BBR drummer week gets crazy with Roy Brooks today. Roy is one of the most enigmatic skin-men who could be featured here, given his wild swings of bipolarity which saw him declared unfit for trial after threatening neighbors with shotguns and bull whips over issues as slight as lost house key. He tragically died in a mental institution. But it all started so much differently. Roy was a schoolboy basketball prodigy in Detroit with a scholarship to play at a local college. He quit to play drums professionally with Yusuf Lateef and made his recording debut on the excellent Blue Mitchell lp Blue’s Moods. He was also in the drum seat for Horace Silver’s Song for My Father. His wildly creative career included playing the musical saw and hooking vacuum tubes to his drums for unique sounds. Roy also championed the music of indigenous people the world over. At BBR we are certain his career apogee was his leader lp The Free Slave. Rest In Peace Roy, today you are the star of BBR drummer week.
May 4, 2017
The Browns - we’re here, where are you ? 