The Grand Master Buddy Rich

Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

tambian89 said:
It all depends, since they are each good, but it different aspects. Buddy Rich is considered to have had the fastest hands ever; indeed, no one can even mimic his speed. Rich is also considered one of the greatest jazz drummers of all time. Bonzo is considered the greatest rock drummer by many (including myself) and is noted for innovative grooves, thunderous sound, lightning fast right foot, and his epic soloing abilites, as he could solo for almost a half hour and still maintain the crowd's attention. When it comes down to it, the two are separated by genre, but in terms of technicality, Bonzo seems to be ahead. Consider this: How many people listen to Led Zeppelin? Now after considering the staggering number, consider this: How many people listen to Buddy Rich? Probably not as much as those who listen to Led Zeppelin. Bonham continues to inspire generations of rock fans, and while Buddy Rich inspires people to get added speed and creativity, John Bonham inspires people to play. Led Zeppelin itself (which is the main reason Bonham is known, other than the Yardbirds) is probably about as inspirational as all of Buddy Rich's project's thrown together, due to the amount of peopl Bonham was able to affect. In terms of skillty, I cannot tell. Feel free to scourge, devour, and rip apart this post at your own disposal.

- Marc



It seems to me that BR's music was based around his playing a lot as where Zeppelin just made great songs. So yeah, I'm sure more people listen to Zeppelin. In terms of technicality I think BR has more technical hands but Bonzo has more technical grooves. Now if I could just have BR's hands and Bonzos grooves hmmm...
 
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Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

I wouldn't agree that Bonzo's grooves were all that technical...just that when he plays them they sound better than anybody else...
 
Henry II said:
Yeah, I posted it before but I couldn't find it again in 178 posts, so I just wrote it again.

I knew it! ;-)

What amazes me the most is to find how impressive was Buddy at mixing his incredible, out-of-this-world techniques with such sheer creativity... the aplication he gave to those techniques in those (his) classic solos is absolutely amazing. Everytime I show some of my mini collection of Buddy's solos to my friends, they always stay with their mouths WIDE opened in amazement (me too, of course)... it's just amazing. Every (single) time.

I've definitely NEVER seen ANYBODY who could amaze me more than Buddy (so easily) could.

- Ivo.
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

NUTHA JASON said:
okay...while i don't doubt buddy's talent and that he probably could do something like that i must make a few observations:

1) the drummer who watched buddy made his own subjective judgement of buddy's bonzo impersonation. buddy may have only closely copied bonham.

2) copying a groove is very different from making one up. so i'm not that impressed.

3) the fact that buddy was aware enough of bonzo to be able to copy his playing is quite an endorsement of bonham's skill. although, from what i have seen of BR, he would never admit to it, he probably deep inside admired bonham.

j

The person who made those comments was me, and they were made on this forum a few months ago. My uncle sometimes played with Rich's band, and I knew him peripherally as a teenager via this association. Later, he was sort of friendly towards me, and we actually shared a drink from time to time. I am not trying to drop names, but it seems appropriate in light of this thread.

His Bonham mimic routine was more of a disdain for anyone mentioning others before mentioning him. That's the kind of guy he was. But sometimes you could get him on a good day and he could be less than a jerk. I kind of doubt he studied anyone other than Krupa or Chick Webb, and only when he was much younger. I was something like 12 at the time, so I suspect the legend gets bigger inside me as the years pass. As drummers go, he was very respectful of Morello, Jo Jones and Louie Bellson. He was a perfectionist. If you didn't match up to him you sucked. This made him a very frustrated man. Simply stated, he lived in a black and white world.

I think he liked Bonham well enough. Still, his favorite rock drummers were Bobby Columby and Danny Seraphine by a wide margin.
 
CadaveR (Ivo) said:
I knew it! ;-)

What amazes me the most is to find how impressive was Buddy at mixing his incredible, out-of-this-world techniques with such sheer creativity... the aplication he gave to those techniques in those (his) classic solos is absolutely amazing. Everytime I show some of my mini collection of Buddy's solos to my friends, they always stay with their mouths WIDE opened... it's just amazing. Every (single) time.

I've definitely NEVER seen ANYBODY who could amaze me more than Buddy (so easily) could.

- Ivo.
Try watching Thomas Lang. Dont get me wrong I started the Buddy Rich Thread.... I love BR but... damn Thomas Lang is a bad mofo
 
RTDRUMS said:
Try watching Thomas Lang. Dont get me wrong I started the Buddy Rich Thread.... I love BR but... damn Thomas Lang is a bad mofo

I also love Thomas Lang's drumming, but he didn't impress me in the same way as Buddy did after so many hours of Buddy-videos I've seen during these months... Thomas Lang is a monster, Buddy is an eternal legend. I also couldn't see him (Lang) doing anything as fast as Buddy on his "1970 Buddy RIch" video available here, in drummerworld.com. The abilities, creativity and sheer speed (and speed control, also) shown "there" are still unmatched (at least to me). It's just a joy, a huge pleasure to watch those motions going on in front of me; in front of my impressed eyes.

- Ivo.
 
I don't like Thomas Lang solos, but saying Buddy can do everything this guy could do is going a little too far. I'm sure if Buddy would have studied that kind of drumming he would have been amazing at it, but he didn't learn to drum like that, so he couldn't. That's not to say he ever needed to. Even without all the ridiclous limb coordination, multi-pedal orchestrations, polyrhythms and whatnot he was still 1000 times the drummer Thomas Lang will ever be.
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

Ahhh Buddy Rich, the great drummer with a low life attitude towards people.. What a shmuck. I hope in his day someone actually stood up to him and put him in his place. Maybe even dotted his eye for him. I guarantee he would have remembered Bonham in a whole new light had he said that to his face.
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

photon said:
Read an interesting quote from Buddy Rich in an article from on the more recent issues of Modern Drummer.

I can't recall the name of the drummer who the article was about but in it he mentions that in the 70's he asked Buddy what he thought about Bonham. Buddy according to the article proceeded to sit down at the kit and do a spot on perfect impersonation of Bonzo and then looked up and said...."John Bonham?.....anybody can do that"

Discuss........................
Matt replies: I have to preface what I'm about to write with this: I loved Buddy Rich. Loved his playing, his technique, loved many or his records. In my humble opinion, Buddy had issues in the people skills department. He could be very negative one minute and warm and funny the next. How he acted, what he said was inconsistent. I've read accounts of him being a sweet guy who would do anything for his pals, musicians, and especially children. And then there was the other side of Buddy's personality, the ego driven, perfectionist side. He knew he was great and he often would let people know he was the best. When asked about Bonzo, his answer came directly from his own ego. That's a shame when any musician slams another. Fortunately, the comment did not stop John Bonham from reaching the stratosphere of rock drumming. When asked about Danny Seraphine he was very positive. Perhaps Buddy picked up on the jazz chops Danny had and did not relate to Bonzo's drumming. Buddy's temper is well documented as well. I'm not a doctor but I know chemical inbalance when I see it, and in my opinion Buddy could have used the happy pills. My father was very much like him, and I've had the same problem. Medication works great. So being both a major fan of Bonzo and of Buddy, I'll take Buddy's comments with a grain of the old salt.
Matt
 
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Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

Obviously Buddy was only taking into account how many notes Bonham played. Maybe if he had observed his uncanny talent for grooving and making a song sound larger than life, his oppinion may have been a little different.

Oh well. I know what kind of a guy Buddy was, so it really doesn't surprise me that he would say something like that about a rock drummer.
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

onemat said:
Matt replies: I have to preface what I'm about to write with this: I loved Buddy Rich. Loved his playing, his technique, loved many or his records. In my humble opinion, Buddy had issues in the people skills department. He could be very negative one minute and warm and funny the next. How he acted, what he said was inconsistent. I've read accounts of him being a sweet guy who would do anything for his pals, musicians, and especially children. And then there was the other side of Buddy's personality, the ego driven, perfectionist side. He knew he was great and he often would let people know he was the best. When asked about Bonzo, his answer came directly from his own ego. That's a shame when any musician slams another. Fortunately, the comment did not stop John Bonham from reaching the stratosphere of rock drumming. When asked about Danny Seraphine he was very positive. Perhaps Buddy picked up on the jazz chops Danny had and did not relate to Bonzo's drumming. Buddy's temper is well documented as well. I'm not a doctor but I know chemical inbalance when I see it, and in my opinion Buddy could have used the happy pills. My father was very much like him, and I've had the same problem. Medication works great. So being both a major fan of Bonzo and of Buddy, I'll take Buddy's comments with a grain of the old salt.
Matt
This is a good post, and I agree with every bit of it.

I saw both sides of him and still loved the guy. When I was young, he treated me great. Rich supposedly hired Matt Smith's dad three times and fired him twice. Tom once said that had he on one ocassion moved an inch to the left, the guy behind him would have been fired instead. Still, he still evaluates Rich as one would perceive a god. In other words, he disliked the guy but deferrred to the talent. I do not believe that is so hard to understand.

I see a lot of commentary about the negative side of Rich's personality, as if being nice to people shares an interrelationship with talent. We must first understand Rich's own upbringing. He was required to submit product when most of us are still in diapers. He learned his initial lessons from notorious taskmasters like Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw...men who never asked nor gave any quarter. Then he watched first hand how disciplinary lapses wiped out performing colleagues and friends like Charlie Parker, Charlie Ventura and Art Pepper. In the case of Ventura, he tried to help him several times, only to have Charlie acuse him of stealing his band, when nothing could have been farther from the truth.

Sure he was a jerk. But he grew up in an era when anything less than your best was not enough. I am certain he would be appalled by this recently evolved incessant need to stroke fellow musicians whether they deserve it or not. Of course he went too far, and Matt is right. Prozac would have helped, but it also would have taken some edge off his playing. I applaud the perfectionist tendencies, although I can never condone the approach. Still, these guys would take the abuse and keep coming back for more. That alone speaks volumes.
 
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Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

The only interesting part in this is:

Must somebody be a jerk to be a good drummer?

The answer is: NO

So I enjoy Buddys drumming - which is definitively great....

...and I'm not interested what he did or said thirty years ago on a bad day.

Very cold coffee - but his drumming will stay forever.

Bernhard
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

..as will Bonzo's...unfortunately and unlike Bonham and Buddy when I'm gone my drumming dies with me......
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

I think of Buddy playing in front of maybe a thousand people, in a small club somewhere in Idaho. I think of Bonzo playing in front of 75,000 people at the Pontiac Silverdome.

Imagine yourself as Buddy, and then imagine yourself as Bonzo. I think more people would have liked to have been in Bonzo's place, rather than Buddy's.
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

What he said!...

I would imagine that Buddy must have been jealous of the adulation of those famous rock drummers like Bonzo, Ringo...the list goes on and on, while Buddy toiled in relative obscurity...
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

photon said:
What he said!...

I would imagine that Buddy must have been jealous of the adulation of those famous rock drummers like Bonzo, Ringo...the list goes on and on, while Buddy toiled in relative obscurity...

Photon, being in your 40s, you have to know that saying Rich toiled in relative obscurity is seriously overstating. He was a regular on all the major talk shows of the sixties and early seventies, back when American television had only three stations. This included his recurring open door role on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show (the most celebrated entertainment venue on American television). He even starred in a CBS variety show called Away We Go with George Carlin of all people, where he actually did comedy, and was good at it. In other words, Rich was seen by millions of people almost every week, for at least twenty years. Did LZ ever perform on television? I'm not saying they didn't. I just don't remember.

Honestly, (at least in America) Bonham was only well known by a singular (although large and enthusiastic) demographic. All the saying to the contrary doesn't change that...and has been refuted many times on this and other threads. In fact, he was not even the most famous rock drummer at the time (although I agree with most of you that he was the best of that group). Starr, Appice, Watts and even guys like Buddy Miles were far better known. Moreover, people forget how popular Chicago was. They also were filling football stadiums and appearing on television. This made Serraphine a big deal indeed.

I mean this in all sincerity. Rich's name recognition was probably second only to Ringo's during the period in question. There were people who knew about Rich because of the television alone...and a lot of these people knew nothing of his drumming... but knew him. Back then, Bonham was the biggest to you. But I doubt your parents had heard of him. At the same time, I'll bet your parents, your grandparents, and all the uncles you only see at Christmas had heard of Rich, and chances are good that none of them cared much for jazz. Now that's fame.

Like him or not, give credit where credit is due.
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

Elvin4ever said:
Photon, being in your 40s, you have to know that saying Rich toiled in relative obscurity is seriously overstating. He was a regular on all the major talk shows of the sixties and early seventies, back when American television had only three stations. This included his recurring open door role on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show (the most celebrated entertainment venue on American television). He even starred in a CBS variety show called Away We Go with George Carlin of all people, where he actually did comedy, and was good at it. In other words, Rich was seen by millions of people almost every week, for at least twenty years. Did LZ ever perform on television? I'm not saying they didn't. I just don't remember.

Honestly, (at least in America) Bonham was only well known by a singular (although large and enthusiastic) demographic. All the saying to the contrary doesn't change that...and has been refuted many times on this and other threads. In fact, he was not even the most famous rock drummer at the time (although I agree with most of you that he was the best of that group). Starr, Appice, Watts and even guys like Buddy Miles were far better known. Moreover, people forget how popular Chicago was. They also were filling football stadiums and appearing on television. This made Serraphine a big deal indeed.

I mean this in all sincerity. Rich's name recognition was probably second only to Ringo's during the period in question. There were people who knew about Rich because of the television alone...and a lot of these people knew nothing of his drumming... but knew him. Back then, Bonham was the biggest to you. But I doubt your parents had heard of him. At the same time, I'll bet your parents, your grandparents, and all the uncles you only see at Christmas had heard of Rich, and chances are good that none of them cared much for jazz. Now that's fame.

Like him or not, give credit where credit is due.

Very correct, Elvin. But it's probably also true that Buddy was a bit angry and jealous by the spontaneos Rock 'n roll success and everything else. Seems like if Buddy only started to care about Rock more or less by secretly watching some of Bonham's immense gimmicks and very nice grooves and unique sounds... of course his admited greatest names in Rock history are of other people's and not Bonham, but heh... that's a little predictable - I guess. Buddy was very popular back in the 50's/60's and mainly, 70's and 80's but he, indeed, was a bit jealous about the amount of people that showed up at some Jazz concerts and the "same" amount in the Rock ones...

A little off-topic but heh.. I love Peart's quote of "you see the phrase 'Buddy Rich, the world's greatest drummer' and you don't REanalyse it, you just accept it as a fact" - or something close to it.

What an honour for him.

- Ivo.
 
Re: Buddy Rich on Bonham

I hear you Elvin...and actually it was the Tonight Show that introduced me to Buddy Rich when I was young...
 
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