Bernard Purdie

Bernard Lee "Pretty" Purdie (born June 11, 1939) is an American session drummer, and is considered an influential and innovative exponent of funk. He is known for his strict musical time keeping and "The Purdie Shuffle".

Purdie recorded Soul Drums (1968) as a band leader and although he went on to record Alexander's Ragtime Band, the album remained unreleased until Soul Drums was reissued on CD in 2009 with the Alexander's Ragtime Band sessions. Other solo albums  include Purdie Good (1971), Soul Is...Pretty Purdie (1972) and the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film Lialeh (1973).

Purdie was credited on the soundtrack album for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) and more recently he was the drummer for the 2009 Broadway revival of Hair and appeared on the associated Broadway cast recording.

Biography
At an early age Purdie began hitting cans with sticks and learned the elements of drumming techniques from overhearing lessons being given by Leonard Heywood. He later took lessons from Heywood and played in Heywood's big band. Purdie's other influences at that time were Papa Jo Jones, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Joe Marshall, Art Blakey, as well as Cozy Cole, Sticks Evans, Panama Francis, Louis Bellson, and Herbie Lovelle.

In 1961 he moved from his home town of Elkton, Maryland, to New York. In order to be able to obtain a licence to perform in public (minimum age 21), Purdie claimed he was born in 1939, while in fact he was born in 1941. There he played sessions with Mickey and Sylvia and regularly visited the Turf Club on 50th and Broadway, where musicians, agents, and promoters met and touted for business. It was during this period that he played for the saxophonist Buddy Lucas, who nicknamed him 'Mississippi Bigfoot'. Eventually Barney Richmond contracted him to play session work. Later Bernard Purdie added drum overdubs to "several [tracks] of the Beatles' Hamburg recording" with Tony Sheridan, including "Ain't She Sweet", "Take Out Some Insurance on Me Baby" and "Sweet Georgia Brown". The main reason for this was to give them a punchier sound for the US market. These tracks were eventually released on January 31, 1964 by Polydor.

Purdie was contracted by arranger Sammy Lowe to play a session with James Brown in 1965 and recording session records also show that Purdie played on "Ain't That A Groove" at the same session. This was one of several sessions he played with Brown and the track "Kansas City" from Brown's album Cold Sweat (1967), displays one of the most sophisticated and driving shuffles recorded for Brown's catalogue. Purdie is also credited on the albums Say It Loud-I'm Black and I'm Proud (1969) and Get on the Good Foot (1972) on which "Ain't That A Groove" appeared.

Purdie started working with Aretha Franklin as musical director in 1970 and held that position for five years, as well as drumming for Franklin's opening act, King Curtis and The King Pins. In 1970 he performed with both bands at the Fillmore West; the resulting live recordings were released as Aretha Live at the Fillmore West (1971) and King Curtis's Live at Fillmore West (1971). His best known track with Franklin was "Rock Steady", on which he played what he described as "a funky and low down beat". Of his time with Franklin he once commented that "backing her was like floating in seventh heaven".

Encounter Records
In 1973 Purdie founded Encounter Records and released five albums


 * EN 3000: Seldon Powell - Messin' With
 * EN 3001: Sands of Time - Profile (with Jimmy Owens, Garnett Brown)
 * EN 3002: East Coast - East Coast (with Larry Blackmon, Gwen Guthrie)
 * EN 3003: Frank Owens - Brown N Serve (with Hugh McCracken)
 * EN 3004: Harold Vick as "Sir Edward" - The Power of Feeling

Drumming style


Purdie is known as a groove drummer with immaculate timing and makes use of precision half note, backbeats, and grooves. Purdie's signature sixteenth note hi-hat lick pish-ship, pish-ship, pish-ship is distinct and hard to copy and he is known for his versatility. He often employs a straight eight groove sometimes fusing several influences such as swing, blues and funk. He created now well-known drum patterns such as the Purdie shuffle, Half-Time Purdie Shuffle, also the Bernard Purdie half-time feel shuffle that is a blues shuffle variation with the addition of syncopated ghost notes on the snare drum. Variations on this shuffle can be heard on songs such as Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain", Death Cab For Cutie's "Grapevine Fires", and Toto's "Rosanna" (Rosanna shuffle). Purdie's shuffle can be heard on Steely Dan's "Babylon Sisters" and "Home At Last".

Albums

 * Soul Drums Direction (1968)
 * Stand By Me Mega (1971)
 * Purdie Good Prestige (1971)
 * Soul Is ... Pretty Purdie Flying Dutchman (1972)
 * Lialeh - Bryan (1973)
 * Shaft - Prestige (1974)
 * Delights of the Garden Celluloid (1975)
 * Purdie As a Picture - Kilarnock (1993)
 * Tokyo Jazz Groove Sessions - Lexington (1993)
 * Coolin' 'n' Groovin' - Lexington/West 47th 1993 (1993)
 * After Hours with The 3B's - 3B's (1993)
 * The Hudson River Rats - 3B's (1994)
 * Kick N Jazz Drum Beat Blocks (1996)
 * Soul to Jazz I Act(1997)
 * In the Pocket P Vine (1997)
 * Soul to Jazz II Act (1998)
 * Get It While You Can 3B's (1999)
 * Purdie Good Cookin' Own Label (2003)

Contributions

 * Jack McDuff - A Change Is Gonna Come (Atlantic, 1966)
 * Freddie McCoy - Funk Drops (Prestige, 1966)
 * Gabor Szabo - Jazz Raga (Impulse!, 1966)
 * Benny Golson - Tune In, Turn On (Verve, 1967)
 * James Brown - Cold Sweat (1967)
 * King Curtis and his Kingpins - Instant Soul (1967)
 * Nina Simone - Nina Simone Sings the Blues (1967)
 * Tom Rush - The Circle Game (Elektra, 1968)
 * The Soul Finders - Sweet Soul Music (1968)
 * Freddie McCoy - Listen Here (Prestige, 1968)
 * Albert Ayler - New Grass (Impulse!, 1968)
 * Shirley Scott - Soul Song (Atlantic, 1968)
 * Jimmy McGriff - Electric Funk (Blue Note, 1969)
 * James Brown - Say It Loud-I'm Black & I'm Proud (1969)
 * Sonny Phillips - Sure 'Nuff (Prestige, 1969)
 * Al Kooper - You Never Know Who Your Friends Are (1969)
 * Gary Burton - Good Vibes (Atlantic, 1969)
 * Shirley Scott - Shirley Scott & the Soul Saxes (Atlantic, 1969)
 * Yusef Lateef - Yusef Lateef's Detroit (Atlantic, 1969)
 * Boogaloo Joe Jones - Boogaloo Joe (Prestige, 1969)
 * Johnny "Hammond" Smith - Soul Talk (Prestige, 1969)
 * Gene Ammons - The Boss Is Back! and Brother Jug! (Prestige, 1969)
 * Rusty Bryant - Night Train Now! (Prestige, 1969)
 * Dizzy Gillespie - Cornucopia (Solid State, 1969)
 * Johnny "Hammond" Smith - Black Feeling! (Prestige, 1969)
 * Sonny Phillips - Black on Black! (Prestige, 1970)
 * Johnny "Hammond" Smith - Here It 'Tis (Prestige, 1970)
 * Boogaloo Joe Jones - Right On Brother (Prestige, 1970), No Way! (Prestige, 1970), What It Is (Prestige, 1971)
 * Aretha Franklin - Young, Gifted and Black (1972)
 * James Brown - Get On the Good Foot (1972)
 * Larry Coryell - Coryell (1969)
 * BB King - Completely Well (1970)
 * Robert Palmer's Insect Trust - Hoboken Saturday Night (1970)
 * Charles Kynard - Afro-Disiac (Prestige, 1970)
 * Eddie Palmieri - Harlem River Drive (1970)
 * Five Stairsteps - O-o-h Child (1970)
 * Charles Kynard - Wa-Tu-Wa-Zui (Beautiful People) (Prestige, 1970)
 * Houston Person - Houston Express (Prestige, 1970)
 * Eddie Harris and Les McCann - Second Movement (Atlantic, 1971)
 * Aretha Franklin - Aretha Live at Fillmore West (1971)
 * King Curtis - Live at Fillmore West (1971)
 * Johnny Hammond - Wild Horses Rock Steady (Kudu, 1971)
 * Larry Coryell - Fairyland (1971)
 * Herbie Mann - Push Push (1971)
 * Dizzy Gillespie - The Real Thing (1971)
 * Hubert Laws - Wild Flower (Atlantic, 1972)
 * Aretha Franklin - Amazing Grace (1972)
 * Esther Phillips - Alone Again Naturally (1972)
 * Miles Davis - Get Up with It (1972)
 * Ronnie Foster - Sweet Revival (1972)
 * BB King - Guess Who (1973)
 * Cat Stevens - Foreigner (1973)
 * Hall & Oates - Abandoned Luncheonette (1973)
 * Jimmy McGriff - Come Together (1974)
 * Joe Cocker - I Can Stand a Little Rain (1974)
 * Rusty Bryant - Until It's Time for You to Go (Prestige, 1974)
 * Bama The Village Poet - Ghettos Of The Mind  (1974)
 * Cornell Dupree - Teasin' (1975)
 * Todd Rundgren - Initiation (1975)
 * Jorge Dalto - Chevere (1976)
 * Hummingbird - We Can't Go On Meeting Like This (1976)
 * Steely Dan - The Royal Scam (1976)
 * Steely Dan - Aja (1977)
 * Hummingbird - Diamond Nights (1977)
 * Pee Wee Ellis - Home in the Country (1977)
 * Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson - You Can't Make Love Alone (1977)
 * Joe Cocker - Luxury You Can Afford (1978)
 * Dizzy Gillespie - Digital at Montreux, 1980 (Pablo, 1980)
 * Steely Dan - Gaucho (1980)
 * Jimmy McGriff - Blue to the Bone (1988)
 * Oliver Darley - Introducing Oliver Darley (2001)
 * Elliott Randall - Still Reelin (2006)
 * Hair - Broadway Cast Recording (2009)
 * Chihiro Yamanaka - Reminiscence (2011)
 * Mick Taylor - 2012 East Coast appearances.