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Thread: Tommy Aldridge

  1. #1

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    Tommy Aldridge



    Drummer: Tommy Aldridge
    Main Style: Rock/Metal
    Main Band: (Debatable) Some will say Ozzy or Whitesnake. IMO, it was with the Pat Travers Band..
    Brief Summary: An early pioneer of hard rock "double-bass" drumming, he gained notability as the drummer of southern rock group Black Oak Arkansas. Tommy is a definite hard hitter, which adds to the "show".

    Other Facts: Born August 15, 1950, in Jackson (Pearl), MS. Aldridge was entirely self-taught. He's also a devout Christian.

  2. #2

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    One of my favs! Enjoy!

    At 22 years old:


    At 61 years old:

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  4. #4

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    Tommy is or had been an avid cyclist for years.
    RDM/Damage Poets
    UFiP TAMAHA Zildjian
    REGAL TiP
    AQUARIAN

  5. #5

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    I had all but forgotten what a huge merit to the art Tommy was and is!!
    MAPEX - SABIAN - PEARL - VIC FIRTH

  6. #6

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    I liked him on the Live Black Oak Arkansas album. He was the first guy to have Sonor drums that I remember. I think they were see thru. I didn't follow him much after, being that I don't like metal music, but great drummer.

    all the best...

  7. #7

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    I saw Black Oak Arkansas live in 1976. Tommy was using Two kicks, one rack tom and two floor toms. A ton of cymbals. Always liked his drumming with the exception of the lasted Whitesnake album which is all Deep Purple Covers. I really don't think Tommy does the DP songs justice at all. Then again Ian Paice is a master so....

    I still listen to BOA Raunch N Roll live often. Also like what he did On Pat Travers Heat in the Street Album and Live Go for what You Know.
    Last edited by NPYYZ; 12-04-2015 at 05:13 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by NPYYZ View Post
    I saw Black Oak Arkansas live in 1976. Tommy was using Two kicks, one rack tom and two floor toms. A ton of cymbals. Always liked his drumming with the exception of the lasted Whitesnake album which is all Deep Purple Covers. I really don't think Tommy does the DP songs justice at all. Then again Ian Paice is a master so....

    I still listen to BOA Raunch N Roll live often. Also like what he did On Pat Travers Heat in the Street Album and Live Go for what You Know.
    This sounds like what I would have posted. We go way back, don't we? I saw him/BOA and was lucky to be 3 rows in at the BOA concert. It was like being on stage.
    Signature here

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    Quote Originally Posted by kay-gee View Post
    I liked him on the Live Black Oak Arkansas album.
    Quote Originally Posted by NPYYZ View Post
    I saw Black Oak Arkansas live in 1976. Tommy was using Two kicks, one rack tom and two floor toms. A ton of cymbals.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bish View Post
    This sounds like what I would have posted. We go way back, don't we? I saw him/BOA and was lucky to be 3 rows in at the BOA concert. It was like being on stage.
    Last June, my band was the opening act for BOA at an outdoor festival. Let me limit my comments this way :
    I STILL can't believe BOA could get a guy like TA in their band.

    He played it smart; he used them for a stepping stone to greater success.
    This self-taught Mississippi boy can pound out some very cool fills and beats.
    Gretsch USA & Zildjian
    (What Else Would I Ever Need ?)


  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ricardo View Post
    Last June, my band was the opening act for BOA at an outdoor festival. Let me limit my comments this way :
    I STILL can't believe BOA could get a guy like TA in their band.

    He played it smart; he used them for a stepping stone to greater success.
    This self-taught Mississippi boy can pound out some very cool fills and beats.
    I wonder how far Jim Dandy Mangrum would have got on American Idol!!

    all the best...

  11. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by kay-gee View Post
    I wonder how far Jim Dandy Mangrum would have got on American Idol!!
    I laughed out loud in my office.
    Gretsch USA & Zildjian
    (What Else Would I Ever Need ?)


  12. #12

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    Tommy played with a "bar" band here in Chicago some years ago....the band was "D-Thumbs".....group also included Cliff Johnson who was with "Off Broadway"...check them out....

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    Quote Originally Posted by NPYYZ View Post
    I saw Black Oak Arkansas live in 1976.
    By any chance was Rush the opening act ? I remember Rush played their first show in Albany NY, at the Palace Theatre, on their 2112 tour... as opener for BOA.

  14. #14

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    Now that is hard to believe !

    RUSH developed into a top-notch power trio with some incredible original music that covers 40 years.

    BOA had a couple of decent tunes in the seventies and have been living off of those and slowly dying for 40 years.

    Below is a photo from a gig last Summer wherein we opened for BOA at a festival.......................

    Gretsch USA & Zildjian
    (What Else Would I Ever Need ?)


  15. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ricardo View Post
    Now that is hard to believe !

    RUSH developed into a top-notch power trio with some incredible original music that covers 40 years.

    BOA had a couple of decent tunes in the seventies and have been living off of those and slowly dying for 40 years.

    Below is a photo from a gig last Summer wherein we opened for BOA at a festival.......................
    Funny how that works sometimes. Maybe there's good luck in opening for Black Oak, and your band is destined for huge success !


    [IMG][/IMG]

  16. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by JoePasko View Post
    By any chance was Rush the opening act ? I remember Rush played their first show in Albany NY, at the Palace Theatre, on their 2112 tour... as opener for BOA.
    No it was a 50's doowop band called The ****tons Oldies Show, they got booed off the stage.

  17. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by NPYYZ View Post
    No it was a 50's doowop band called The ****tons Oldies Show, they got booed off the stage.
    Ok, help me out here. I am trying to figure what the missing syllable is in the group's name that was perceived as a swear word ???????

  18. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by JoePasko View Post
    Ok, help me out here. I am trying to figure what the missing syllable is in the group's name that was perceived as a swear word ???????
    S hittons

  19. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ricardo View Post
    Last June, my band was the opening act for BOA at an outdoor festival. Let me limit my comments this way :
    I STILL can't believe BOA could get a guy like TA in their band.

    He played it smart; he used them for a stepping stone to greater success.
    This self-taught Mississippi boy can pound out some very cool fills and beats.
    Actually No....
    Tommy wanted out of BOA during the first year he was with them, He was unhappy and did not like the band.

    Here's the story:
    So how did you meet Black Oak, Arkansas?

    “I was playing original music with Alley Keith in the panhandle of Florida. I had two bass drums by this time, before it became fashionable and I’d seen Louis Bellson and the guy on the back of the Premier catalogue [Sam Woodyard] and liked the idea of it. [He rationalised that he wouldn’t play with one stick so why play with just one bass drum?] Anyway there were a couple of places were we could play whatever we wanted: sometimes we’d take Santana music like Evil Woman and I’d play the conga parts to inflect that same kind of feeling. Anyway a guy called Dave Smith was running front-of- house sound and he said he’d been working with this band, Black Oak, Arkansas who’d just signed a record deal with Atlantic records and they were looking for a drummer like me. He gave me his card.

    "Time went by while we tried to get a record deal for Alley Keith, but we couldn’t! It wasn’t Soul music, or Fraternity music – certainly we didn’t get any wedding calls. We were radicals!

    “In a fit of weakness I ‘phoned Dave Smith who put me in touch with Black Oak’s management who invited me to audition so I flew up to Memphis and got the gig. At this time it was based on the West coast so I had a couple of weeks to get my stuff together before I went out to LA and rehearsed. I had about a six year run with that band.

    "The first thing I did was go to Miami to record at Criteria with Tom Dowd who’d recorded Wheels of fire. I met Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding there working on Fat Mattress. I was impressed!”

    Sounds like a fun gig?

    “No! Initially it was, but about six months or a year into it – I wanted out. I just didn’t want to be there – I was musically unhappy. They didn’t want me to go and my physical well-being was threatened. I’d never experienced anything like this before and they were going to get my arms broken if I left. I paid the price ‘cos I didn’t like the way the band sounded when I joined but I compromised [musically] and eventually paid for it dearly. They’d just signed a record deal and I thought I’d get my foot in the door and use that to my advantage but you should never use anybody else’s career as a stepping stone. So I learned my lesson. Those other guys had never played with anyone other than each other whereas I had. I had some facility, something unique and creative.


    The man in action
    “After a year I was an equal owner of a very successful band. I had no idea there was so much money. There was a pension plan, a profit-sharing plan, real estate development companies, land partnerships and after a trial period I was an equal owner of it all. I really didn’t want to be there and I said just keep all that. Let me have my contractual freedom and I’ll go. But they wouldn’t have it. The roadie had become the manager and an equal member and he was very, very homespun and seat of the pants. He had some issues and liked to keep everyone under his thumb. With the other guys it wasn’t a problem but I always seemed to be the problem child for him. When I told him I was unhappy and it would be best for everybody if I respectfully bow out, he said ‘That’s like you coming into my kid’s bedroom in the middle of the night and putting a .357 Magnum into her mouth!’ I said, ‘Excuse me?!’ So that was his perspective and hard for me to get my little brain around.

    This of course is not the sort of scenario you would expect from a band signed to Atlantic Records with luminaries like Ahmet Ertegun, Tom Dowd and Jerry Wexler watching over you. So how on earth did you escape from Black Oak?

    “I literally sneaked away from the compound in the middle of the night! There was heavy pot smoking going on at the time, some serious chemical abuse although not coke and heroin. These guys just pummelled massive amounts of hash. There was actually a budget for it called ‘Special Account’ which was an escrow account strictly for that. There was an astonishing amount of money spent on hash and pot and I did that for a while.”

    Are you sure you want to talk about all this?


    “Sure, it’s the truth!”

    Could the band manage to play with all this heavy pot and hash?


    “They thought they could but personally I didn’t do it for very long. I got out of it but I don’t say that in any judgemental way. I gravitated away from it. From a creative stand point I can see how it works amongst visual artists. I would sometimes be energised by it, but it isn’t a physical thing. Anyway it’s all a lie [taking drugs]. Whenever you throw a blanket over who, or what you are – it’s a lie!”

    So Tommy took a flight to Memphis and a pal drove his car up.

    “My car wasn’t incarcerated but was in an area the manager knew and he had his suspicions about me.”

    The great escape culminated in a year and a half of lawsuits but not until he’d been tracked down to Chicago where he was putting a band together.

    “At the end of the day I was hiding out in Chicago and no one knew where I was. I’d even call my mother from phone boxes. I came out of a rehearsal and this big guy grabbed me and pushed me up against a brick wall saying: ‘I guess you know who sent me’ before letting me drop. I had huge bruises and it scared me to death but right after that I got mad, said these guys can’t do this to me and found myself a lawyer. He looked at all the paperwork I’d collected and said man there’s a lot of money involved here; a lot of opportunities. I was afraid to do anything but listening to him I decided – let’s go for it. I was signed to an employment agreement for a company I was an equal owner of. It was convoluted and ridiculous. We began proceedings which brought everything to a head and I was eventually able to get away.”

    Source:
    http://www.mikedolbear.com/story.asp?StoryID=1577

    I also have pretty much the same story told by Tommy in an old Modern Drummer Magazine.

  20. #20

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    That's just nuts.

    It was clear that TA was such a better player than the rest of the band at the California Jam. He would move on to bigger and better things but I had no idea it would be such a hassle.

    Those guys are cray-cray..............and when you see them perform today, it is just bad.
    Gretsch USA & Zildjian
    (What Else Would I Ever Need ?)


  21. #21

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    Im sure this was already posted a thousand times. Tommy Aldridge was NOT the drummer on Ozzy Osbournes diary of a madman album. It was the great Lee Kerslake who did the drum tracks on that album. He also did blizzard of oz. He left ozzy just before the album was released and replaced with Tommy Aldridge who's photo was on the album. Lee Kerslake invented the over the mountain intro as well as play it on that album. He never got credit for it.
    He was/ is a heck of a drummer.

  22. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lexer View Post
    Im sure this was already posted a thousand times. Tommy Aldridge was NOT the drummer on Ozzy Osbournes diary of a madman album. It was the great Lee Kerslake who did the drum tracks on that album. He also did blizzard of oz. He left ozzy just before the album was released and replaced with Tommy Aldridge who's photo was on the album. Lee Kerslake invented the over the mountain intro as well as play it on that album. He never got credit for it.
    He was/ is a heck of a drummer.
    Here's a funny one for you. When Ozzy was on the Diary of a Madman tour he was at the civic center in Portland. My band was playing in a bar right down the street. So during the day while we and Ozzy's crew were setting up , the lead singer of my band asked me who played drums on Diary of a Madman, I said Lee Kerslake the guy that played with Uriah Heep.

    So he walked up to the Civic center and was able to get in the back door. Tommy was finishing up his drum sound check. He approached Tommy and said "Hey I like the stuff you did with Uriah Heep" trying to act like he had some knowledge. Tommy said to him thanks but you've got the wrong guy and walked off.

    He walked back down to the club and said why didn't you tell me Tommy Aldridge was playing in Ozzy's band, I just looked like a fool. I said, that's not what you asked. lol

  23. #23

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    I just went to youtube and listened to the LK original and then a live version with TA behind the kit....................both are great.

    The worst thing is Ozzy himself:
    bad singer -- bad front-man -- crazy/druggy/goofy.
    I guess that was the show.
    Gretsch USA & Zildjian
    (What Else Would I Ever Need ?)


  24. #24

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    If you wanna hear Tommy play with Ozzy, look no further than the "Speak of the Devil" (live) album.. Its legendary imo..

  25. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mickstix View Post
    If you wanna hear Tommy play with Ozzy, look no further than the "Speak of the Devil" (live) album.. Its legendary imo..
    love that record! still have it.

    Saw Pat Travers at a small place in the early 90's Tommy wasn't there but the group he had was excellent. Pat is a very down to earth guy. Mingled with all 30 of us that were there after the show.
    RDM/Damage Poets
    UFiP TAMAHA Zildjian
    REGAL TiP
    AQUARIAN

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