Are their any geat drummers out their that started playing late. All I see is guys that had sticks in their hands before they can talk.
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Are their any geat drummers out their that started playing late. All I see is guys that had sticks in their hands before they can talk.
I think Akira Jimbo said he didn't pick up the sticks until he was 17. Seems he's made up for lost time!
Grant Collins from Australia started really late...I think he was in his late teens when he started...and now, he's an amazing drummer
You can add Jonathan Movers (18 or 20 !!!) and Vince of course: I think 14 according to his level is a "late start".....what a finish !!!!
Don't know any drummers who started late but Alan holdsworth started playing guitar at 28ish , so i'm told
I also think that Ricky Lawson started playing drums at the age of 16!
Virgil Donati only started 6 months ago, but look at him now!
Brian Mantia, the drummer of GNR started very late... (near 20). I don?t know how good is him, but his getting a lot of attention playing behind Axl.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">LOL DOODQuote:
Originally posted by Rudy_Ment:
Virgil Donati only started 6 months ago, but look at him now!
There's that young rising star drummer who played both at the MD Fest and Drumming for Jesus... he is 26 and started at 20 or so... good player... only gonna get better!
There is no way holdsworth started guitar at 28, the guy has like 20 albums or more. That would be a shock if proven true.
just passing on information from a guitarist friend. could be wrong - i'll check that one out
Taken directly from Allan's book, 'Reaching for the Uncommon Chord':
"At age seventeen Allan had never actually played a guitar. He hoped somehow to get together enough cash to purchase a "decent" saxophone. One day his father gave him an old acoustic guitar, which he had bought from Allan's uncle. Allan gradually became more interested in the instrument and soon purchased an electric guitar and amplifier and began to sit in with some local musicians. During the first four or five years after he began playing, Allan practiced and listened whenever time permitted."
There you have it. [img]biggrin.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/smarty.gif[/img]
Born on August 6, 1946 in Bradford, Yorkshire.
His father who was a pianist taught him music, and although Allan first wanted to become a sax player (the instrument was too expensive), Allan starts guitar at around 17.
Sorry about that
17 is pretty sick too though, but hey... isn't that the same time Zappa picks up his Guitar? [img]tongue.gif[/img]
He played drums first though, lemme find my Zappa book, he mentions it in an interview.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah Virg is working out of the "Haskell Hardy Har Har" book!!! [img]wink.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]biggrin.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/smarty.gif[/img]Quote:
Originally posted by Rudy_Ment:
Virgil Donati only started 6 months ago, but look at him now!
I think Rick Marotta started at 19.
That's about right.
I knew Allan was in his 50s...evidently late 50's - 58, to be exact.
I guess to be able to shred like a total mutha' as he does takes a few years... [img]wink.gif[/img]
Glad he never got that sax...because he turned out to be the modern-day Coltrane of the guitar. [img]cool.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]
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LOL Clint.
...Virgil "breezed" through Gary Chester's book around age 7 or so [img]tongue.gif[/img]
... yeah...dont let anyone kid ya's...it is a little known, well-kept, secret-until-now fact that he was actually conceived in secrecy under tight security in The Drum Lab from cloned Colaiuta cell cultures, mixed with "Bionics"...his code name was "Li'l Stevie Austin-Einstein" at the time ...WHADDUP, YO! WOOT [img]wink.gif[/img]
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 29, 2004 09:06 PM: Message edited by: fuseU1 ]</font>
I believe that Elvin Jones made his first recording aged 30. I may be wrong.
Cheers clintuplet , we must have posted around the same time
There are many cases of this in the arts.
I recall there being a (now famous) french painter in the impressionism era that began at age 20. His name escapes me [img]frown.gif[/img]
There is a guy in Vancouver that is doing well for himself as a drummer who started at age 17. Mike Michalkow... he is a yamaha endorser and educator too!
I remember an Eddie Bayers interview in MD which said he started playing drums in his mid 20s. He's actually a classically trained pianist.
Didn't one of the Marotta guys, Jerry or Rick start late?
Didn't Eddie start after he broke his right hand in a motorcycle accident and then began playing drums after that? I think he was a Nashville studio pianist before the accident...
I remember talking to Lenny White and i think he mentioned that he started around 15 or 16...
On Grant Collins' site, from the horse's mouth:
Pearl Drums: Tell us a bit about when you started playing drums.
Grant Collins: I started when I was still in high school?.. around 17 years old. I started taking lessons in my 20?s and practicing like a demon. I was a bit obsessive. (laughs) Because I didn?t take any music courses in high school, I went on to take them at the university and graduated with a Bachelor of Music and it kind off took off from there.
PC: Was there a particular instructor that turned you around?
GC: There was and his name was Col Gillies. He was really old school in the sense that he was very strict?? very disciplined. He used to hang out with Joe Morello and Buddy Rich when they?d come out to Australia. It was good for me because here?s this 20 year old who?s been doing some gigs around the country and was maybe a bit cocky. (laughs) Col sits him down and says that he has no idea about really playing. Bang! That was it! Those kind of guys call it like they see it.
PC: Was he your introduction to Charles Wilcoxon?
GC: No, that came from a competition in Melbourne. It was called Best Up & Coming Drummer and one of the pieces you had to play was from the Wilcoxon book. I didn?t make the finals the first year but did the next one. That?s how I got into that book.
PC: Do you remember your first professional gig?
GC: It was on my 20th birthday at a club called The Sunny Bank Hotel?.
PC: ?which you can still visit now?
GC: No, I think it?s probably closed down now!
PC: Well, so much for the monument and plaque!
GC: So much for the memories! I remember being very green and I just knowing nothing. I was really nervous, too. The first song we played was Van Halen?s Jump and you know that middle section with the guitar solo?. talk about just winging it!! I was being OK in the verses because I could just hold a beat! That was pretty much blown!
PC: So the lessons started after that?
GC: I was pretty much 21 by then because I toured with that band for about a year. That was sort of like a training ground because we played every pub and club around. We were doing all the rock stuff? Guns N? Roses, Van Halen, and The Cult? I loved it. It was really good to do that side of it. Now that I?ve had a deep study of jazz and other styles, I?m grateful that I?ve had the early experiences. When I went to the university, I was a bit more mature than the other kids who were straight out of high school. Some of them had played in the jazz bands at school but had only been taught what to play. A lot of kids had a really academic approach to the drumset. They never had a recording and figured out parts and it was really a struggle for some of them. It was really weird!
PC: Before we had actually met you, we were told about the ?Legend Of Grant Collins?. I?ll tell you what was told to us and then you dispel any untruths.
GC: Ok???
PC: We were having lunch with one of our visiting endorsees and he asked ?Have you heard of Grant Collins? He plays this multi-pedal set-up and is an excellent drummer. He really has his own unique thing.? So we asked what your background was. ?Well, he came in and he took some lessons from me and he was a pretty good drummer at the time. He could definitely hold his own against any working drummer out there. But, then he stopped coming to the lessons and disappeared for six years. When he finally returns to town, he?s playing this monster kit and is totally different player!? So I asked if you had gone and locked yourself in a room or went out in the desert for six years. He didn?t know the answer. So how true is that story?
GC: Well, it kind of true. I?m guessing that the visiting artist was Karl Lewis (Savage Garden).
PC: Right!
GC: Karl used to give me lessons and that?s when I was just learning what a double stoke was. Before then, I was with Col and there weren?t any other instructors in town so I?d look for players I liked. I saw Karl play and just went up and introduced myself and asked for some one-off lessons. I did that for a while then I took off.
I really just walked away from everything? socially? I mean everything. It must have been weird for Karl because he hadn?t seen me for a long time and then he sees me giving a drum clinic and I?ve got twelve pedals!
PC: Are you familiar with the story of Robert Johnson the blues guitarist? His story is that he was a marginally good guitarist and had a really hard time getting a career started. He disappears for a while and comes back an amazing musician who is still revered today. Any confessions?
GC: (laughs) No? I hadn?t thought of it that way!
PC: So Karl?s story got us interested and we contacted our Australian distributor and got more information. So by the time you contacted us, we were up to speed on you. The Mythology of Grant Collins might make a good movie!
GC: It would be boring! Especially the part where I?m stuck in a room for six years!
PC: Who would you get to play you in the movie?
GC: A young John Travolta?. or a young Mel Gibson because he?d have the accent down already!
There ya have it... now get to your basements, see you in six years [img]wink.gif[/img]
in just read in MD that the late great Shelly Manne didn't start til he was 18. what a great interview!