John Bonham’s five favourite drummers: “Gene Krupa was God”
If you were to sit down at your local watering hole and discuss who is the greatest drummer of all time, it would be more surprising that your favourite pint was draught than if John Bonham, the powerhouse juggernaut that sat behind Led Zeppelin, wasn’t at least near the very top of the collective list. That’s because when you strip away any fancy grips, peculiar patterns or fully loaded fills, the one thing you need to be a great drummer is the heart to make it happen.
Technique is great, precision is a marvellous skill to possess, and even a bit of songwriting nouse will help you along the way. But there is one lesson every drummer needs to learn fast if they want to be the best: you have to have the guts to go for glory. That’s something Bonham had in bucket loads.
The drummer has become as synonymous with his instrument as Jimi Hendrix has with the guitar. A virtuoso player, Bonham has been championed as one of the most powerful men to sit behind the kit. That’s not all, though; Hendrix once accurately described Bonham to his singer Robert Plant, collected in A Thunder of Drums: “That drummer of yours has a right foot like a pair of castanets!” It’s a testament to Bonham’s playing style that he could not only swing his sticks like a Norse god but also delicately play his pedals like he was Lord of the Dance with a rocket up his backside and a bottle of booze in his hands.
Assuming then that Bonham is one of, if not the greatest drummer of all time, we got curious about who would be considered his favourite percussionists, the performers who made him stand up and take note. While Bonham never necessarily claimed these to be his favourite in writing, avoiding the word perhaps as an admission that he wasn’t the top dog, the drummer was an avid listener and admirer of all five—all for different reasons.
Looking across the board, we’d say Bonham highly rated upwards of ten players, including Barriemore Barlow, Bernard Purdie, Alphonse Mouzon, Joe Morello, and Simon Kirke, but drumming is a competitive business and when there are only room for five, these sticksmen should be considered the reigning champions in the mind of Bonham.
John Bonham’s five favourite drummers:
Gene Krupa
Arguably one of John Bonham’s greatest influences was the composer, bandleader and prolific jazz drummer, Gene Krupa. Famed for his energetic style and charismatic showmanship, a young Bonzo idolised the percussionist and his unique style. In fact, he would operate more closely as a deity than any source of simple inspiration. It was Kurpa who presented percussion as something holy.
Noted by his brother Michael on Bonham’s website, John was largely influenced by the 1956 biopic film The Benny Goodman Story, in which Krupa played a starring role as the king of swing. Michael says that “John went to see the film with his dad” and that, simply put, for a young Bonzo, “Gene Krupa was God.”
Bonham also expressed his affection for another Krupa film, Beat The Band, in which the percussionist plays a set on some steam pipes. Krupa is largely responsible for most of the Led Zeppelin man’s panache and for that he must be considered perhaps the grandest inspiration of Bonham’s life.
Ginger Baker
Another point in Bonham’s biography is a special mention of The Graham Bond Organisation as one of his favourite bands during his formative years as a sincere music lover. The group were a bustling set of troubadours who delivered raucous rock-adjacent blues. The drummer of this band was the infamous Ginger Baker, one of the world’s greatest drummers of all time.
Baker would leave the band and later joined Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce to form Cream, which, along with a few others who peddled similarly bombastic rock and roll, set the stage for artists like Bonham’s Led Zeppelin to take rock into a new decade. Baker was the ferocious heartbeat of the outfit. As well as possessing the metronomic jazz skills he’d learned his trade on, Baker was also a furiously wild performer with a penchant for danger—it’s undoubted that his influence on Bonham as a performer is a large one. The Led Zeppelin man would also allude to Baker as perhaps the only drummer who could stand toe-to-toe with him, a sincere compliment if ever there was one.
The duo did crossover during their careers, operating simultaneously but in extremely different circumstances (Baker in Africa and Bonham touring the world); Baker never took too kindly to the comparison between them. In his memoir, Hellraiser: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Drummer, Baker writes: “John Bonham once made a statement that there were only two drummers in British rock ‘n’ roll; himself and Ginger Baker. My reaction to this was: ‘You cheeky little bastard!'”
Buddy Rich
One of the undoubted members of the pantheon of percussionists, jazz drummer Buddy Rich was another giant influence on Bonzo. The American jazz drummer lit the way for people like Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and of course, Bonham himself. It might feel strange for jazz drumming to have had such an impact on hard rock, After all, the tinkling swing on snare and hi-hat is hardly the most obvious direct line to Bonham crashing a giant gong behind him, but it was their precision and technicality that appealed to rock drummers.
Though they may have stylistically differed, Bonham was an avid admirer of Rich and was always spotted listening to his records or happy to share his thoughts on what made Rich so impressive. But, like most jazz musicians, Rich wasn’t really a fan of Bonham, regarding all rock drummers as below his and most other jazz drummer’s standards.
A notoriously cantankerous and arrogant player, perhaps it’s hard not to be when you’re the Buddy Rich, Bonham, it would appear, appreciated him from afar and kept his hero at arm’s length.
Max Roach
Max Roach was another solid percussionist that Bonham paid tribute to with his performance and often cited as one of his favourite musicians. One of the forgotten foundational stones of the rock movement, what Roach performed on his kit was rarely replicated.
The drummer was a pioneer of bebop music, a title which saw him work with many famous jazz musicians, including Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, and Booker Little.
Despite being one of the forefathers of heavy metal, jazz was certainly where Bonham conducted his music education and artists like Roach were the teachers. His longtime drum tech Jeff Ocheltree once said: “John listened to Max Roach, Alphonse Mouzon, Elvin Jones, and a lot of fusion and jazz drummers. That’s the thing that gets me about John Bonham – everybody thinks he was into big drums and hitting them real hard. Bonham was into swing and playing with technique.”
Perhaps the ultimate tribute from Bonham to Roach comes from his magnum opus, Led Zeppelin’s song ‘Moby Dick’. A song famed for its intense drum solo, the fills Bonham conjures pay homage to Roach’s own ‘The Drum Also Waltzes’ by ‘quoting’ some of his patterns. For an artist as original as Bonham, it is perhaps the ultimate praise.
Keith Moon
We could probably comprise an entire list based on jazz drummers. Something about their efficiency and technique inspired Bonham and many of the rock drummers of the time as the former masters of the kit would deliver ream after perfect ream of high-quality fills and solos. Not only was he determined to hit hard and heavy but also with craft and culture. There was one drummer, however, that taught him something entirely different: pure style. That man was Keith Moon.
In Mick Bonham’s book, he notes that the Zeppelin drummer was taken aback when he saw a young Moon the Loon in full flow. “John had been so impressed when he saw The Who’s drummer, a young Keith Moon, for the first time on TV, that he began to experiment with fashion.” There was something different about Keith Moon, he wasn’t like other rock drummers, happy to sit in at the back when needed, he was a powerhouse performer when required, too and a stylish one at that.
We’re sure that Bonham likely didn’t hold Moon in the same technical esteem as he did the other members of the list, or indeed not on the list, but he certainly had a lot of love for him. Keith Moon’s final performance would actually come via Led Zeppelin as he joined in with Bonham to rage through another stunning set.
Forever linked with the misfortune of addiction and the inability to control it, the duo both succumbed to their demons too soon. Still, they remain as bastions of rock and roll’s golden era and brothers in arms when it comes to their command of the drum kit.
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