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Sunday, November 21, 2010

"Fool In The Rain" John Bonham isolated Drums

This week we'll look at drummers on The Big Picture. First up is Led Zeppelin's John Bonham on the song "Fool In The Rain" from the 1979 In Through The Out Door album, which was the last single that the band released before Bonzo's death.

The first half of the song is based around a beat made popular by the famed funk drummer Bernard Purdie call the "Purdie Shuffle," a beat he used so effectively on Steely Dan's Babylon Sisters. The 2nd half of the tune is a samba feel, which made it impossible for the band to play live since it required bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones to play multiple instruments at the same time. Here are some things to take note.


1) This clip isn't the final take since the album cut is a minute or so longer.

2) The isolation is great, since you can only hear the rest of the band at the intro of the 2nd half samba part. I'm not sure, but this part may have been cut as an overdub.

3) Like all of Bonzo's drum tracks, there's plenty of room sound thanks to the distant miking technique that he preferred.



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2 comments:

DonD said...

It amazes me that a thirty year-old isolated track will capture my attention from stem to stern. Of course, it helps when the performance is smoking hot. Thanks for these links and the illuminating side notes.

Derek said...

Unless it's an MP3 artifact, it sounds like there's pretty snappy noise gate on the snare drum (and probably elsewhere too). That room sound just gets sucked up -- shtoop! -- at the end of many of the bars. Not that it's noticeable in the final recording at all.

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