Drummer Darryl White is Mr. Versatility. About the only music that he doesn’t regularly play is classical. He plays the blues with his high school classmate Chris Thomas King, as well as Kipori Woods, Stavin’ Chain and Rockin’ Jake. His reggae drumming with the Revealers is unequaled in New Orleans. He’s provided the disco beats for Evelyn Champagne King. And lately, his work with Baton Rouge’s Seven has advanced him to the Throne of Funkdom. In between rimshots, Darryl provided the following percussive details from his Uptown home.
I was born in Shreveport and started playing drums when I was seven years old. My original drumsticks were wooden clothes hangers and I’d beat on the furniture. My mom said, “You’ve got to stop beating on the furniture,” so she went to the pawn shop and bought me a snare drum. From beating on the sofa and the beds, I knew how to roll already because I’m basically self-taught—I didn’t take lessons ’til later on. When I was 11 years old, I got my first drum set for Christmas.
When I was in junior high school in Baton Rouge, the band director thought we had enough drummers so I always had to play brass instruments. I played the trumpet, the trombone and the saxophone but I never liked them because I thought I was a better drummer than most of the other guys in the band. You have a lot of guys who play in marching bands who know their rudiments and everything but then you put ’em on a set and they’re lost.
Some drummers say “I’m a jazz drummer” or “I’m a rock drummer.” I don’t want to classify myself because in 2000, I think a drummer needs to be versatile. Being versatile, you get more calls. It keeps me busy because I have to keep the Revealers’ music in my head plus the music of Seven, Chris Thomas King, Kipori Woods, Stavin’ Chain and Rockin’ Jake.
Reggae is a very complex music. A lot of drummers can’t play just the basic typical reggae grooves. What makes the Revealers’ reggae a little different is that I incorporate more of the second line New Orleans flavor to it, as far as the high-hat and snare parts that I’m doing. I’m mixing my bass drum patterns, which in typical reggae is always on the one-drop like Bob Marley or Steel Pulse—a straight quarter-note beat. I’ve tried to incorporate funk and R&B into the reggae. The traditional Rasta reggae musicians are almost the same way—they learn a lot from American R&B artists.
We’re not Rastas. We’re not from Jamaica like the typical reggae band. With out music, it’s like a gumbo—it’s all mixed: you have sausage in it, chicken, shrimp, everything.
American drummers try to learn the techniques of Jamaican drummers. We’ve opened up for every major reggae band—Steel Pulse, Yellowman, Pato Banton, Third World, Toots and the Maytals. My thing is to always watch those drummers. They have a technique that’s on the high-hat where they mix triplets and sixteenth notes together. They can do it with one hand on the high-hat instead of alternating hands.
Another person I got a lot out of –as far as listening to him—was Stewart Copeland of the Police. He mixed reggae with rock. With any band, the drummer is the engine. Everybody else in the band is more concerned with the melody part, as far as the guitar player, the keyboards and the bass. The drummer’s the engine, the drive.
In blues, you have to know all your shuffles—you have the Chicago shuffle and you have the Texas shuffle. If you don’t know your shuffles, you won’t keep the gig long. You have to have that feel to play any kind of music—it has to come from the heart.
Shuffles are so hard because it’s a triplet beat that you’re doing but you have to keep it consistent between your snare drum and your bass drum. My favorite shuffle player—other than Stevie Ray Vaughan’s drummer [Chris Layton]—would be Jeff Porcaro of Toto. Listen to “Rosanna.” Or Steely Dan records with Bernard Purdie—he’s one of the Shuffle Kings.
It’s not as easy as it sounds—you’re doing triplet beats alternating one-ta ta, two-ta ta, three-ta ta, four-ta ta. To keep it consistent, you have to play those triplet beats on the high-hat and you’re playing the snare on the two and four and sometimes, you may insert ghost notes between that two and four. And you’re playing a quarter-note on the bass drum or you might do an eighth-note beat on the bass drum. It has to be tight—it’s all in the wrists. Some guys play it stiffer than others.
I mastered the regular shuffles and also the Chicago shuffle but I had a little trouble with the Texas shuffle. Chris Thomas King plays the drums and one day, on a sound check in Austin, he showed me I was swinging too much. The Texas shuffle is more of a stiffer swing. That’s what makes it blues instead of jazz.
I knew Chris from high school in Baton Rouge. We did a few talent shows together. I lost contact with him and then around late 1996, I saw him at the House of Blues. The second time he did “Louisiana Jukebox” with his father Tabby Thomas and Raful Neal the harmonica player, I played with Chris. From there, we started gigging and I thought things were going to take off and blow up. Of course, we know how this music business is—it didn’t quite happen that way. Then we recorded the CD for Black Top and it was nominated for the W.C. Handy Award, which is like the Grammy of the Blues.
For studio work, you have to have your stuff together and it costs money so when you’re going in—especially if you’re on a budget, you have to rehearse and know what you’re doing before you go in there. The miking situation is real crucial. You don’t want the microphones too close to your drumheads or too far. If they’re too far, the engineer will have to turn up from his board and once you’ve mastered the tape, the drums will sound too loud. If the mike’s too close, the drums will sound muffled. Every studio’s different.
Drumming is very physical. For exercise, I walk my dog a lot. I try no to eat a lot of red meat. I love seafood—shrimp and stuff—but it’s hard to get away from the fried seafood. I try to do the boiled thing. My fiancee’s Italian so I eat a lot of pasta and salads and soups.
Actually, while you’re playing drums, you run a lot. You have to be in shape because there’s been times when I’m playing and if you don’t have enough potassium in your body, you feel it. I like to eat either an orange or a banana before a gig and drink a lot of water. You don’t drink Cokes and all that kind of stuff. Orange juice is pretty good but it’s better if you make a fruit punch—mix it up.
If you play and you don’t have enough water in your body, you’ll get cramps. I might be playing and all of a sudden, my right leg—my bass drum leg—will start cramping up. That can be embarrassing when you’re gigging in front of people. Most drummers make expressions—I know I do when I’m hitting the cymbals or whatever. Some people probably look at me like, “I wonder if that guy’s all right or if he’s mad.” But it’s like you’re in pain because you’re cramping up.
Before any show I play, I always have a practice pad and I get my sticks and I try to do some paradiddles and some single stroke rolls and some double stroke rolls—just to get my chops right. That’s crucial for a lot of drummers. With drumming, you can get tense right before you play so I always do a couple of deep breaths to relax and I bend and stretch my legs, even if it’s just for 15 minutes. By the time you get to the kit, your fingers and wrists are warmed-up and you’re ready.
