Skip to main contentBernard "Pretty" Purdie has had a lot of bosses in his five-decade career. As "the world's most-recorded drummer," he can't even remember them all. But nobody forgets working for James Brown—and not necessarily because he was a benevolent employer. One night, Purdie himself became a victim of the Godfather of Soul's practice of punishing his musicians for mistakes made onstage. In the middle of a performance, Brown heard something that disrupted his rhythm. He blamed Purdie, and fined him $25. After the gig, Purdie insisted it wasn't he who committed the flub. Brown said the decision was final; Purdie responded by giving his two weeks' notice.
"Nobody in the band believed I was leaving, or even that I stood up for myself," he says. That is, until two weeks later, when the tour bus continued to the next date and Purdie went home. "[Brown] was the biggest thing, as far as I'm concerned, in the world. But it wasn't about ego for me; it was my pride."
It might not have been about ego in that case, but make no mistake: As Purdie readily admits, he has "the biggest ego you can possibly have." But, he adds, it's one he has earned. At age 70, Purdie has played on so many records it's almost impossible to nail down an exact number. By his count, at least half have been hits. The list of artists he has supported reads like a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame roster: Aretha Franklin (for whom he served as music director), the Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, Miles Davis, B.B. King. (He even claims, somewhat infamously, to have drummed on more than 20 early Beatles tracks credited to Ringo Starr; when he made the allegations in the mid-1980s, Purdie says he received death threats.)
At one point, Purdie would whisk in and out of so many sessions per day he never even bothered to figure out whom he was laying down tracks for. "In a day's time," he says, "I'd do Nina Simone in the morning and afternoon. In the late afternoon, you're doing somebody else, maybe Roberta Flack or Donny Hathaway. At night, it might be James Brown. Then maybe in the morning it was a commercial." Eventually, he took to entering studios and putting up a sign declaring himself "The Hitmaker."
"By the time I was 25, my head was so big I had to walk through the door sideways," he says.
Time has hardly slowed him down. A rotund, gray-flecked ball of energy, the Maryland-born Purdie, who lives in New York but keeps an office in Portland, currently plays a few nights a week in a Broadway production of Hair, is producing four albums this year, and still manages to fit in his own concert dates. As much as he works, however, Purdie remains a background figure in the history of popular music. His signature rhythm, known as the Purdie Shuffle, is a touchstone for drummers, and his funky solo records are prized by vinyl junkies and beat-makers (asked if he enjoys being sampled, Purdie says, "I enjoy it even more when they pay me"), but his name is largely unknown to the general public. Not that he minds—"It's not about you, it's about them," he says of his job as a session player. And besides, he ain't retired yet.
"My day is still coming," he says.
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie plays Jimmy Mak's on Friday, April 16, at 7 pm (all ages) and 9:30 pm (21+). $25-$30 (or $90 for a "Jazz Pass," see souldoutfestival.com for details).
WWeek 2015