great days of no drums, and even do some jamming, but those days are gone if you want to play out as a viable band ,in most places.

I know there are places that still emulate the old days, and God Bless em. But I for one am not ready to go back.

[Michael Johnstone]

Playing w/out drums is OK from time to time in certain genres and situations. But there's nuthin like a virtuoso drummer who knows the bag and has your back. My brother-in-law Steve Duncan from the Desert Rose Band is such a player but he tells me he's gigging on bass these days. Go figure....

[Billy Tonnesen]

The Rhythm Guitar player who backs up the Quebe Sisters is one of the best I have heard in a long time.

[b0b]

Mr. Bob mentioned a SOLID rhythm guitar player. The only problem they are as hard to find as Osama Bin Laden. That's becoming a lost art also. The masters like Ranger Doug,Henry Haynes or Freddie Green. YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.

Or Hugh Harris? www.winecountryswing.com

[Dave Ristrim]

Re: Bruce Boutons post....Way to go Bruce!

[Ben Jones]

I play with alot of rock drummers. Many of dont get the subtitlies required of different styles. Alot of just go John Bonham on me even in ballads

No worse than the egos on guitar players .
Coming from a rock, metal and punk background one of the greatest lessons Ive learned inmy dabbling in other styles is restraint, taste, brevity, respect for the singer and other musicians, selflessness, etc.

The best drummers have these qualities also...and most importantly a deep groove. using a guitar for rythym might make your toe tap. Toe tappin aint enough anymore tho...We need drums to make their hips shake.

[Jerry Hayes R.I.P.]

I like to play both with and without a drummer! But I still love that old Elvis Presley Sun record period where it was just him, Scotty Moore and Bill Black! They had as much drive as any group with a drummer from the way ol' Bill slapped that "doghouse" bass. I think that way of playing an upright bass has become almost a lost art. Remember Marshall Grant on the early Johnny Cash stuff? That was some nice work!

In old pop music there's the "King Cole Trio" with Nat on piano along with electric guitar and bass, no drums! That was some of my favorite music of all time. Plenty of drive and very elegant! If I could work with a bass player like those groups had I wouldn't miss a drummer but they're not around anymore so I'll just keep gigging with a drummer. I get to do some bluegrass gigs on occasion and some of those bass players have a pretty good "slap" but the snare drum "two & four" is usually done by the mandolin player....

I saw Allison Krause and her great "bluegrass?" show here a couple of years ago and she had a drummer who actually knew how to play what was needed for her music............JH in Va.

[Mark van Allen]

I'm totally with Jim and Bruce on this one. I really love great drumless bands and music, but there's also an incredible joy to playing with a killer creative rhythm section.
It makes me wonder if some of you guys have ever played with a good drummer.
You might want to expand your musical horizons a bit.

[Bill Hatcher]

In YOUR OPINION........WHAT element in music does a rock drummer pounding away with heavy STICKS, contribute to great old country music and/or western swing?

Your original question is flawed. That kind of drummer contributes nothing. Then the topic turned to drums in general which is NOT what you asked.

[Allen Kentfield]

I think Farris Coursey's brushed snare on Hank Sr.'s records really added to the drive. The first band that I noticed using a full kit was the Buckaroos. The electric bass and drums permanently changed modern country music.
When I was living in Nashville in the mid-70's. the standard line-up in honky-tonks all over town was pedal steel, 4/4 electric bass and drums.
I played with that line-up in the late eighties here in Austin, the only exception was when I played lead guitar, or when we'd add a piano or fiddle. Alan Fulfer (RIP) had a great rimshot tone.

[Alvin Blaine]

I think Farris Coursey's brushed snare on Hank Sr.'s records really added to the drive.

First off no one by the name "Hank Sr." ever recorded anything, and second Hank Williams never used a drummer on his recordings. So that kind of goes to show how good a stand-up bass and acoustic rhythm guitar can be, it made you think the music had drive and a drummer.

[Charles Davidson]

Mr. Bob,enjoyed that,great picking. YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.

[Allen Kentfield]

Alvin,
Yes he did.
Have you heard the Country Music Foundation's Hank Williams boxed set? It has the session musicians listed with it. These are the original masters, no overdubs. Jack Shook played rythym on most of Hank's stuff, Farris played brushed snare. The tic-tac, or electric rythym, was played by; first, Zeke Turner, then Sammy Pruett, then Chet Atkins. Ernie Newton played upright bass.
There was no "Drifting Cowboy" drummer, but Hank used a lot of pick-up musicians in his career.

[Alvin Blaine]

I new that Ernie Newton used his brush & drum pad on the upper bout of his bass, but I never new that Farris played on any of those cuts.

[Bill Hatcher]

Hank Williams never used a drummer on his recordings.

nope! somebody is beating on a drum here!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FY7RWJAtJQ

[Leslie Ehrlich]

Some folks sit here on this forum and get off on dissing anything contemporary in spite off the fact that it's keeping your instrument of choice alive. Unbelievable! I've watched this for years on this forum.Consistantly someone raises the banner for "tradition" and everyone in their computer rooms jumps on the bandwagon.

I agree. If any of the traditionalists heard what I've done on steel they'd call it noise. But I like making noise with my PSG!

[b0b]

I love drums.

So do I. It's the cymbals that I can't stand.

[Scott Shewbridge]

I just can't resist sharing this humorous video:

Orchestral Percussionist

[Scott Shipley]

Lots of oxymoronic statements (and a few good ones too, lol) on this thread. I have to agree with what Jim Cohen said too.
Timing has nothing to do with genre. One of the best Country drummers I ever worked with, records with Paul McCartney.
A good drummer knows when to pull out the brushes or the sticks depending on the situation. Just as a good PSG player knows when to quit b#tchin about banjos and drums and start playin.

[Brian McGaughey]

...there's also an incredible joy to playing with a killer creative rhythm section.
It makes me wonder if some of you guys have ever played with a good drummer.

Based on much of the live club music I've heard over the years I think you're on to something here Mark. More times than not when I've heard a problem with a band's groove it's primarily the drummers fault.

A good drummer will cover your backside, understands his/her job is to make the whole band sound good and will make use of proper tools (sticks, brushes, timpani mallets, etc) to add to the song. Some drummers learn this sooner than others.

And I agree with you about cymbals, b0b, and I'm a drummer! Generally speaking, they're used too often and hit too hard. Every phrase does not have to be "marked" with a drum fill followed by a cymbal crash on one.

And you're right Jim C and Bruce B!

[Clete Ritta]

...Bob Wills was the first to use drums on the Opry and that was in the early forties...

At the end of a Denny Mathis CD, theres an interview and story about them each taking a drum out to the front of the stage from behind the usual curtain right before the show.
The rest is history as they say, for swing, western, country etc.
Blame it on the drummer!
Most groups tend to be only about as good as their drummer anyway.

Clete

[Johnny Thomasson]

Umm... back in the late fifties, early sixties? So that'd be what, around 50 years ago?

I can't imagine playing without a drummer. It would sound empty. IMO, naturally.

A bad drummer is a bad drummer, regardless of his/her genre of music. Same for the player of any instrument.

I never met anyone who thought rock style drumming fit country music. It does fit rock music nicely, though.

[Ron Epperson]

drums r only required in a country band if the dummer drummer knows how to play country

[Scott Shipley]

So, according to some of the logic contained herein, it would seem that drums became "mandatory" in Country music about the same time rhythm guitar players ceased to wanna be Freddy Green and tried to be Les Paul and Chet Atkins?
Where there's a hole, fill it.