Book: Big Beat (Weinberg, Santelli 1991)

Big Beat: Conversations With Rock's Great Drummers.
Weinberg, M., & Santelli, R. (1991). Big Beat: Conversations With Rock's Great Drummers. NY: Billboard.
ISBN 0823075710 9780823075713

Review
This is really a book about fifteen drummers: Max Weinberg, the author, journalist, and an articulate historian of those interviewed for the book; and the list of interviewees, below. Mr Weinberg has done a great job assembling some of the best contemporary US and UK drummers of the 1980's and 1990's. I am not a drummer but I have a ton of respect for those who do commit their lives to an extrodinary vocation. I also appreciate what their families and neighbours must have gone through in their formative years!
I feel lucky to have been able to read this book, as my cousin bought it from a cutout sale at our local district library. I have been buying Modern Drummer from the newsstand when I can for about the last three years, as I realised that just focussing on reading magazines about guitars and guitar players was only really telling me a small part about my interest in many things musical.
Bob (Robert) Santelli has also done a great job with editorial and research assistance for Mr Weinberg. From the quality of the text I believe Mr Santelli shows a love of the subject, and a dedication to his craft of writing.
01. Introduction
05. Johnny Bee
17. Dino Danelli
27. Levon Helm
45. Roger Hawkins
61. "Pretty" Purdie (Bernard Purdie)
75. Hal Blaine
87. Earl Palmer
97. Russ Kunkel
109 D.J. Fontana (Dominic Joseph Fontana)
131 Dave Clark
143 Kenney Jones
155 Charlie Watts
169 Jim Keltner
179 Ringo Starr

Other reading of related texts
Reference List / In-Text Citation Styles in APA 6th
Please Note: I do not strictly follow APA style in these citations as I would like various technology and media to be able to access these pages.
Koster, R. (2002). Louisiana music. Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press. I also borrowed this title from my cousin Rob Rowe and I still haven't made up my mind if it is just a bit of desktop research with a few personal, and unrelated, anecdotes; or if the author really bothered to do some action research in the locations that were written about. Whatever, I hope there are more books about Louisiana music and musicians before long, as I find them fascinating subjects.
Lornell, K. (1993). Introducing American folk music. Madison, Wis.: Brown & Benchmark. For some this book may be a little academic in style; however, I enjoyed it immensely as it filled many gaps in my knowledge about the broad subject of American Folk Music of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries.
Nettl, B., & Béhague, G. (1973). Folk and traditional music of the western continents. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall. A highly detailed academic text from the 1970's detailing folk music rhythms and styles from around the globe. A knowledge of reading music would help to understand some of the examples; but in this age the book would provide a superb foundation for a multimedia work to illustrate the text more comprehensively.
Oliver, P. (1994). Blues fell this morning: Meaning in the blues. Cambridge: Canto. This edition was published in 1994, but the original work was published in 1960. Since these times we have come a long way in our respect for, and knowledge of, people and cultures that are not our own. I hope anyone currently reading this book can accept the fact that it is a product of its time, and not be put off by some of the language and terms used; as it illustrates how poorly many of its subjects were treated in those times. If you love blues music, this is a must-read title.
Johnson, C. N., & Gordon, C. G. (2011). Guitar: The Australian journey. Griffith, A.C.T: Barrallier Books. This is a book I borrowed from our local library and I am glad that I hadn't purchased it without inspection. Its title and synopsis led me to believe this would be a text about luthery (guitar making) in Australia: an overlooked craft. What a disappointment: it is "An Aus. Journey", not "The Aus. Journey"; it is not a book about the diversity and creativeness of Australian luthery. It is a book about one person ordering, specifiying, and receiving his guitar from one luthier. The book was supposed to have a 19-track CD on which examples of guitars from fourteen Australian luthiers, including two companies that export commercial quantities (Maton and Cole-Clark) but the CD had not been available when I checked the shelved book lately (it may be stored elsewhere). I've included this entry to archive Australian writers of music related topics.
McUtcheon, A., Jenkins, J., & Divola, B. (2016). The Music that Maton made: The Australian guitar handmade for the world stage. Melbourne, Vic.: Scribe Publications. Just like The Stratocaster Chronicles one gets the sense that this book was also commissioned as a marketing tool by a company looking to promote its product to the world stage. Disclaimer: I own Maton acoustic-electric guitars and I like their distinct, compressed, acoustic sound; but having borrowed the book from the shire library and read it cover to cover, I am not about to rush out and buy it. I was hoping to read a little more about the history of the business, the technicalities of luthery in Australia (such as using Australian tone woods), and learn a little more about what happens on the factory floor. What I think I got was pull-quotes and interviews sourced elsewhere, usually from street-press or community radio sources. I've included this entry to archive Australian writers of music related topics.
20200427
Weinberg, M., & Santelli, R. (1991). Big Beat: Conversations With Rock's Great Drummers. NY: Billboard. www.worldcat.org


Unless otherwise noted all books listed were in my personal library at the time of the first blog posting about the book. Some titles were borrowed from RMIT University libraries during the period 2006-2016, or from Hobsons Bay City Council library.

About this website and privacy
European Union (EU) laws require me, as author of this blog, to give EU visitors information about cookies used on this blog. In many cases, these laws may also require me, as author, or Google, as blog host, to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, I note that Google have added the following notice on this blog to help meet these regulations:

"This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and analyze traffic. Your IP address and user-agent are shared with Google along with performance and security metrics to ensure quality of service, generate usage statistics, and to detect and address abuse."

My LinkedIn and
Fender 93 Super Amp PR244 websites.
201912
.