Neil Peart was among a new generation of rock drummersĪs the ’70s began, drumming really broke loose with both feet. He has remained an ambassador of double bass drumming throughout his career including his work with Cactus Beck, Bogert and Appice Rod Stewart and a bunch of others. Appice, with his early band Vanilla Fudge, went to two bass drums in time for the band’s 1969 performance of “Shotgun” on the Ed Sullivan Show, seen by millions of Americans. On the East Coast, young Carmine Appice led the way to bona-fide, deliberately loud rock playing on a set of big-sized drums.

Though Moon’s best double bass recordings came in the ’70s, he did popularize the use of large double bass kits. The Who’s Keith Moon, tipped off to the idea by Ginger Baker, ordered and then employed two Premier bass drums in his wild onstage delivery, including standing on them (they were reinforced with braces for this). Some say he also played the two bass drums simultaneously to get more volume and power onstage, hoping to match the mountainous amps of bandmates Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce.ĭrummers like Mitch Mitchell of Jimi Hendrix Experience experimented with two kick drums for a while. This exponential growth of creative freedom, along with the growth of the television and radio stations that spread it, made using two bass drums a logical bit of experimentation. The ’60s were an incredibly fertile time for popular music, with much creative ground broken in many different styles, all at more or less the same stime. Drummers all over the nation copied the New York cats kits stayed small and bass drums stayed single. A double bass kit was the last thing busy metropolitan drummers needed. This was done not only for musical reasons but also for a very practical one - small drums fit easily into taxi cabs that moved the busy New York players from gig to gig. Be-bop further shrunk the trap set used by drummers and led to the popularity of smaller bass drums, such as the ubiquitous 20” x 14” and even the miniscule 18” x 14” sizes. New York in the ’50s and early ’60s saw more and more small combos playing jazz, including the be-bop, which was the new thing. But even as these pioneers mastered the double bass kit, paired kicks remained an oddity, awaiting a more open-minded era to break into popular use. Other swinging jazz drummers took Bellson’s lead and began using two bass drums, including Sam Woodyard (who followed Louie in the Ellington band), Rufus Jones, and Ed Shaughnessy, among others.

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