{"id":13,"date":"2017-06-11T16:16:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-11T16:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/17\/transcription-aretha-franklin-chain-of\/"},"modified":"2017-06-21T18:01:48","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T18:01:48","slug":"transcription-aretha-franklin-chain-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/11\/transcription-aretha-franklin-chain-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Transcription: Aretha Franklin \u2014 Chain of Fools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;ve probably never heard of the drummer here, Roger Hawkins, but he played on <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Roger_Hawkins\">a bunch of huge records<\/a>, and must have one of the most divergent <i>personal fame : musical exposure<\/i> ratios ever. The song is Aretha Franklin&#8217;s Chain of Fools, and Hawkins&#8217;s playing on it is my idea of a perfect rock performance.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\" href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-SPSlhVLbcqY\/UVymQsRKjII\/AAAAAAAAC7o\/5M5_kZR3Shk\/s1600\/Finale+2008+-+%5Btranscription_chain-of-fools%5D_Page_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Finale-2008-transcription_chain-of-fools_Page_1.jpg\" width=\"247\" height=\"320\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>There&#8217;s a fair amount of repetition, which I&#8217;ve indicated with slashes to make it read a little easier\u2014 where those are present, just keep playing the main groove for that section. The snare drum is played strongly throughout, except notes in parenthesis, which are played softly.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pdxdrummer.com\/downloads\/lessons_downloads\/transcriptions\/pdxdrummer.com_transcription_chain-of-fools.pdf\">Get the pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Audio and background on Hawkins after the break:<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"more\"><\/a><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gGAiW5dOnKo\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>From the comments, Ed Pierce, a great drummer living in Portland has more about Hawkins for us:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p>Jerry Wexler (the great producer of a ton of stuff on Atlantic Records, including Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Solomon Burke, etc.) apparently called Hawkins the &#8220;greatest drummer in the world.&#8221; Wexler fell in love with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (which included Hawkins on drums)around 1966 or so, and after that he started using them on a bunch of sessions for Atlantic artists. After Aretha&#8217;s first recording session down in Muscle Shoals didn&#8217;t work out too well, Wexler started flying the band up to New York to be the backup band on her recordings. I find it amusing (and testament to Hawkins&#8217; and the other musicians&#8217; skills) that in the largest city in America, with a plethora of phenomenal musicians to choose from, Wexler instead chose to import a bunch of musicians from tiny Mussel Shoals, Alabama to get the sound he wanted on Aretha&#8217;s records. I have an Atlantic compilation of Solomon Burke tunes, and all of the sessions in the early to mid-sixties use great New York session drummers&#8211;Panama Francis, Bobby Donaldson, Gary Chester, Bernard Purdie, but starting around 1966 Roger Hawkins started playing on all the sessions. The New York guys were great, but they were a little lighter sounding in their approach. Hawkins had that gritty Southern Soul feel that Wexler apparently was looking for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;ve probably never heard of the drummer here, Roger Hawkins, but he played on a bunch of huge records, and must have one of the most divergent personal&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[495,491],"tags":[14,15,16,17,18,19],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rockfunk","category-transcriptions","tag-downloads","tag-rnb","tag-roger-hawkins","tag-soul","tag-transcription","tag-transcriptions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1333,"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/1333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdxdrummer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}