# Your Top Ten Favourite Drummers! Any Genre.



## HenryPenfold

1. Tony Williams
2. Bill Bruford
3. Peter Erskine
4. John Bonham
5. Ginger Baker
6. Omar Hakim
7. Michael Giles
8. Elvin Jones
9. Lenny White
10. Christian Vander

Bubbling under:

Eddie Prevost
Pierre Moerlen
Paul Motian
Buddy Rich
Gene Krupa
Jamie Muir
Maureen Tucker
Phily Joe Jones .....

..... and so on


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## SanAntone

*Tony Williams
Elvin Jones
Joe Chambers
Paul Motian
Jimmy Cobb
Ed Blackwell
Billy Higgins
Connie Kay
Roy Haynes
Philly Joe Jones*

Honorable Mention
Dannie Richmond
Joey Baron
Zutty Singleton
Ed Thigpen
Kenny Buttrey
Russ Kunkel
Levon Helm


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## Barbebleu

SanAntone said:


> *Tony Williams
> Elvin Jones
> Joe Chambers
> Paul Motian
> Jimmy Cobb
> Ed Blackwell
> Billy Higgins
> Connie Kay
> Roy Haynes
> Philly Joe Jones*
> 
> Honorable Mention
> Dannie Richmond
> Joey Baron
> Zutty Singleton
> Ed Thigpen
> Kenny Buttrey
> Russ Kunkel
> Levon Helm


Good list. I would add Joe Morello, Max Roach and Art Blakey somewhere! Probably at the expense of Joe Chambers, Philly Joe and Roy Haynes but very reluctantly.


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## HenryPenfold

Barbebleu said:


> Good list. I would add Joe Morello, Max Roach and Art Blakey somewhere!


Any genre, please. :lol:


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## Barbebleu

HenryPenfold said:


> Any genre, please. :lol:


Even in any genre I can't see me varying very much from SA's lists. Not saying that rock drummers are in any way technically inferior. I just have more affinity with jazz drummers having played drums in small jazz groups myself when I was younger.


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## HenryPenfold

Barbebleu said:


> Even in any genre I can't see me varying very much from SA's lists. Not saying that rock drummers are in any way technically inferior. I just have more affinity with jazz drummers having played drums in small jazz groups myself when I was younger.


Oh, I love SA's list (his best post in an age), but let's go wider, let's be diverse. Ginger Baker could knock half of them off their drum stool!


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## Barbebleu

HenryPenfold said:


> Oh, I love SA's list (his best post in an age), but let's go wider, let's be diverse. Ginger Baker could knock half of them off their drum stool!


Yeah, physically certainly if the fights with Jack Bruce are anything to go by. :lol:


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## HenryPenfold

Barbebleu said:


> Yeah, physically certainly if the fights with Jack Bruce are anything to go by. :lol:


He had fisticuffs with quite a few others and could handle himself. But, c'mon, he was an incredible drummer that merged rock and jazz drumming into something irresistible ...


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## Forster

The thing is, for me, the drummer can't be separated from the band he is in (yes, he...I know of no female drummers in the bands I like).

So, Ringo Starr is a great drummer for The Beatles, Phil Selway for Radiohead, Pip Pyle for Hatfield and the North...
...but none of them would likely play the flash stuff that Chad Wackerman provided for Allan Holdsworth or Frank Zappa.

And then amnesia sets in and I can't remember the name of XTC's and Magazine's drummers.

Phil Collins excellent, especially on Selling England, The Lamb and Trick of the Tail.

That's seven so far...Keith Moon was pretty good. Terry Bozzio for UK. Pierre Moerlen, Gong.

That's all I can manage from memory while trying to make sense of Disney's Encanto.


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## Bwv 1080

Tony Allen
Animal
Art Blakey
John Bonham
Eric "Stumpy Joe" Childs 
Zakir Hussain
Tomas Haake
George Kollias
Clyde Stubblefield
Tony Williams


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## HenryPenfold

Forster said:


> The thing is, for me, the drummer can't be separated from the band he is in (yes, he...I know of no female drummers in the bands I like).
> 
> So, Ringo Starr is a great drummer for The Beatles, Phil Selway for Radiohead, Pip Pyle for Hatfield and the North...
> ...but none of them would likely play the flash stuff that Chad Wackerman provided for Allan Holdsworth or Frank Zappa.
> 
> And then amnesia sets in and I can't remember the name of XTC's and Magazine's drummers.
> 
> Phil Collins excellent, especially on Selling England, The Lamb and Trick of the Tail.
> 
> That's seven so far...Keith Moon was pretty good. Terry Bozzio for UK. Pierre Moerlen, Gong.
> 
> That's all I can manage from memory while trying to make sense of Disney's Encanto.


Well said about Phil Collins - he's incredible on SEBT£


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## Malx

No love for Richard Coughlan of Caravan? 
I'm thinking of some of his drumming to the interesting time signatures on FGWGPITN.


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## SanAntone

HenryPenfold said:


> Oh, I love SA's list (his best post in an age), but let's go wider, let's be diverse. Ginger Baker could knock half of them off their drum stool!


Okay, another list with no jazz guys:

Aynsley Dunbar
John Bonham
Bill Bruford
Mic Fleetwood
Mike Clark
Levon Helm
Jim Keltner
Hal Blaine
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie
Jeff Porcaro


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## Barbebleu

HenryPenfold said:


> He had fisticuffs with quite a few others and could handle himself. But, c'mon, he was an incredible drummer that merged rock and jazz drumming into something irresistible ...


No disputing his ability but you asked us to name our top ten in any genre so you can't blame us if our top tens don't have any rock drummers. Now if you had defined the rules as to having no more than five from any one genre then you might have got a different result.


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## HenryPenfold

SanAntone said:


> Okay, another list with no jazz guys:
> 
> Aynsley Dunbar
> John Bonham
> Bill Bruford
> Mic Fleetwood
> Mike Clark
> Levon Helm
> Jim Keltner
> Hal Blaine
> Bernard "Pretty" Purdie
> Jeff Porcaro


Bill would be miffed that you think him a 'no jazz guy' :lol:


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## HenryPenfold

Malx said:


> No love for Richard Coughlan of Caravan?
> I'm thinking of some of his drumming to the interesting time signatures on FGWGPITN.


Love him, for sure - but he's not 'up there' ............


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## tortkis

Jack DeJohnette
Hamid Drake
Harris Eisenstadt
Susie Ibarra
Elvin Jones
Paul Motian
Paal Nilssen-Love
Bobby Previte
Max Roach
Tatsuhisa Yamamoto


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## starthrower

Some more favorites that haven't been mentioned.

Nick D'Virgilio 
Marco Minnemann 
Omar Hakim 
Joey Baron 
Eric Harland 
Kirk Covington 
Brian Blade 

If I had to pick one guy for note choices, sound and taste it would be Peter Erskine. I was just listening to him on the ECM live CD, Abercrombie, Johnson, Erskine and I can't think of a more satisfying drum sound and performance other than some of Bruford's best work.


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## Shaughnessy

Jon Hiseman

Simon Phillips

Evelyn Glennie

Ronald Shannon Jackson

JR Robinson

Mickey Waller

Michael Shrieve

Sly Dunbar

Jim Gordon

Sheila E.

Pete Escovedo

Cozy Powell

Carmine Appice

Steve Gadd

Terry Bozzio

Charlie Watts

Dino Danelli

and whoever this lad is... that apparently listened to "Won't Get Fooled Again" way too many fecking times.


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## philoctetes

A Solid Ten

Paul Motian
Billy Higgins
Tyshawn Sorey
Gerald Cleaver
Tony Williams
Mick Fleetwood
Bill Bruford
Tom Rainey
Hamid Drake
Mitch Mitchell


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## SanAntone

philoctetes said:


> Tom Rainey




I jammed some with Tom in NYC in the '80s (with Armen Donelian and some other North Texas guys I knew). Nice to see his name appear in this thread.


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## philoctetes

SanAntone said:


> I jammed some with Tom in NYC in the '80s (with Armen Donelian and some other North Texas guys I knew). Nice to see his name appear in this thread.


Lucky you! I know him from his trios, one with Halvorson and Laubrock, another with Malaby and Monder.

Many great jazz drummers roam the earth these days. Assuming they can't or don't rock is an error given that many of them were raised on rock, avant garde, Tony Wiliams, Messiaen, et al, whatever we listen to and more. But listeners may not find them on the old major labels like Blue Note anymore.


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## Animal the Drummer

Bwv 1080 said:


> Tony Allen
> *Animal*
> Art Blakey
> John Bonham
> Eric "Stumpy Joe" Childs
> Zakir Hussain
> Tomas Haake
> George Kollias
> Clyde Stubblefield
> Tony Williams


Why, thank you.


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