Best shuffles?

Georgie Fame. If you don't know the drummer within 8 bars, you should be ashamed :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL9kttZyXjA&index=3&list=PLccpwGk_xup8dJw5YxAYANSOiWxubslSa

Some Robben Ford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM0CWfVZczY

One of my favourite pieces of music. Brushes to sticks. Bit of a texas shuffle here. The great tom Brechtlein. Oh yeah, check the fill at 2:19.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9tl5BrsysU

Steve Gadd, halftime and double time shuffle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLu387iIBmM
 
Georgie Fame. If you don't know the drummer within 8 bars, you should be ashamed :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL9kttZyXjA&index=3&list=PLccpwGk_xup8dJw5YxAYANSOiWxubslSa

Some Robben Ford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM0CWfVZczY

One of my favourite pieces of music. Brushes to sticks. Bit of a texas shuffle here. The great tom Brechtlein. Oh yeah, check the fill at 2:19.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9tl5BrsysU

Steve Gadd, halftime and double time shuffle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLu387iIBmM

This is awesome stuff
 
Any real blues bar featuring real blues. Dudes older than dirt. can barely walk. Behind his band he just lays down the shuffles all night. He's the opposite of the Front Man. You barely notice him. Fills are simple triplets or maybe just rolls that crescendo to a small crash cymbal. That's what shuffles are all about.

Purdie comes to mind yeah. But most of them you don't know their names. They're smoke. They're stale air and beer. They're playing 'till 4 am then going to work at 6am. Those dudes lay down the shuffles, man.

That's my retirement plan... ;-)
 
Just a pick nit....the 4th video down in the OP (Ramble at the Ryman) isn't a shuffle.

ZZ Top's "La Grange" is a great sounding Texas style shuffle.

Duke Robillard's drummer Mark Teixeira plays a fantastic shuffle.

Put me down for another vote for Boz Scagg's "Lido Shuffle".

Are Boz Scaggs and Ricky Scaggs related?

Yes, Uncle... Mark can lay down the best shuffle! He's a great guy too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fge_t0nJDs
 
Another thing about the shuffle....and this probably applies across the board...you could be able to play a great shuffle, and that is so important, but if the rest of the band isn't versed in the style, it's not going to work like it should. I could say the same thing about dynamics. They are both a team effort.
 
Flip flop fly - Downchild Blues band

Buzzard luck - Powder blues band

.. Anything by Steve Jordan with the Blues Bros.
 

Always loved Ash's playing. I was at a UK drum academy one year where he taught and he's a lovely bloke. I asked him about his time with the mysterious UK soul singer Lewis Taylor (now retired). After speaking highly of him, saying Lewis is a genius, he put on a version of Taylor's Stoned, especially recorded for him by Taylor (complete with Taylor shouting out, 'I'm in here' to his girlfriend mid-song!), drummed to it and blew everyone away with his tasteful playing.
 
great choices there! Being 1963, I always thought one that was Benny Benjamin?

I've read in numerous sources that it was Pistol Allen, but it's always hard to be 100% sure. Of course, all three of the main Motown drummers (Benny Benjamin, Pistol Allen, and Uriel Jones) played fabulous shuffle grooves. Just taking Martha and the Vandellas, I can think of several other great ones: "Jimmy Mack," "I"m Ready For Love," "In My Lonely Room," "Come and Get These Memories," and "My Baby Loves Me."
 
I've read in numerous sources that it was Pistol Allen, but it's always hard to be 100% sure. Of course, all three of the main Motown drummers (Benny Benjamin, Pistol Allen, and Uriel Jones) played fabulous shuffle grooves. Just taking Martha and the Vandellas, I can think of several other great ones: "Jimmy Mack," "I"m Ready For Love," "In My Lonely Room," "Come and Get These Memories," and "My Baby Loves Me."

Heatwave!

202020202020
 
Always loved Ash's playing. I was at a UK drum academy one year where he taught and he's a lovely bloke. I asked him about his time with the mysterious UK soul singer Lewis Taylor (now retired). After speaking highly of him, saying Lewis is a genius, he put on a version of Taylor's Stoned, especially recorded for him by Taylor (complete with Taylor shouting out, 'I'm in here' to his girlfriend mid-song!), drummed to it and blew everyone away with his tasteful playing.

Lewis Taylor is one of the biggest and most underrated losses to the music industry that ever happened; outstanding musician. I believe he's still doing something to do with music but he's not performing anymore. I'm still a huge fan of his. Saw him with Ash at the London Jazz Cafe in Camden years ago, seriously one of the best gigs I've ever been to. He was born and bred in the same part of north london as me as it happens.
 
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