Singing drummers
Posted by adze thuggery on 10 April 2008 - 4:47pm.
Just been listening to a variety of stuff, including the Beatles, the Eagles and the Band. Made me think of singing drummers - Ringo (occasionally), Don Henley and Levon Helm. Who are the others? Karen Carpenter? Suggestions?
- More from adze thuggery.
- Login or register to post comments








the bald bloke in
Genesis has been allowed near the microphone, i believe. When he's not dumping people by fax...
10CC - Rubber Bullets?
And Meg White has been known to warble a bit.
Stan Lynch
Who????? Watching the splendid Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers movie, Stan Lynch, drummer, sings some splendid hillbilly harmonies.
Wasn't that a great movie.
4 hours flying past. If you thought about it you'd say waste of time but I did it one glorious Sunday afternoon.
You're right
Utterly compelling. I did it over two nights on a tedious business trip lying on bed, laptop, mini bar open, headphones on. Excellent. Mest mucis doc I've seen for ages.
Robert Wyatt
The daddy of them all I'd say.
Andy Sturmer
of the wonderful Jellyfish (there's a reunion I'd love to see). Lead singer, played drums standing up at the front of the stage.
Moe Tucker
Charmingly naif vocals on two VU tracks - strangely perfect! And several lo-fi Bo Diddley inspired solo LP's.
Grant Hart
The bloke from Husker Du who wasn't either Bob Mould or the bassist with the fantastic handlebar lip cozy.
And, putting Husker Du into Wikipedia, I find that they took their name from a Danish Board game. Or vice versa.
they did too
Mean's Do You Remember or some such. The Cardinal Richelie syunt doible on bass was Greg Norton, who's now apparently a chef of some repute.
Bob, of cvourse, is still cranking out top quality angst=o=punk (with a smifdgeon of electronica) whilst Grant seems to have hubkered down somewhere
However unfashionable he is deemed...
...Phil Collins is not only a great drummer but a great singer and frontman too, in my humble opinion. I'm not fussed on most of the ballads he comes up with or attempts at R & B he did in Genesis and his solo career but when he stays away from that (which got less and less, admittedly!) I have no problems with him at all.
Roger Taylor of Queen is another one; his solo career never amounted to much (I must even confess to never hearing any of it!) but he has a fine heavy rock voice. He sang Queen's 'Tenement Funster', 'Drowse' and 'I'm In Love With My Car' and also, it's usually him doing the falsetto bits on Queen records.
Lee Kerslake of Uriah Heep did the odd vocal turn too, as did Keith Moon with that infamous 'Two Sides Of The Moon' album.
Didn't Roger Taylor do..
.."Nazis 1990?" Which nazis was he referring to, exactly?
ermmm
Anyone who played Apartheid Serf Ufrika, one presumes......wait, hang on
I loved Phil's
Cosh The Conductor, Ang On, Sod the Homeless (I'm Voting Tory) and Torpid Motown Rip-Off
Fleagle
out of The Banana Splits, a ridiculous fictionalised band made up for a TV show. Oh, and Mickey Dolenz.
Mark Radcliffe
...of the Family Mahone.
Dave Grohl
Foo Fighters - drummer in Nirvana
the annoying one..
..from Hanson - supplied backing vocals
If I remember rightly...
The guy from Paper Lace. (I suppose I could check but.... ah, what the hell).
Oh, and was it the drummer from Lieutenant Pigeon who did the vocals?
Reni...
...held the Roses together vocally, especially live.
He did indeed
And Robbie Jay Maddix carried on the mantle too.
Barry Wom, "Living In Hope"
He'd like to be a hairdresser. Or two. He'd like to be two hairdressers.
John Bonham
Well... more rapping, I suppose!
Mr Buddy Rich...
Paper Lace
Yep the drummer was the singer.
Russ Abbot was also a Drumming Singer in the Black Abbots. there was a singing drummer in the Grumbleweeds too.
Does Dave Grohl count ?
Henry Rollins tells a really funny anecdote About Peter Cris from Kiss doing a Vocal solo on the song "Beth".
came across this on a Steely Dan fan page.
Midnight Cruiser by Steely Dan
"Jim Hodder was the drummer with them for the first few albums… They gave him a song to sing… I think it's about Richard Nixon."
and who could forget
Paul Hester
See The Crowdies' "Italian Plastic" or "My Telly's Gone Bung" for evidence of the lead vocals, but was also a great harmony singer and a fantastic drummer.
And The Beat Farmers' Country Dick Montana on 'Vocals, Drums and Beer Runs' which is certainly in my list of top album credits. "Big Ugly Wheels" was one of his.
Another solo spotter is Vince Ditrich from Spirit of the West, who essays a fine "That's Amore" on their Greatest Hits compilation, backed by The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, no less.
Oh, and on a technicality, Paul McCartney (see 'Back In The USSR', 'Band On The Run' et al).
Didn't Iggy Pop start out on 'the skins'?
Evan Dando.....
...like Dave Grohl, started off as a drummer. He was even the Lemonheads drummer before he was the frontman. Re Iggy (above), yes.
The singer in SNAFU was the original drummer in Procul Harum. That, and the fact he had a Jesse Colin Young wide 'tache is about all I can remember, but they were the great white hope for a (very short) while. One single, I believe.
Dave Hemingway
Dave Hemingway was the drummer of the Housemartins who sang co-vocals on "Build" and ended up being one of the three vocalists in The Beautiful South.
Singing while drumming
Or drumming while singing ....
But how many of these did both at the same time, as opposed to giving up drumming to be the singer?
A few...
Levon Helm...
Don Henley used to back in the day, not sure about now...
Phil Collins sang backing vocals and drummed whilst Peter Gabriel was still lead singer of Genesis...
Roger Taylor...
Levon
Has been mentioned, but I have to include this clip, even if we've all seen it before:
Good look, great drummer...
He is so great. His drumming is effortless... he looks like he was born to do it. And his voice ain't half bad either! Makes you a bit sick really...
And on another point, am I alone in thinking that Robbie Robertson in 'The Last Waltz' looks like the coolest dude on the planet?
No
You're not. The sad thing is that the other one who thinks so is Robertson himself...
Being fair, he does look kind of cool, albeit in a very deliberate and self conscious fashion. I've read waaay too much about The Band to be objective about The Last Waltz. Which is a shame, because I think it's one of Scorsese's two most emotionally affecting films.
I wrote a thesis about...
Martin Scorsese's use of diegetic and non-diegetic music in 'The Last Waltz' and 'Good Fellas' when I was at college. A surefire cure for insomnia, if anyone has problems sleeping.
Now that I've looked up 'diegetic'...
...can I read it?
Errr... let me read it again and let's see!
I have to check I don't find it embarrassing! I wrote it a long time ago... got a first for it though (cough!) so I don't think it can have been too bad.
Drop me a line in a week or so and remind me, if you're seriously interested.
It'll probably be some time next month
Once my essay deadlines have passed, if that's ok.
Sure...
whenever you like.
I did 'diegetic'/'non diegetic'...
...in a Journalism, Film and Media lecture not long ago. I seem to remember 'digetic' is when the music/dialogue is linked to a film/programme but 'non-diegetic' is when it is peripheral to that, like subtitles or narration or some such...right?
How time dulls the memory...
'Goodfellas'
I went to see...
...Ace Frehley on Thursday night and his drummer (whoever he was) did more singing than Frehley did himself.
Good singer/drummer
Jim Capaldi - on "Light up or Leave me Alone" from Traffic's brilliant Low Spark of High Heeled Boys and various solo outings
Wasn't
Karen Carpenter was a great drummer if my hazy memory serves me right.
She famously beat John Bonham to second place...
in a 'best drummer' poll back in the day, which supposedly resulted in his smashing lots of stuff that didn't belong to him to pieces.
Singing Drummers
Terry Bozzio. Recorded and performed with Zappa in the late 70's. Probably one of the greatest drummers of all time. His singing was not as good as his drumming, but he did it at the same time. Worth checking out "Titties and Beer" or "Broken Hearts are for Assholes" but if you're just interested in drumming, Bozzio's is pretty special on "The Torture Never Stops" and "Zoot Allures"
Wasn't...
...Terry Bozzio the guy who Zappa wrote 'The Black Page' for? That was a ludicrously difficult notated drum solo, and fairly brief for those (understandably!) averse to drum solos.
Drummer for The Jesus & Mary Chain to...
... singer for Primal Scream - Bobby Gillespie.
Sad thing is...
...their replacement drummer was better. At least when plugged in.
BOC
Albert Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult (how do you type "o"s with umlauts!?!) - actually he wasn't terribly good
Special characters...
in the edit menu.
bloke from Four Seasons
seems to be singing on Silver Star and Oh What A night - Gerry Polci? Pretty good either way.
TOTP2
Saw them doing 'Silver Star' on TOTP2 a few months ago. Bloody brilliant, never heard it before. And yeah, he was bending the laws of physics by singing and drumming at the same time.
June Miles-Kingston
..used to combine session drumming and backing vocals - if that counts - on some of the sturdier hits of the '80s. It's just hazy memory speaking here, but I believe she backed up the Fun Boy Three's 'Our Lips Are Sealed' and The Communards' 'Don't Leave Me This Way' (or maybe something else).
Did a bit with Microdisney too, but that might have just been the singing.
AND I think she tried her hand at a solo record.
Info on June-Miles Kingston
June Miles-Kingston info in this article from The Guardian on women in punk.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/aug/08/gender.arts
How about drumming and playing keyboards- simultaneously.
That fella from Semisonic did that, at least on TOTP, live is uncertain, but it looked as if that was his gimmick.
My favourite subject
Ok Fat Larry sung the last verse of Zoom
Cityboy sang 5705 from the back.
Oh what a night wasn't Frankie Valli's finest hour( in 1963)
And Grand Funk Railroad were not an American Band.
Ladies and gentleman of jury..... I rest my case