The infamous drum solo was a staple of the late ’60’s & early ’70’s rock scene; it seemed that every band worth their salt had to have a song that featured a drum solo.
If there wasn’t a drum solo within an album song, they often chose to do one during live performances. The album solos are usually songs constructed specifically to showcase the band’s drummer. The first four songs in this playlist are examples of those. Then there are the cases in live performances where the drum solo is the bridge from one song to another, and how the songs are parsed by the album producer can leave the drum solo disconnected. I’ve included two cases here, from The Guess Who (“American Woman” transitions to “Truckin’ Off Across the Sky”) and The Jimi Hendrix Experience (“Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”transitions to “In From The Storm”) to close out the playlist. NOTE: I build my playlists from my iTunes library. Unfortunately, Spotify does not have the Guess Who Live At The Paramount album from which these songs come, thus they’re not on the playlist, which is a shame. The album is on iTunes or YouTube if you’d like to check the songs out. Sorry!!
Often in live performances, the remainder of the band leaves the stage & refreshes while the drummer goes mad. I never quite got this, as the drummer works as hard, or harder, than the rest of the band and you’d think they’d need a break as well. Or perhaps you just need to be part beserker to be a drummer. However, noted berserker drummer Keith Moon was not a fan of drum solos, screaming “Drum solos are boring!” during a 1974 concert at Madison Square Gardens.
I wanted to see how old the drummers were at the time of the recording, and no surprise that most of them were in their early 20’s (Michael Shrieve being the youngest at 20, performing live at Woodstock). I knew most of these bands were generally pretty young when they started out kicking ass with great rock music. Great talent definitely shines through!
| Song | Band | Drummer | Age |
| Toad | Cream | Ginger Baker | 27 |
| Moby Dick | Led Zeppelin | John Bonham | 21 |
| Dharma For One | Jethro Tull | Clive Bunker | 21 |
| Rat Salad | Black Sabbath | Bill Ward | 22 |
| Soul Sacrifice (Live) | Santana | Michael Shrieve | 20 |
| YYZ (Live) | Rush | Neal Peart | 23 |
| In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida | Iron Butterfly | Ron Bushy | 22 |
| The Mule (Live) | Deep Purple | Ian Paice | 24 |
| The Hobbit (Live) | Ten Years Live | Ric Lee | 27 |
| American Woman (Live) | The Guess Who | Garry Peterson | 27 |
| In From The Storm (Live) | The Jimi Hendrix Experience | Mitch Mitchell | 24 |
The songs on this playlist contain exclusive drum solos, that is, only the drummer is playing for the duration of the solo. There are many great drummers out there, where their talents shine through on songs with limited other instruments in accompaniment, but those may be the subject of a future playlist.
Ironically, I was just listening to Rod Stewart’s version of “(I Know) I’m Losing You” today and Kenney Jones whips off a nice solo there. It’s the way I like to hear a drum solo – short, exciting, fits in well with the song. Of the ones you mention above, Shrieve is my favorite. I love Cream but boy, I skip right over “Toad” and put up the “Caution – 20-minute drum solo sign.” 🙂 I also like Ringo’s solo in “The End,” Steve Gadd’s on “Aja,” and Alex Van Halen’s on “Hot for Teacher.”
Yes, drum solos can be very much listener beware! Thanks for the reminder on Ringo’s; that one really fits in well with the song.