These brilliant portraits of drummers will make you realise just how influential these musicians are

Home / Photography books / These brilliant portraits of drummers will make you realise just how influential these musicians are

Over a period of six years, photographer Deirdre O’Callaghan travelled to more than 35 cities across two continents to photograph drummers in a range of different locations, including their private studios, homes, gardens and more besides.

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Keen to put drummers into the spotlight when usually they are cast to the back of the stage, O Callaghan’s work highlights the importance of these musicians – who serve to keep the time of everyone else on stage going.

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A huge range of different musical genres and hugely famous names are included in this volume. There’s the jazz legend Roy Haynes, who played with Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, there’s Clyde Stubblefield, who sat behind James Brown, the founder of Afrobeats Tony Allen, Hal Laine, the drummer for Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, and Questlove, who is the co-frontman for the Roots.

Other highlights include Jack White, Ringo Starr, Lars Ulrich, Nick Mason and Dave Grohl. There’s surely to be somebody you’ve heard of among this collection, and for anybody who is big into music – especially music photography – this is one of those “must-buy” books.

It must be quite a tricky task to photograph a person behind a drum kit, yet still bring out enough of the personality of the sitter. After all, the kit usually dwarfs the person sitting behind it – but it’s perhaps also fair to say that for some musicians, it becomes part of their character too. Some of those featured have been taken away from their drum kit, which makes for an interesting look at their personality, too.

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If you are interested in the musicians, you’ll likely also enjoy the interviews that accompany the photographs too – you’ll find out lots of juicy tidbits about the working and personal life about these musicians.

A quote from Dave Grohl sums up the role of the drummer quite well – “You’re there to serve the song, you’re there to get people to move. They might not really know why they’re dancing, but it’s you. Ultimately the reason people are shaking their asses is you: it’s not the lyrics, it’s your backbeat. Drummers are usually the last ones to get any credit.” With this fantastic book, all of that changes.