Here's an old interview with Buddy Rich from the Today Show. Not many drummers have attained the skill that seemed to come so easy for Buddy even when he was very young, but he was truly a force of nature on stage. I was lucky enough to see him several times, and a number of my friends played with him, so I heard the stories, and saw the dexterity first-hand. As he intimates from this interview, it still would've been fun to see him today even if he was playing in a wheel chair.
There's a lot to be learned from this interview:
1) A great drummer like Buddy can make you appreciate a genre of music you don't particularly love.
2) Don't worry about the past. That was then, no matter how good or bad it was, and now is now. Embrace it.
3) A player is a player, regardless of the genre. A great player "plays what the music calls for."
2 comments:
Buddy Rich will always be one of the greats! For those of us a certain age, here's a classic Buddy Rich drum battle :)
http://youtu.be/n_BmeBfV-O4
(if link is stripped, it's YouTube id n_BmeBfV-O4 )
Yeah, Buddy was an amazing drummer- a true legend. Music is one of few things you can do until the day you die of an old age.
I wonder about one thing about him... He claimed that the reason he plays with young people is because old couldn't play. Maybe it is because more mature musicians wouldn't put up with the kind verbal abuse he would do on young players. I've heard first hand from a trumpet player who played in his band that if you "could think of the nastiest person in the world, Buddy was worse".
A legendary drummer, none the less.
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