Rolling Stone Readers Pick Best Drummers of All Time

Rolling Stone ^ | 2/10/11

[My Favorite Headache]

Last weekend we asked our readers to name the greatest drummers of all time. Everybody from Eric Carr to Animal from The Muppets got votes, but Led Zeppelin's John Bonham led the list by a significant margin.

1. John Bonham - Led Zeppelin 2. Keith Moon - The Who 3. Neil Peart - Rush 4. Dave Grohl - Nirvana/Foo Fighters 5. Ringo Starr - The Beatles 6. Buddy Rich 7. Stewart Copeland - The Police 8. ?uestlove - The Roots 9. Ginger Baker - Cream 10. Michael Shrieve - Santana/Sammy Hagar

[ApplegateRanch]

Geeze! You name a guy who couldn’t hold a steady job? *<];-’)

[BookmanTheJanitor]

my number 1 - Elvin Jones

[Cyropaedia]

No Ian Paice in the top ten...? Ridiculous.

[hawkeye101]

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Bill Ward of Black Sabbath, unleashing holy hell on a drum kit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtqy4DTHGqg

[Always Independent]

I saw him with ELP Doing Brain Salad Surgery, it was great. I also saw Chicago with I think Peter Cetara is his name. Excellent!

[21twelve]

I think it was just last year(?) that Emerson and Lake put on a small tour (or maybe just one concert?). Was “unplugged”. The youtube clips of it are pretty bad, so hard to judge the quality of their playing. With Emerson’s hand surgery I’m surprised he can play as well as he does.

I saw them back in 1993 on their “Black Moon” tour. I was leary as I had heard on TV Lake singing with ASIA the year or so before that and he sounded terrible. The concert I went to he was right on - they all sounded great.

[SFmom]

ALL WRONG!!! THE best is David Herbert, prinicpal percussionist of the San Francisco symphony.

[Chunga]

Nope...Danny Seraphine

[Chunga]

It's hard to believe I'm the only person on this thread to mention Vinnie Colaiuta.

Not only is he the greatest drummer alive, he's probably the greatest musician alive.

[old_sage_says]

I think a Freeper-Teaper should get some recognition. I think Drumbo is pretty darn good.

[Chunga]

I mean, people are talking about Bill Ward, Carl Palmer and Mike Portnoy, and Vinnie gets no mention at all? LOL!

[Chunga]

Is Drumbo John French?

[TheBattman]

I won’t make a full list, and won’t put them in a ranked order, but these are some that come to mind:

Terry Bozzio
Dave Weckl
Steve Gadd (this is one I am not totally solid on)
Derek Roddy (though I am not a fan of his primary genera - he is very good).
Ed Soph - not recorded nearly as much as most others on lists - but is a great drummer (primarily a Jazz kit guy). He is “the Man” at the University of North Texas.
Gregg Bissonette
Billy Cobham
Omar Hakim
Peter Erskine
Neil Peart (no list would be complete without!)

---

As for some “greats” that I don’t include in the top 10 or so...

Buddy Rich - While a pioneer and a very good drummer, he was as much show as player. Though his “trademark” will be forever remembered, it isn’t exactly what I would want to be remembered for (Wipeout!).

Ringo Starr - Old Ringo - a well-known player, nearly totally because of his work with the Beatles (and a short-lived political career...). Ringo was nothing spectacular (outside of the fact that the whole genera was brand new at the time). His best trait (and admittedly important) - his ability to keep time like no-one else. As close to “perfect-time” as can be found.

[Bug]

Bernard Purdie
The late Richie Hayward of Little Feat
Billy Cobham
Michael Shrieve
Jim Gordon

[I still care]

Wow. That is something. I was looking at a label for an older recording the other day, I think it was Lucky with Benny Goodman. They said Buddy Rich was the drummer on that recording. Now I didn’t know he worked with Goodman, but Goodman did have a reputation for seeking out the best talent.

[BombHollywood]

I love to hear my non-musical friends tell me that Moon, Ringo and Ginger are the greatest drummers of all-time. You can always determine the musical ability of someone when they start throwing those names out at you as "the greatest". Not that I don't like Ringo and Moon --- I really do. But how can you take such statements seriously with drummers like Bernard Perdie, Harvey Mason, Dave Weckl, Jeff Pocaro, Buddy Rich, Ed Shaughnessy, Louie Belson, Bill Bruford, Ian Pace, Carl Palmer and Steve Gadd??!?? I like Peart too, but he has just become too over-rated. Bonzo's a legend - probably would have also been considered a very accurate player too had not his constant drinking messed up his timing.

[gunsequalfreedom]

Bobby Blotzer is pretty darn good. Maybe not as famous so does not make the list but a darn good drummer and right up there.

[TXLady]

Bookmark for drummer son.

[TXLady]

Bookmark for drummer son.

[LS]

Well, it depends on “when” the guy drummed. Hands down, Carmine Appice from 1968 to about 1975 blew any of these people away for ROCK drumming. (I hate Peart and Moon, overplaying and omnipresent egoists as they were). Appice has declined badly, but his drumming in that era was the best, and even Bonham learned most of what he knew from Carmine and said so.