One-drum/Minimal grooves

Hey folks, was thinking about this the other day and wondered if anybody here has any favorite drum grooves that are SUPER simple and use minimal instrumention, but are still awesome and groove and drive the tune well? Lately I'm really enjoying the "Zen-like" quality of stripping things down and playing a beat that has minimal parts, drums, fills, etc.

Example: Larry Mullen's floor tom (and I think kick drum) beat on "Running To Stand Still" off U2's "The Joshua Tree."

Another example is one of Kansas City's own, Samantha Fish doing a rendition of "I'm In Love With You", and her drummer Go-Go Ray plays a beat that's only snare and kick, and he plays exactly ZERO fills until the very end.

Aaaaand go!....

My group does a tune called "Ain't That Good News"... Almost four minutes of train beat with a single cymbal crash.

Check out most of Johnny Cash's early catalog, same thing...

Thinking "Billie Jean", but not so sure if there are NO fills... A couple extra snare beats on the chorus.

Mongrel said:

My group does a tune called "Ain't That Good News"... Almost four minutes of train beat with a single cymbal crash.

Check out most of Johnny Cash's early catalog, same thing...

Thinking "Billie Jean", but not so sure if there are NO fills... A couple extra snare beats on the chorus.

Click to expand...

Yeah, yeah, BJ def good example.

Thanks for the suggestions too, I will definitely check those out!