Recording Sat, November 22, 2008

Earl Palmer, the session drummer who provided the drums for such classics as Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti,” Smiley Lewis’s “I Hear You Knockin’,” Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin,”‘ Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High,” Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ the Night Away,” The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” and so many more, has died. He was 84.

Palmer died Friday (Sept. 19) at his Los Angeles home after fighting a lengthy illness, his spokesman Kevin Sasaki said.

Born in New Orleans in 1924 and later moving to Los Angeles, Palmer worked extensively in both cities, recording with some of the music world’s all-time greats on thousands of tracks.
For more than 30 years, he was to play drums on the scores and soundtracks of many movies and television shows. His drum work was featured as well on a number of movie themes…like 1961’s “Judgment at Nuremberg,” “Hud,” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"…and popular television themes…including “I Dream of Jeannie,” “The Odd Couple,” “77 Sunset Strip,” and “The Brady Bunch.”

His career as a session drummer included work with Frank Sinatra, Phil Spector, Rick Nelson, Ray Charles, Eddie Cochran, Ritchie Valens, Bobby Day, Don and Dewey, Jan and Dean, Larry Williams, Gene McDaniels, Bobby Darin as well as jazz sessions with Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie, and appearing on blues recordings with B. B. King.