Clips of Musicians Not Known for Playing the Drums ... Playing the Drums

Inspired by this clip, in which Genesis guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford plays the drums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R6qu62xekE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI81KOypYAw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGYq0jIqQwA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkwk0NwTUoE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzsQaZnFA74

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z57-f827e68

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP1DqvDlxNk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdHyzGXAJPg

Dave Gilmour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SvqAStEUv4

Bo Diddley (starting around 5 minutes in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04XvATQ8o2U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7izHlxBmQwo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zERirHJMes4

Love this, please add Prince, Morris Day, Chick Corea, James Hetfield, and Flava Flav (or I will at my earliest convenience).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HPLQBWwMQs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWESS-xjhTs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYfoN05MhyQ

Robert Glasper (there used to be a better one where he and Chris Dave switched instruments, I sampled it once upon a time but can't find it anymore)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8_UBWSXVe0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxvsBnkNDTA.

I was looking for Harry Connick Jr on drums and found Queen Latifah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxvsBnkNDTA

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cChwtelVY7M

Clint Black manning the skins for live "Josie" covers has been a thing for a long time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qODIbiAh5c

josh groban is just so josh groban-y it's unfuckingbelievable sometimes

Karen Carpenter was a drummer, btw.

Waiting for someone to post a clip of Meg White.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jIajLhY7nQ

Yellow Magic Orchestra - Cue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53wxPaTeuOk

rumor has it that Sakamoto hated this song for some reason and would only agree to play it if he was on drums

Mel Torme could play some real drums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bYvZEpHEMA

So could Sammy Davis Jr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2_4jZYw9KY

Someone else can post Rick Astley on drums

Still making Meg White jokes in 2022! Wow
I revisited a thread about her recently and it was many posts about her boobs and her teeth. Did not bump it bc it was so ugly?

It = the thread not her body

It was supposed to be a joke about people who make jokes about Meg White.

Kurt Cobain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8mr41huf-g

Was already thinking of him and McCartney because they both proposed becoming the full-time drummers in their bands, in addition to doing so much else (McC's band before Wings, that is)

KC recorded some drum tracks after the Bleach drummer was gone; Paul wanted to fire Ringo and do it himself, or so I have read.

Also read that Miles Davis liked to play drums to records at home, but don't know that he ever played them on records, or live. Would like to hear that if so.

Chris Cornell was apparently a great drummer. I was reluctant to post audio clips (which exist of Cornell, Madonna, etc.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaNCCpUV7tY

Wow, that takes the cake.
Xpost Yeah, Madonna played drums in a combo early on, which to me goes with the fact that she came to New York via dance scholarship (and, having watched vintage VH-1's Madonnathon of full-length concert videos, like Ciao Madonna, Madonna Down Under etc., I thought she had more per se musical talent as a dancer than a singer, although obv. she knew how her vocal tracks should be produced).

Two for one, Van Morrison drumming & singing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLCYH36ahpE

KC recorded some drum tracks after the Bleach drummer was gone

Problem was, her brother and Herb Alpert wouldn't let her join Nirvana full time.

Now that's a great opening line.

Todd Rundgren

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1j7aqmBqEs

Adrian Belew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWkyBVjuL80

Richard Manuel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqDqzGG8ba0

More Gilmour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9gNmKSwJH4

Ron Wood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXRsRlsWknk

Alan Wilder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6_nexSJEsg

Daltry miming along on a track that has no drums in it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z0_FPcmLks

David Cassidy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IlF73OASKw

Yall know this one, right? Singing drummers

Simon Frith said David Cassidy was aces on drums, in a Creem Letter From Britain column, I think.

PJ Harvey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGKgfg5QSVo

I once saw a King Crimson ProjeKCt that featured Belew exclusively playing drums the whole set, but I couldn't find a clip.

But uh wait a minute: Stevie Wonder's first instrument WAS drums.

And to say he was "not known" for playing drums...I mean, he played drums on just about every track of his '70s records (apart from SITKOL).

I knew somebody would point that out, yeah, he could play drums, but it's not really the first thing anybody thinks of when they think of Stevie Wonder. I mean, Marvin Gaye originally played drums. James Brown originally played drums.

I mean, Paul McCartney is a pretty good drummer, but it is at least number four on the list of instruments he is known for.

Yes, a lot of musicians started off as drummers! Emitt Rhodes, Frank Zappa, Iggy Pop...

Keith Strickland from the B-52s started out as the band's drummer then switched to guitar. Pat Wilson from Weezer has been playing guitar as well as drums with the band for a while. Steve Drozd of the Flaming Lips is a rare example of a guitarist maybe better known for playing drums. Him and Dave Grohl of course.

Like Stevie Wonder, Rundgren also played drums on a lot of his records, but he's not "known as" a drummer and that "You Cried Wolf" performance with Utopia is pretty unusual (with the bassist playing guitar and the drummer playing bass)!

I was thinking of another musician who started playing all the instruments on his records - John Fogerty - but couldn't find any videos or even photos of him behind the kit.

yeah, same with Pete Townsend. Pete plays drums on a lot of Who demos, and he's pretty good, but I can't find any clips of him playing.

there are of course a handful of artists known for playing everything on their records, but few of them seem to be equally proficient on every instrument.

It might be a good idea, for a multi-instrumentalist aiming to duplicate a rock band set-up, to learn drums first and get their rhythm solidified. I'm sure I've heard one-person-band records where the drumming was the biggest flaw.

No clips, but here's John Coltrane:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7a/14/d2/7a14d24143363d24e109b1cd6aa9e336.jpg

Prince was an okay drummer at best.

Usually the best you can hope for is something with character, that most drummers wouldn't play. You get this with Stevie for sure, and some of Prince's stuff (Lady Cab Driver definitely, and some little things on the first two albums come to mind, he's definitely got a style).

But yeah, all musicians want to play the drums and many think they can, but some of them shouldn't.

and "Tambourine."

J Mascis is another drummer turned guitarist, you get the feeling he somehow would have been happier sticking to the traps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o-PgWaljCA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE-BCvGovAo

Louie Pérez from Los Lobos was a guitar player, then became the drummer for a long time, and is now back on guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=049rSLwoFc8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1F9GG4TNUM

Yeah, I thought about Louie Pérez. He's always been a principal songwriter/guitarist/singer and iirc sort of got stuck playing drums. But he was never much of a drummer, and they went from him to best-of-the-best session ringers ASAP.

Stevie was a better drummer than the great majority of rock/funk drummers who aren’t session wonks

Prince was a unique drummer (better than “ok,” not as good as “great”) but pulled off some incredibly sick shit

Fair.

I thought of this piece from a few years ago: https://slate.com/culture/2016/12/stevie-wonder-is-one-of-the-greatest-drummers-alive.html

I liked his drumming in Summer of Soul, and on Aretha's great hit version of "Until You Come Back To Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do," which he co-wrote and orig. rec. in '67, according to wiki.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/17ed6c17cdb21d68b79d81d3d1c5b915/962c3751419b246e-13/s1280x1920/7832703845530deaa9ad3a22de2e9d8e33b7aad9.jpg
If that goes away, it's Lou Reed playing congas:
https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/search/Lou%20Reed%20congas (tumblr getting pushy about signing up for account, but maybe they'll let you read this)

Banging on his drum.

one to the other: Donnie Richmond was a professional tenor sax player until (I think) Charlie Mingus got him to try drums, which worked out great w Mingus and the George Adams-Don Pullen Quartet (wiki sez he also played w Joe Cocker and Elton John).
Singer-guitarist Ricky Medlocke was talked into drumming for Lynyrd Skynyrd (Van Zant liked talking people into shit). May have been an Ed Cassidy fan, since his previous band was Fresh Garbage, and he covered "I Got A Line On You" with Blackfoot. Later he came back to the post-crash LS as singer-guitarist, for quite a while (band site doesn't say who's playing their summer dates, but he and Rossington have long since been the only surviving originals(.
Bill Berry wrote several credible R.E.M. songs, and they were never the same without him.
Jack DeJohnette's The Piano Album is pretty damn good.

I'll have to read that Slate piece, but I think one of Stevie's greatest attributes as a drummer is that he is *not* particularly slick. Like fellow genius Prince (or a lot of do-it-all dudes), I think that's largely because he's staying out of his own way. He knows what the song will be, so keeps it relatively simple. But he also keeps it kind of loose, in the best way. Stevie's stuff is so kinetic and alive and dynamic and most importantly human (which is to say, imperfect). It's similar to the more tactile lived-in band vibe of early Sly vs. "Fresh," where Andy Newmark's session chops definitely play a big role.

"Superstition" never gets old for me because of his drumming.

yall otm on Stevie as drummer---oh speaking of one-to-the-other, Errol Parker was a jazz piano star in France, who injured his shoulder in a car crash, and switched to drums, writing and arranging for his Tentet as if it were an extension of his keyboard: results pretty distinctive, sometimes exhilarating, on the 80s LPs I've got---wiki:

Errol Parker (né Raphaël Schecroun; 30 October 1925 – 2 July 1998) was a French-Algerian jazz pianist who played with Django Reinhardt, James Moody, Don Byas and Kenny Clarke, among others.[1]

Born in Oran, French Algeria, Raphaël Schecroun (his working name derives from two of his jazz heroes, Erroll Garner and Charlie Parker) moved to Paris at the age of 18.[2]

In 1964, Parker wrote the song "Lorre", which became a hit in France, and opened his own jazz club "Le Ladybird" on Rue de la Huchette.[3]

Following a serious car accident that impaired his playing, Parker emigrated to New York City, where his daughter was to begin university in February 1968.[4]

In America he started a second career as a record producer, but unable to find a suitable drummer he started to perform as a jazz drummer (which was not affected by his shoulder injury). He died of liver cancer in New York City, aged 72.[2] His daughter was Elodie Lauten (1950-2014), a pianist and composer.

lol I had no idea I started this thread. Anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUPVdYicNJE