The first time Bill Ward met John Bonham
England was a smaller world than most would have believed in the early 1960s. While the explosion of rock and roll music was mostly kept to either London or Liverpool in collective memories, cities strewn throughout the country had their own music scenes that were as vibrant and talent-heavy as any bigger cities. In Birmingham during the mid-1960s, you could have passed either Bill Ward or John Bonham on your way through a small club.
While the pair eventually found their respective homes in Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, Ward and Bonham were both floating around the clubs and towns around Birmingham looking for gigs. Ward managed to see half of Led Zeppelin years before the band formed when he caught Bonham and Robert Plant performing with The Crawling King Snakes.
“My earliest recollection of meeting John Bonham was at The Wharf Pub in Ombersley, Worcestershire, about 1964,” Ward told DRUM! Magazine. “He was with The Crawling King Snakes, playing popular songs of that era, plus blues and R&B. His rhythms were immaculate, making each song his own, turning it into something superb. A great example was ‘Morning Dew’. Of all the versions I heard, including the original, none compared to the King Snakes’, with John Bonham leading the pack.”
“Sometimes on trips to Drum City, the Birmingham city-centre shop owned by BBC Light Jazz Orchestra drummer Mike Evans, I’d bump into Bonham, along with other fine drummers – offshoots of the cosmopolitan hordes who’d chosen Birmingham as home,” Ward added. “Some visits turned into mini-clinics. I’d watch Mike do his ’Purdie’. I think he turned everyone on to Bernard Purdie, whose hi-hat work was incomparable. Bonham would sit in and funk out, his bass drum playing that language everyone seemed to be speaking but still not applying as well as he did.”
“Many different drumming styles existed, and somehow they all ended up in Mike’s drum shop. We were rich in rudiments and healthy in the music of the day,” Ward also said. But Ward wasn’t an immediate admirer of Bonham. In fact, Ward initially held a relatively low opinion of Bonham and his drumming style.
“In 1964/’65, I didn’t understand what John was doing,” Ward admitted. “Often, on the many occasions I watched him play, I thought he was ruining the song, like maybe he’d lost his 1. Uncannily, however, after several bars, he’d bring his beats into alignment with whomever he was playing with. At last, I realised what he’d done. He was always in his 1, even when it sounded like he wasn’t.”
Although Ward’s own roots came from jazz music, Bonham was intent on hitting the drums as loud as he could. Still, Ward could see the technique and skill that Bonham had built up over years of playing, the likes of which were more nuanced than his piledriver reputation might suggest.
“Bonham was light of foot and light in his wrists. It was his dexterity, his touch that seemed to intuitively know how to find the power points on each drum,” Ward claimed, also mentioning that Bonham’s sound came from his approach, not his specific drum kit. “They were the same as everyone else’s in the ’60s. He had several kits before Zeppelin, mostly Ludwig, I think.”
Check out Bonham playing ‘Moby Dick’ down below.
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