Chords for Bun E Carlos - A History of Drum Licks - Part 1

_ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ [E] _
_ [Bb] _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [B] _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ [N] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
That intro evolved out of an intro when we did the song in the bars.
We learned the song
and the guys were like, we switch guitars right here.
So, okay, well I'll do this and
you come in when you're ready.
And then over a period of about two years, it ended up to
be about a three minute set piece before we actually recorded it on a live album.
_ The drum licks on here, I didn't invent these drum licks.
They come from, you know, drum
licks didn't originate with me, they didn't come out of my head.
And I'm not a guy that
reads music except for French horn.
And I don't read any drum music.
So where did I
get this stuff?
Well, I appropriated it, as they say in the art world.
You see, in the
music world, I nicked it or I stole it or whatever.
I got my licks from other drummers.
So how do you do this stuff?
Well, I'll give you about the 20 minute version here, which
is page two.
I started off and when I was about 12 years old, I came home, my brother
was playing a record.
Previous to this, it was [G] 1963 or so, I'd heard Elvis Presley on
TV, of course, and it was Hound Dog.
[D]
And most [Ab] _ _ [Eb] rock [D] _ _ _
_ in those days was kind of like swing
stuff. _
_ _ Because [E] _ _ _ [N] _
that's where it came from, the swing kind of evolved into, _ got kind of
more swingy, got a lot straighter, got kind of dumbed down a bit, started mixing with
country music and blues and kind of morphed its way into rock.
And that's when I started
growing up.
So I get home from school and I hear [E] this song and it's The Twist by Chubby
Checker and it's just basically_ _
_ _ _ I [Ab] come in and I heard this record and I was like,
what is that?
And it's this new single and I thought, God, these hi-hats.
I didn't even
know they were hi [G]-hats at the time.
I was like, what is that?
[N] And I'm sitting there
and I played it about ten times in a row.
And why my brother wasn't around, of course.
_ And I was like, whatever is going on here is really cool.
And about the same time,
Walk Don't Run 64 came out right at the end of 1963.
And it was by Mel Taylor, The Ventures.
And it was kind of like, you know_
[Bm] _ _
_ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[N] So basically the one roll.
_ The Ventures, at the same time,
a group called The Safaris had a hit with a song called Wipe Out.
And it became mandatory
for all drummers to know this or you couldn't get in a band.
And it was basically_
My
favorite version was The Ventures version.
_ So _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ [Gm] _ you see, [N] we're starting to get a little
theme going here.
First of all, the drummer's always going_
A little faster, a little
slower.
There's an up and a down.
And starting to get a little roll.
The only other roll
that anybody really did back in like 1963 was _ basically_
So, you know, I'm starting
to hear this stuff.
And the Rooters had a single out and The Ventures used that in
their version of Wipe Out.
And it was, you know_
_ [Ab] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [N] _ _ _ _
_ And it basically kind of went like
that.
It was like, oh, there's another good drum lick.
The Let's Go lick.
January 1964,
I guess February 9th to be for sure, The Beatles were on the radio.
The music scene suddenly
started changing.
The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
They opened up with All My Lovin'.
They did
She Loves You, made a big impression.
They started it off kind of_
Now [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _
_ [N] _ Ringo played
the floor tom.
It was a 14.
Ed Sullivan was a smaller kid.
He played this thing on the
hi-hats and it was _ just_
It was like, how do you get_
This was a_
It was like, finally,
how to get this great sound out of these two cymbals?
So my mom went down to Nielsen's
House of Music in Rockford.
And this guy that went to school with my sister, Rick Nielsen,
and they moved to town.
His dad [Ab] had a music store.
And my mom went to get a snare drum
and God bless the salesman, he sold her a whole kit.
And _ it had these [N] 10-inch hi-hats,
a sonar kit, and it had this 15-inch garbage can lid.
And all the chrome peeled off and
about the first year I had it and stuff was stripping out on it.
It didn't matter.
It
was great.
8 by 13, 14-inch deep, 16-tom, a little 4-inch snare drum.
I think they were
made out of beech or some sort of wood.
Kind of clanky little wood.
And it was great.
And
finally I learned, watching the Beatles, you don't get this wash.
_ I was sitting there like
trying to do this with brushes and stuff and I get these crummy cymbals.
So I started to
notice, well, if you want to get the sound these guys get, you've got to kind of have
some of the gear they kind of have too.
[Ab] And the Beatles, they did She Loves You, they
did Twist and Shout.
It had the nice big _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ [N]
fat_
We're still kind of basically doing the same
two licks.
Please Please Me, they were doing that.
And they get to the middle of the verse
and he did the _ [Eb] _ _ _
big_
So these things just got [Ab] reinforced.
It's like, okay, there's two
licks in a row.
And there's the Ventures [Bm] lick. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _