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Better Rock and Roll Drummer: Ringo or Bonham?


eloydrummerboy

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Besides the fact I have always despised Bonham's drumming, don't even listen to rock radio for fear of hearing another Zeppelin tune, Ringo wasn't really all that great either. For 1963 though, Ringo was in the forefront of modern rock drumming, not afraid to play any style, inventing never heard before grooves, bending the curve of drumming in positive directions. By 1970, drumming had come along way, as had rock, and other than hitting the drums hard and unbelievably low drum tuning, Bonham really had nothing to add that hadn't been done plenty before.

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Texas International
Pop
Festival


August 30-September 1, 1969


Sunday, August 31


1 - Chicago Transit Authority

2 - bJames Cotton Blues Band

3 - Delaney & Bonnie & Friends

4 - Incredible String Band

5 - B.B. King

6 - Led Zeppelin

7 - Herbie Mann

8 - Sam & Dave

9 - Santana


Pop just means popular.
:idea:

 

I have that recording,It's very good

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...other than hitting the drums hard and unbelievably low drum tuning, Bonham really had nothing to add that hadn't been done plenty before.

 

Wow.

 

Just...sad for you that you think so.

You don't like his playing, that's fine.

To sum up an undeniable massive influence that simply though...

 

Bitter about something?

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I can agree with this, except I don't like Meg White, so I guess what I was trying to discover is who is the most liked drummer of the two then. In my opinion chops aren't everything, but they are at least a minimum requirement to be considered the best ever. And I don't think Ringo quite had what it takes in that respect to be considered. You can't say that a pure homerun hitter was the best baseball player ever. You need to have the whole package to really deserve consideration for that title. That's really my only point. I don't care who people think the best is, I just don't think it's Ringo.

 

 

But there is no "best". That's the part you're not getting.

 

Baseball is a very good analogy. Who's the best baseball player ever? Impossible to answer. So many different positions and skill sets required there is no possible way any ONE factor can be more important than any other. And the "whole package" is subjective in music. Like I said...technique is about the ONLY thing that is objectively comparable in drumming. But technique is so unimportant to making great music. That's not to say guys with great technique don't sound great musically....but would you really want twist and shout to have some bohnam triplet fills in it? No...it would sound {censored}ing stupid.

 

Take these two songs....

 

[video=youtube;6wp91YPGnLw]

 

Ringo's drumming is perfect. The strange hiccup fills every second bar are fantastically original. Bonham could NEVER fill like that. Not because he wasn't physically capable, but because he wasn't mentally capable of coming up with something like that. Nobody could...because they were {censored}ing weird fills! Now do those fills take a lot of difficult "technique"? Of course not. But the greatness of that drumming is not in the technique...it's in the originality. Those types of fills were his bread and butter on the later beatles stuff. I can imagine how Bonham would have played this song and while it would have created something interesting it would have been totally different, and quite frankly would have made the song more straight forward in my opinion.

 

Now imagine ringo playing something like this...

 

[video=youtube;zE-JQzj2aEA]

 

No way right? Just doesn't have the chops to do that type of stuff. Bonham's use of syncopated triplets is outstanding. But having said that the stuff he is doing is fairly straight forward from a drumming perspective. I know people into rock will think that video is Bonham being totally original but the fact is much of that is all lifted from Jazz....which is where his influences were. The swing pattern is typical blues/jazz just on a rock kit with a heavy hand and the triplet fills while awesome sounding are basically watered down versions of what Elvin Jones was doing years before.

 

Actually thinking about this as I type Ringo was really a far more creative drummer in many ways than Bonham. But as I said before bonham can school him on a lot of the technique stuff. So which is better? You do see the problem there right?

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But there is no "best". That's the part you're not getting.


Baseball is a very good analogy. Who's the best baseball player ever? Impossible to answer.

 

 

Exactly, but you can with good faith say that Rafael Palmeiro isn't it. He was a great player. He did was he did very well. But he isn't the best player ever. If someone wanted to argue that he was, I could find somebody who is obviously better than him (let's say Babe Ruth) and have people vote. This is a way to show that person that while Rafael Palmeiro is good, he's obviously not the best. That's all that was going on here. Nothing more.

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And secondly, for the end all be all, and in real life there is no way of knowing and there is no true purpose in trying to figure out who the best drummer is. I totally get that. But this is an internet forum and I come here because I'm interested in music and I enjoy debating these things with people. You are going to bring up arguments about Ringo that I had never thought of before and I'm going to learn something, I might bring up arguments about Bonham that you haven't noticed in his playing and you might learn something. It's not the destination, It's the journey. It really doesn't matter to me if I change anyone's mind, and I really don't expect to. But arguing about it, talking about music and influences and techniques and history, is fun to me.

 

Nobody really knows who the best sports team is or who's going to win any particular game, history shows us that. The biggest underdogs will sometimes take out the biggest powerhouses. But that still isn't going to stop fans of either team from talking trash and arguing with each other over it. That's half the fun for a lot of people. How boring would it be if everyone just walked around shaking hands and saying "Good luck today, I have no idea who might win tonight. I hope it is my team though. You team has a chance to win also though."

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