Al Duncan

This drummer is among significantly less than a half-dozen key studio legends from your ’50s and ’60s who’ve sometimes been called “the grandfathers of groove.” They’re simply the forefathers of most contemporary timekeeping in tempo & blues music or any nut products from its branches. Chicago’s Chess Information was probably the most popular, but not the only real homeground for these drummers. It really is aesthetically possible to possess a superb electrical blues collection with just edges which Al Duncan takes on drums. Nonetheless it will be a specialized impossibility, because a lot of the recording produces of vintage materials from blues giants such as for example Small Walter, John Lee Hooker, or Jimmy Reed weren’t originally documented as full units featuring a solitary band. Appropriately, our guy is usually presented as you of many drummers. There is absolutely no reduction in quality between an Al Duncan along with a Fred Below regardless. That is blues mastery, they are the Aged Testament of blues drum feels and just how blues drumming is meant to sound, regardless of the tendencies newer decades of drummers need to get busier and busier. Regarding Duncan, it really is a wide landscape indeed since it contains the agitated, intense punch of Friend Guy, along with the ultra-relaxed, swinging experience of late-period Reed, where period the leader’s child, Jimmy Reed Jr., was rounding away the tempo section on bass. A different one from the drummer’s most-famous program partners is usually bassist Phil Upchurch. Duncan also experienced a existence on doo wop and gospel periods, bringing a few of this experience into his blues tasks, like the amazing Reed monitor “Shame Shame Pity” lower in 1962. It isn’t quite a distance from this experience to that from the spirit group the Impressions, with whom Duncan drummed in start. Thirty years afterwards, he was still heading strong within the Rob Wasserman Trios task. Combined for a fascinating monitor with Wasserman yet another outdated rhythm section partner, bassist and songwriter Willie Dixon, it could grow to be among the drummer’s last recordings. He was created with the incredibly prophetic although unusual name of Alrock Duncan; no-one would refuse that the thing his drum paths have as a common factor is that each of them rock and roll. He was among the regular drummers within the make use of of bandleader Al Smith, an enterprising spirit whose initiatives spanned the imaginary obstacles between blues and jazz music in Chicago within the ’50s. Ultimately, lots of the players doing work for Smith defected to the brand new Vee-Jay label within the middle-’50s. Duncan was the initial choice drummer in housebands beneath the path of guitarist Lefty Bates, also offering players such as for example saxophonist Crimson Holloway and pianist Horace Hand. There is absolutely no exaggerating the quantity of musical activity that occurred involving players like this in the Chicago picture up until rock and roll & roll’s loss of life punch. Multiple documenting sessions per day accompanied by a 3 or 4 established membership gig, winding up at an after hour’s jam program; this might happen to be a typical trip to the seaside for Duncan, and for that reason staying away from him on any walk across the metropolitan blues shoreline is approximately as difficult as not obtaining any sand on your own feet. Blues followers can speculate in what might represent his greatest grain of playing, but one choice for classes worth wider recognition will be the early-’60s edges by vocalist Billy “a child” Emerson. The drummer’s six-string capturing sidekicks for these recordings are the past due Roy Buchanan as well as the “Suzie Q” guy, Dale Hawkins. Drummers also rave about the brushwork on edges with the not-too-well-known vocalist Camille Howard, such as for example “Stone Mama.” Duncan also acquired a tiny career from the drum established being a songwriter, including quantities such as for example “It’s Too Later, Brother,” which includes continued to be a blues club music group staple. While he might have prevented confusion totally if he previously left his initial name Alrock, the drummer hasn’t performed too badly with regards to various other Al Duncans fuzzing up the facts of his profession. The obscure rockabilly dude who led a combo known as the Twisters and produced singles such as for example “Bawana Jinde” and “Gossip” is really a different man, as may be the Al Duncan who was simply a background vocalist for the Sons from the Pioneers.