Topper Headon

One of the most underrated drummers ever, IMO.

Always played interesting, musical grooves and fills that were often signature parts of the songs themselves.
 
So what song would one listen to for a good example of his playing....something representative of the good things I'm reading here.

"Rock the Casbah" is pretty representative, and you hear it everywhere. You can hear him on "Train in Vain," "Should I Stay or Should I Go," "London Calling" which are easy to find. But I'd just buy Combat Rock and London Calling, if you like rock music.
 
"Rock the Casbah" is pretty representative, and you hear it everywhere. You can hear him on "Train in Vain," "Should I Stay or Should I Go," "London Calling" which are easy to find. But I'd just buy Combat Rock and London Calling, if you like rock music.

Right on....I'm familiar with those songs, not from a drumming point of view though....never paid much attention to it I guess. I'm always looking for new ingredients for the blender so I'm gonna go back and listen to the drums on those. Thanks
 
Listen to the album "give em enough rope", its the best album to hear topper on as the drums are very loud in the mix. The producer on the album didn't like Joe's voice but loved topper's drumming hence why the drums are so upfront. It really is a tremendous rock album with great rock drumming and shows just how accomplished topper was in a hard rock setting. Check out the drumming especially on "Safe european home", "tommy gun" and "guns on the roof". As topper was from a jazz backround he could play with subtlety , listen to the album "Sandinista" to hear topper play jazz, and various latin inspired grooves. Check out the songs "washington bullets", "If music could talk". Topper could also play reggae, I recommend you watch this video and listen to topper playing reggae. He nails it, the feel, tempo, right in the pocket:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga4wASz39Fc

He is very underrated imo, could play many styles very well.
 
Listen to the album "give em enough rope", its the best album to hear topper on as the drums are very loud in the mix. The producer on the album didn't like Joe's voice but loved topper's drumming hence why the drums are so upfront. It really is a tremendous rock album with great rock drumming and shows just how accomplished topper was in a hard rock setting. Check out the drumming especially on "Safe european home", "tommy gun" and "guns on the roof". As topper was from a jazz backround he could play with subtlety , listen to the album "Sandinista" to hear topper play jazz, and various latin inspired grooves. Check out the songs "washington bullets", "If music could talk". Topper could also play reggae, I recommend you watch this video and listen to topper playing reggae. He nails it, the feel, tempo, right in the pocket:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga4wASz39Fc

He is very underrated imo, could play many styles very well.

Thats the kind of invested recommendations I was looking for....I'm very familiar with all of the usual suspects when it comes to the Clash...and frankly, I don't care for the band that much...HOWEVER, and this is a big however, my thirst for good drumming knows no boundary so I will listen to things I normally would not if there are some chestnuts to be harvested.

Sounds like there is some harvesting to be done here, so, I'm going to go ahead and investigate the stuff you mentioned. Thanks very much for the informative post
 
Another great track with him on is "groovy times" on Super Black Market Clash. Probably one of my favourites from him and the band, Very tasteful playing, and groovy as hell, love his fills.
 
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