History of The Groove
First Book
Healing Drummer 
The Downbeat as therapy, as a social model, as a dance tool.

1.
Where it all began
    Starting several hundred years ago there began a confluence of musicians into New Orleans, arriving from all over the globe. This may have been the first time that this happened in the history of the world. They wanted to play together but they were from different cultures and did not know each other’s musical vocabularies. So they had to invent a common language of music. It was based on the Downbeat; the anchoring note at the beginning of a phrase. It repeats, so if you get lost just listen for the next downbeat and you’re back on the groove. It was a momentous cultural event based on mutual compromise of each player’s musical history.    
    The conceptual mind leap to create an improvisationally based music form was a major evolution in how people played music together and more importantly, why. This was a commingling of classical with ethnic; tribal grooves mixed with military marches. Ancient deities loaned their rhythms to the gospel choir. It all worked because we agreed on that one note. The Downbeat. Support that and you’ve got community. This unique moment in history created our modern world in many aspects.         The people who wanted to play music also had another motivation. French law was still in effect in New Orleans. The Napoleonic code stated that a slave could buy their own freedom. Playing music could maybe generate money on the street and those enslaved could possibly buy their way out of bondage. The music business hasn’t changed that much. But the jamming didn’t always work because everyone had their own opinion of what to play. Someone, probably a woman said,
    “Why don't you guys agree on at least ONE note so we can dance!" 
    They all agreed on supporting the downbeat. Jazz was born.
    When the downbeat was born, it gave birth to jazz, rhythm and blues, soul music, rock n roll, folk, rock n roll and pretty much everything else in our modern world of pop music. The concept of the downbeat is a unifying force; a mutual agreement that we are able to cooperate by supporting this invisible anchor note. The Downbeat is the beginning note. It repeats consistently. 
    Everyone loses the downbeat once in a while. It’s no big deal. Just get on the next downbeat and you are back in the groove. This ability to feel, rather than to intellectualize a world model where there are no real mistakes is healing and empowering.1.
Dick Clark Introduced ‘Those Five’ to the World
1965

    In nineteen sixty five Dick Clark introduced ‘Those Five’ to the world on local television in St. Petersburg, Florida. He liked us. We were different. We didn’t wear uniforms. We were more like the Rolling Stones than the Beatles. All the other local bands in the show wore uniforms, imitating Paul Revere and the Raiders, the stars of “Where The Action Is”, a concert tour across Florida. It was a beach extravaganza hosted by Dick Clark. We were four sixteen year olds, with one older juvenile delinquent lead singer with a fake ID. We were all very tall compared to Dick, but he didn’t mind as long as he was on a pedestal above us. He was having a good time. Hundreds of girls were screaming and crying, calling out our names. Hand printed signs floated on a sea of arms in the Bayfront Center. One was big enough for me to see from the drum riser,
    “Smile! Buddy!”
     Weeping, screaming teenaged girls reached for us as we left the stage. One sixteen year old girl with tears of adoration running down her flushed face reached through the cop’s arms, touched me, and gave me a bracelet. It was manufactured hysteria, and somewhere in our teenaged hearts we knew it was phony but the girls were willing to play the part.  So were we. It’s all downhill from there.
FB comments: 
S.S.S.: I was there...just not weeping. I was smiling and screaming for a band I loved to hear.
1.5
The First Time I Met Eric Hord
1966

    Mama Cass huddled on a chaise lounge with my lead singer. They had been like this for three days. Talking art? Poetry? Love? Life?… I’m sixteen- what do I know about life? But here was the Southern singer/songwriter meeting Mama Cass; the great earth mother patron of the arts. She was the visionary who introduced Graham Nash to David Crosby and Stephen Stills in her Laurel Canyon salon. 
    It was decided. We would come to LA. We were all only sixteen years old but our lead singer/songwriter was a bit older. It seemed like a normal progression for us. We were getting really good. Alan, our friend and booking agent was supervisor of activities for City of Clearwater and he put this meeting together. We had no idea how unique this moment was. The hotel pool had been closed for the night. Only our two bands sat around. There was no booze, no drugs, no groupies, no music business. Just us. John Phillips was on the phone in a room with the door open to let in the balmy Lakeland, Florida night air. Denny came and went like a ghost, occasionally murmuring to Michelle, the benevolent blonde rock queen having a precious moment of quietude just sitting and watching. My band had watched the Mama’s and Papa’s performing to huge sold out audiences for the last three nights. It was a life changing lesson in professionalism and also in the pure joy of playing really great music. I approached their drummer, sitting at a cabana table. I had no idea it was Hal Blaine, the greatest LA session drummer. This guy had cut more hits than any other drummer in the world. 
    The illusion perpetrated by the labels and rock star management is that all the rock band members played their own instruments in the recording studio,  and some did. But the reality was that usually a group of anonymous session musicians played on all the tracks for a wide variety of pop music coming out of LA, New York and London. This secret LA group of expert musical mercenaries was called ‘The Wrecking Crew’.
    “You’re great.” I said offering my hand to the drummer. He smiled and shook my hand.
    “Fast Eddie..from Chicago.” He said with a sly grin. His hand was strong and relaxed. The perfect drummer handshake.
    “This is The Doctor” he said with a gesture.
     The lanky red haired lead guitar player was wearing a white Ben Casey doctor’s shirt and was clutching a black medical bag. They congratulated us on coming to LA to record. Then Eric, “the Doctor” opened his black bag and pulled out a small black metal box with a button on top and two guitar jack  holes. It was a real Fuzz Tone. He handed it to Wally, my lead guitar player. 
    “Here. Take this.” Eric said. 
    It was like Spock beaming down to a small rural Southern town and giving the most unsuspecting kid a full powered phazer. We were speechless. This kind of technology would not arrive in the backwoods of Florida for years. It was the most gracious thing I had ever witnessed. 
The contracts arrived in the mail. Joe Osborn,  the Wrecking Crew bass player on the Mama’s and Papa’s tour would produce our album. Joe and the rest of the “Wrecking Crew” studio musicians were the back up musicians for all of the hits coming out of LA. It was a sure thing. There would be hits from “Those Five.”
Soon, some of the parents of “Those Five” had their last say. We did not go to LA at the virginal age of sixteen. I protested bitterly,
“You’re ruining my career!” 
Several years later, I am sitting in the drum booth at Capitol records in LA recording for Vince Martin, a Coconut Grove pal and well respected hit song maker from the early Sixties New York folk scene. Capitol had decided to give him a budget so he called in his old friends and me, a newer friend, to record. I had arrived in L.A just a few days earlier on my own journey. The timing of immediately going into Capitol Records, descending down into their almost sacred cavernous honeycombed basement studios and experience how the big dogs do it was priceless, and it felt  even cosmically connected.
Eric Hord walks into the session. I jumped up to shake his hand, 
    “You probably don’t remember but you gave my lead guitar player your fuzz tone when you were in Florida with the Mama’s and Papa’s.”
    Eric started laughing. Then Van Dyke Parks was laughing and Vinnie was laughing, Joni’s husband on bass started laughing, Leon Russell’s engineer started laughing. 
    “You’re Right.” Eric said. “I don’t remember!”  

To get a PDF version of the whole book contact the author at buddyhelm@gmail.com

Paypal donations at Russell Buddy Helm

Drumming!!SUNDAY!! Sunday Sept. 6..

Drumming group on Zoom,, @ 4:00

PACIFIC

CALIFORNIA TIME!!

https://us05web!

.zoom.us/j/9024410218...

Meeting ID: 902 441 0218

Passcode: 053194

donations at:

Venmo: Russell Buddy Helm

also: Paypal: buddyhelm@gmail.com