What do you think?
There is a great irony in a songwriter relying heavily on a drummer, thus minimizing their role in creating their own melodies. But that’s what I witnessed when I worked with many singer-songwriters in the 1990s. I wonder to what extent Gershwin, Beethoven, Hamlish and other notable composers relied on their drummers/percussionists for the main ideas of their music? My guess is not much at all. Yet time and time again, I worked with singer-songwriters who didn’t have a clear vision of arrangements, countermelodies, harmonies, or orchestration for their own work. In some cases, the easiest element on which to offer input or suggestions was the rhythmic part. For a drummer, this could be a nightmare.
Why the fuss?
Sometime in the 1990s, I was talking to engineer/producer John Sickett at a recording session in Hoboken, NJ. As usual, our conversation focused on the state of the music business, noteworthy new bands and projects we were currently involved with. On this particular day, we also discuss the current glut of singer-songwriters in the New York area. There was a tidal wave of up-and-coming artists going solo, pedaling their songs in an attempt to sign a deal with a major record label. I knew it firsthand because I had been hired by dozens of them for concerts and recordings. “You know, they have to get away from the beat and get back to the song,” John complained, referring to the current state of the art of songwriting. His statement hits me hard. In fact, in my opinion, most singer-songwriters are too obsessed with beat and rhythm, while ignoring the true essence of their work; the lyrics, arrangement, orchestration, melody, harmony, etc. However, it wasn’t just the general beat they stopped at, but also the physical appearance of the drummer. Why the fuss?
Credit where it’s due
In those days, the standard approach to developing a song began with the writer and musicians meeting in a rehearsal room. The singer/songwriter used to play his song on a guitar. I’m not sure you relate to this, but there was pretty much a standard singer/songwriter guitar groove back in the day. I describe it as strummed sixteenth notes with Charleston accents on beats one, “an” of two and four. If you need an aural example, check out that Breakfast at Tiffany’s song. This pattern was a song killer. Rhythmically speaking, it was too active and didn’t allow gaps (which are crucial components of a complete rhythmic arrangement). After the initial listening, he would ask the writer questions, including what mood he wanted to convey, or if he could refer to a popular song as a model in this case. The answers to these questions would give us a framework in which to proceed. However, the answers were often vague and incomplete, leaving us with minute guesswork or the process of musical trial and error. Other tasks ahead of us were determining rhythm section parts, arrangements, orchestrations, dynamics, kick drum patterns, etc. The subtext of this situation used to be: “I’m not really sure what should be played in this venue, but what would you guys play here?”, allowing the artist to choose from a smorgasbord of possibilities, before making any musical decisions. Later, when an early draft was completed, the song’s “writer”/singer would usually capture the musicians’ performance by recording it during rehearsal, thus claiming ownership of the tune as its sole creator. It didn’t take long for me to realize that all the musicians involved in this process were contributing in some way to the creation of the composition. Therefore, I think contributing musicians should get the appropriate writing credit and financial compensation in this situation.
eenie meenie
Needless to say, I wasn’t the only drummer to help singer/songwriters in this way. In fact, in the mid-’90s, it seemed that singer-songwriters were becoming more and more demanding of their drummers, as they had a plethora of eager, hungry, and affordable drummers to choose from; a virtual menu of electronic and traditional drummers, so to speak. It was evident that the drummer’s physical appearance and style were also a factor. There were drummers who wore hats (mainly to cover a bald area), wore costumes for a “look”, or spoke with an affected accent, well outside the limits of their natural dialect. (There was a hat-wearing drummer from suburban Midwest who put on an accent and dialect as if he’d been raised in the Southern Baptist Church.) There were theatrical drummers who twirled drumsticks or played standing up. There were the mundane percussionists who used more exotic percussions. These guys had ethnic drums, frame drums, djembes, or vintage percussion in their setup. They sometimes wore an African dashiki to express their inner ethnicity.
What a deal
In any case, the singer-songwriters always got the best part of the palo. Always dangling the carrot of further success later, they flailed as they negotiated terms with musicians, weaving in teasers about the project’s promising future, the impending record deal, or the many industry executives who would be in attendance at the next concert. As a negotiation block, they sometimes accused their musicians of being mercenaries. Oh! Try it out with your plumber, dentist, or store clerk when it’s time to pay your next bill. Let me know how it works.
Exposed
However, when things didn’t go perfectly, or flaws in the artist’s work were exposed, guess which musician would be the first to be blamed? “Did we play the song this slow last time? What happened to that drum fill you used to play on that part? You didn’t play that loud in rehearsal. Is that the drum kit you use at your other gigs? Did you count Play the song at the right tempo? My old drummer always set up a conga with his kit. Why don’t you bring a maraca or maracas to the next gig? I could go on and on here. My point is the artist would say anything, EXCEPT: “This song needs to be reworked”, or “I need to find a better arrangement for this section”, or “The tempo is too fast for the lyrics, so I’ve decided to slow it down”, and so on. an artist declare: “This song sucks and is officially removed from our set list. Unfortunately, self-reflection and evaluation of this magnitude was a rare attribute in these cases.
cream of the crop
To be fair, the singer-songwriters I’m describing for this discussion were from Bleeker Street, a solo breed I observed or encountered in the 1990s. If you were an active musician during that period, had a pulse, and lived less than 100 miles from the Big Apple, I bet you experienced some of this stuff firsthand. Happily, I can tell you that I also worked with some incredibly talented artists from this scene. One was Joy Askew. An incredible singer, writer, and musician who had previously worked with Peter Gabriel, Joe Jackson, and Laurie Anderson, among many others. Another was Hub Moore, a sincere lyricist and expert in the craft of songwriting. Also, there was Ben Folds. Ben, bassist Tom Spagnardi and I worked on songs in the basement of my Jersey City brownstone and then showed them off on The Bitter End and Sine. It was at a Sine concert that Ben was discovered by the guy who would be his business manager for many years.
The silver lining
Most of the songs, from the Bleeker Street artists that I experienced, fell short in many ways. Since I did quite a lot of work on this, I found it necessary to make the most of situations, something of a “polisher” so to speak. As bad as this may seem, there was a wonderful silver lining. In fact, in my opinion, there was no better training on the job for a young drummer. It was making music against all odds, like swimming against the current, jogging with ankle weights, or breathing through a straw for long periods of time. By the time you got to the artists with well-written melodies, performed by a top-notch ensemble of musicians, it was as refreshing as a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day.
