Chords for Earl Palmer Bio - the most recorded drummer in history, with Mitch Woods

I first _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ [Eb] _ _ [Cm] met _ _
[C] _ _ _ [G] _ _ [C] _ _ _
[Am] Earl Palmer [C] in New Orleans at WWOZ Studios during Jazz Fest.
He was there talking about his new biography, Backbeat.
I was there playing piano on [Eb] the air to plug one of my gigs.
[C] _ Also in the studio was Earl King, another piece of New Orleans royalty, who I've been
fortunate enough to play with and hang with.
I got one of my favorite pictures that day with the two Earls, one on each side.
I didn't quite know who Earl was just yet, but I was soon to find out that he was true
musical royalty to the [Gb] max.
[F] Little did I know that in a few years I would get to [G] play with the cat who laid the rhythmic
[C] foundations for what we now know as rock and roll.
So let me give you a little background on the man whose backbeat probably made you dance
at some time in your life, whether you know it or not.
He grew up in the Treme, the black neighborhood right across Claiborne next to the French
Quarter where so much music originated.
He was a professional tap dancer by the age of five.
My favorite story Earl [F] tells is when Louis Prima hired him to come up to the stage and
tug on his pant leg.
When Louis [C] says, what do you want, kid?
Earl replies, mama wants you to come home [A] now.
[C] Pretty cool considering the [Am] race relations at the time.
He went on to play the minstrel shows [Cm] with his mother and [F] aunt and tour the black [B] vaudeville [Am] circuit.
Eventually [Cm] Earl began drumming with Dave Bartholomew's Rhythm and Blues Band and became the [C] driving
rhythmic force behind the [Ab] J&M Studio Band that propelled so many stars to fame.
[C] _ He's the cat who drummed on Little Richard's big hits, [Ab] _ Lucille, Tutti Frutti, Long Tall
Sally, Good Golly [C] Miss Molly, [Cm] and on so many of Fat Domino's million sellers as well, like
I'm Walking, The Fat Man, I'm in [F] Love Again, I Hear You [C] Knocking.
He laid down the beat for so many other New Orleans artists as well, including Professor
Long Hair, [E] Smiley Lewis, Lloyd [Cm] Price, Roy Brown, _ [C] _ [G] and Shirley and Lee. _
It was Earl [F] Palmer whose drumming transformed [E] Rhythm and Blues into the full tilt thrust
of rock and roll.
[C] As Bruce Springsteen's drummer Max Weinberg says, when [F] the pulse of rock and roll [Fm] grabs
you and won't let [C] go, it becomes the big [F] beat.
That's [G] how it was when Earl Palmer [D] laid in the Little Richard's Lucille, [C] sounding as
if he were using baseball bats and kicking a 30 foot bass drum.
What [Cm] I got to understand [Fm] from playing with him is that Earl [Cm]
combines all those street
[C] elements he grew up hearing in the Treme, like the second line rhythms, [Eb] the funk, and
jazz, to really propel [Ab] a song.
[E] He's a drummer of tremendous power and [Ab] sensibility.
[C] _ In 1957, Earl, fed up with the Jim Crow politics and racism of the South, packed up and moved
to Los Angeles and [Em] practically lived in the studio where he became [F] America's most recorded
drummer and co-creator of hundreds of hits.
[D] The list is [C] endless and awesome.
[Ab] Sam Cooke's You Send Me, Shake, Twistin' the Night [E] Away, Ritchie Valens' La Bamba, Ike
and Tina Turner's River Deep Mountain High, the Righteous Brothers' [F] You've Lost That Love
[G] and Feelin', [Gb] Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues, [Ebm] and thousands of tunes by The [E] Supremes, Beach
Boys, Marvin Gaye, Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, Willie [Gb] Nelson, Sarah [C] Vaughan, the Mamas and the Papas.
He was a session man for Elvis [Gb] Costello, Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, [D] B.B. King, Ray Charles,
and [Cm] Count Basie.
He played [E] television themes like The Odd Couple, _ 77 [F] Sunset Strip, [Gb] _ Ironside, M.A.S..H., and [C] even The Brady Bunch. Working with the legendary Quincy Jones and other greats, he played on countless motion picture [Cm] soundtracks, in Cold Blood, Bullet, In the Heat [C] of the Night, The Rose, and [F] It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. [E] As I said, the list is endless, and I recommend you read his book, Backbeat, the Earl Palmer story, [C] if even just to glance at his discography and film [Cm] credits. _ Just to meet Earl and get to hang [C] with him is a rare treat. To hear his stories, [Dm] which are as endless as his discography, [Am] and eat gumbo or shop with him for those all-important oysters and shrimp [C] to bring back home is a blast. To play music with him [Eb] is heaven, but to be his friend is paradise. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _