Animal Versus Animal

As I was saying yesterday, there's a bit of Animal in every drummer. And I've just been reminded that there was no clearer evidence of that when the late and possibly greatest Buddy Rich took on the mighty Muppet in a TV drum battle.

If you want to know who won, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erE8WTngaAY. If you want a clue, there's a story that Buddy, who was not averse to drum battles with anyone, once agreed to take on a less confident drummer who begged him to "go easy" on him.

Buddy promised he would sit back and take it steady to make the contest look more even. The other guy went first and played so well that the audience clapped their approval. Then Buddy played and wiped the floor with his opponent. Afterwards the loser said to Buddy, "But you promised... " And Buddy said, "I know. But I just couldn't let you get more applause than me."

There was a lot of Animal in Buddy.

An Image Problem?

My good friend and chronicler of the Swinging Eighties David Johnson (shapersofthe80s.com) has suggested that I might consider this picture as a more appropriate image for my blog. I'm certainly an Animal-lover and would put the percussive Muppet up there with Ginger Baker, Mitch Mitchell, Keith Moon, Jon Hiseman, Elvin Jones, Art Blakey and Tony Williams.

But it was another world-class drummer, the great John Marshall (drummerworld.com/drummers/John_Marshall.html), who told me that Animal's drumming was actually performed by Ronnie Verrell, a formidable jazz musician who played with the orchestras of Ted Heath, Syd Lawrence and Jack Parnell.

Almost every drummer worth their sticks has a bit of Animal inside them. But they also want to be taken seriously, you know. So I may not be changing the picture just yet...