John Bonham

Re: John Bonham assignment

Bonham was very influenced by Soul and R&B drummers. A major influence was Bernard Purdie. I believe that the "Purdie Shuffle" which he played on tracks like "Babylon Sisters" and "Home At Last" by Steely Dan influned Bonham's beat on "Fool In The Rain."
 
OK Handito off the top of my head:

First off, pocketman is right about Bernard Purdie and the half-time shuffle, the figure is generally considered his brainchild. The interesting thing is, and I'm pretty sure but not positive about this, Purdie's most famous use of it in a song (Babylon Sisters) was recorded after Fool In The Rain, but the influence for Fool in the Rain is definitely Purdie.

In several earlier versions of 'Moby Dick,' (Including Royal Albert Hall footage) Bonham starts the solo off with a figure where he plays a swing pattern on the snare and toms simultaneously that is a direct homage to Max Roach's 'The Drum also Waltzes.'

One book I read said that Bonham was very much into cream and Ginger Baker, and you can hear this was definitely an influence on his thunderous snare-bass-tom fills as Baker played similar patterns before him. Buddy Rich did at times too. I think Rich was Bonham's influence for drum sound. The tuning is very similar between the two. He credited the bass drum triplet inspiration to a Vanilla Fudge record, I believe a cover of the Beatles 'Ticket to Ride,' thinking that Carmine Appice was playing one bass drum when he was really playing two.

As far as Bonham's influence over other drummers, I really think it is so massive you could write a whole book about it. You can hear obvious influences in 70's-80's guys like Bobby Rondinelli, Cozy Powell, Nicko McBrain, and Frankie Banali up to more modern guys like Stephen Perkins, Danny Carey and Jon Theodore. I don't think it's an overstatement to say that 80 or 90% of rock drummers out there have taken something from his playing and would probably quote him as an influence.

His exact kit sizes are even being used more on stages. The guy from the Killers plays a Bonham set. So does the guy from the Black Crowes. So does Joey Castillo. So does Taylor Hawkins. Abe Laboriel Jr. plays a kit that has even bigger sizes but was probably Bonham influenced. If you look in a music catalog you'll find more kits with 24" and 26" bass drums then you ever would have 10 years ago. Those were mostly custom sizes. Just last year, Paiste re-released Giant Beats, the cymbals he made famous from Zeppelin II--IV. 2oo2's are Paiste's most successful line largely because of him. The black label versions of the sizes he played go for double what they are worth on eBay because people are looking for vintage Bonham. He still has the drum sound everyone is after. Hope this helps somewhat.
 
As pointed out in the Bonham biography "A Thunder of Drums" Bonham was definitely influenced by Joe Morello of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Listen to the version of "Castilian Drums" on Morello's drummerworld page, you will hear a lot of things that Bonham later utilized such as playing with his hands, triplets between hands and right foot, and double strokes on the bass drum.
 
Here is Mike Portnoy's "Hammer of the Gods" Moby Dick solo.

I don't think it sounds totally Bonham...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ0r9vCqZRc

Hey Synthetik! With all do respect, OF COURSE it doesn't sound totally Bonham! That would be impossible. No one drummer sounds like another. That's the beauty of it. Portnoy doesn't need to sound exactly like who he's paying tribute to, in order to be successfull at doing that. I think he does an excellent performance here. And, he wouldn't want to sound exactly like Bonzo anyway. He wants to sound like himself playing Bonzo. Take Care and Play On!
 
Hey Synthetik! With all do respect, OF COURSE it doesn't sound totally Bonham! That would be impossible. No one drummer sounds like another. That's the beauty of it. Portnoy doesn't need to sound exactly like who he's paying tribute to, in order to be successfull at doing that. I think he does an excellent performance here. And, he wouldn't want to sound exactly like Bonzo anyway. He wants to sound like himself playing Bonzo. Take Care and Play On!

I wasn't dissing Mike. I see that he did his own thing. I like the sound of his Tama kit as well. I have the DVD on order.
 
at the moment i'm loving and learning this bit from 'i can't quit you babe' (first album version - halfway through the song)

HH |X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..
SN |.........X.................X........etc
BD |X.....X......xx.xxX.....X......xx.xx
................\3/\3/............\3/\3/


john's bass drum is so fragile in its placement throughout the song so almost naive but perfect and then he starts the tour de force bass triplets. it is a great song to learn.

j
 
Last edited:
holy moully i'm having a bonham day today!

after messing around with 6/8 blues i was flipping around my CDs randomly and blang! i hit four-sticks. now i know there must be some drummers here who can play it but to me it has always been an everest to climb ... scratch that... an olympus mons. heck even bonzo was exhausted after playing it.
in the past i have listened to that song hundreds of times, tweaking my EQ to try and bring out the drums and really hear what master bonzo is doing. today i just went for it. pulsing the bass in a dynamic way while riding on my floor tom and accenting with my left on the mid tom and just hacking at it with all my heart and gradually i found the pattern. i'm over the moon about this i tells ye! i still haven't added in the rim clicks and the hihat pedalling but those are the ornaments...the bread and butter of the beat is down for the first time. and man is the top of my right leg burning from the effort! but i got it and the funny thing is i still have no idea how to count it or even chart it...i will just have to heart it.

does anyone play this song? does anyone know how to count it?

j
 
does anyone play this song? does anyone know how to count it?

I've tried to play it and I believe I've come up with something that sounds close but--agreed, it's really tough to figure out exactly what he's doing, so it's probably not spot on, I put the rim clicks in randomly. And no I have no idea how to count it I just play it by feel. I do like the fact that when you break it down, as with so many sections of Bonham's solos, the footwork in 'Four Sticks' is really just him running on his pedals, but the tom patterns he plays over it, with the accents, give it such an awesome feel and make it sound much more complicated.
 
Alternating 5/4 and 6/8.

Starts with four bars of 5/4, followed by two bars of 6/8, then two 5/4, ... (gotta stop here, I am at work - and probably look silly counting bars - but you get the idea.)

Some other info here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Sticks

Recorded with four sticks ? Is that accurate ? Am I the only one who didn't knew that ?
 
yeah i have a book that describes track by track history of led zep. they tried it a couple of times and it wasn't working then bonzo used four sticks and it was one take. thankfully. he was exhausted after that. according to history ive read they never performed it again.

actually i suspect the whole song is in 5


1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

j
 
actually i suspect the whole song is in 5

Shouldn't maths teachers be able to count? ;) Shuffle is quite right. It starts with 4 bars of 5 followed by 2 bars of 6. Parts of the verse are all in 5. The entire chorus is in 6.
 
I wasn't dissing Mike. I see that he did his own thing. I like the sound of his Tama kit as well. I have the DVD on order.

Cool. Should be a great vid. Yes, that Tama kit sounds nice. Very resonant all around. Thanks and Play On! ;-)
 
at the moment i'm loving and learning this bit from 'i can't quit you babe' (first album version - halfway through the song)

HH |X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..X..
SN |.........X.................X........etc
BD |X.....X......xx.xxX.....X......xx.xx
................\3/\3/............\3/\3/


john's bass drum is so fragile in its placement throughout the song so almost naive but perfect and then he starts the tour de force bass triplets. it is a great song to learn.

j

Thanks Nutha! Simple diagraph, not so simple to play though, huh? Shouldn't take long to nail it I suspect. Peace....Play On!
 
Really? I think those toms sound like he has pillows stuffed inside them! I could hardly hear them.

I had mine running through a pretty powerful system. The biggest fault I noticed was lack of midrange. They weren't "Bonzo boomy" but they weren't dead either.

They definately did not sound as good as Lang's Copenhagen solo on Sonor X-ray drums.

But I have a shocking confession to make: *I* actually *LIKE* the sound of drums that don't have sustain forever. *I* actually enjoy the "dead" sound occasionally.

It's all good.
pearl%20wood%20fiberglass%20cat%201.jpg
 
Last edited:
hello you bonzos im a guy from Tenerife (Canary Islands). Useless to say anything about John. can anybody tell me which was the set of cymbals used by bonham in The Song Remains concert and Physical Graffity
 
hello you bonzos im a guy from Tenerife (Canary Islands). Useless to say anything about John. can anybody tell me which was the set of cymbals used by bonham in The Song Remains concert and Physical Graffity
Paiste 2002's I believe he had 15" hi-hats,18" crash,20" crash,24" ride & 16" crash

I think.

Bonzolead
 
holy moully i'm having a bonham day today!

after messing around with 6/8 blues i was flipping around my CDs randomly and blang! i hit four-sticks. now i know there must be some drummers here who can play it but to me it has always been an everest to climb ... scratch that... an olympus mons. heck even bonzo was exhausted after playing it.
in the past i have listened to that song hundreds of times, tweaking my EQ to try and bring out the drums and really hear what master bonzo is doing. today i just went for it. pulsing the bass in a dynamic way while riding on my floor tom and accenting with my left on the mid tom and just hacking at it with all my heart and gradually i found the pattern. i'm over the moon about this i tells ye! i still haven't added in the rim clicks and the hihat pedalling but those are the ornaments...the bread and butter of the beat is down for the first time. and man is the top of my right leg burning from the effort! but i got it and the funny thing is i still have no idea how to count it or even chart it...i will just have to heart it.

does anyone play this song? does anyone know how to count it?

j

I haven't figured out how to play this one yet, but... with my ear phones in, listening to the clicks, they started sounding like it was the actual sticks banging against each other while he played. Sometimes they are prominent, others not, didn't sound so mystical once I had my earbuds in and my mp3 player full of all the studio albums. I've heard subtleties and nuances like never before with those things in. I'll listen to it again, but to me (and I'm no expert) that's what it sounds like. Two big sticks flopping around in his hands while he's pounding away, like it would sound if he was playing with a pair of spoons in each hand. But, I may be wrong, the clicks could have been laid down prior to that.
 
hello you bonzos im a guy from Tenerife (Canary Islands). Useless to say anything about John. can anybody tell me which was the set of cymbals used by bonham in The Song Remains concert and Physical Graffity

He used Paiste 2002 series later on but started with Giant Beats by paiste. For his hi-hats he used 15" Paiste 2002 sound edge, !8" med crash, 20" medium crash, and a 24" Ride cymbal. On occasion he used a third crash over his floor toms which was also a 18" medium crash. And sometimes he had another crash I'm pretty sure a 16" med on the left side of his hi-hat. But his standard set up was the 18", 24", 20" that is what you see in the Song Remains the Same movie.
 
Back
Top