John Lingan
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John Lingan
@johnlingan.bsky.social
1.4K followers 620 following 1.8K posts
Writer. "Homeplace," about Patsy Cline's hometown. "A Song for Everyone," about CCR. "BACKBEATS: A History of Rock and Roll in 15 Drummers" is out on 11/11/25.

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One of my favorite pieces of writing, this Gary Giddins paragraph about “the miracle of the blues.”
The miracle of the blues is its endurance, which is probably inseparable from its elemental logic and its strenuous integrity. Almost anyone can be led to a piano and taught to hammer out the rudiments of a blues chorus. It takes only a matter of minutes to learn. Yet pianists who are great virtuosos in other idioms have spent years shoveling one blues chorus after another without getting close to a genuinely creative or satisfying blues. American born and bred, the blues is quintessentially American in form and function. It epitomizes progress and transition. Unlike the symphony, sonata, or concerto, the blues has no beginning, middle, or end. It is a building block; the number of blocks, or choruses, required to complete the building is usually decided on the spur of the moment. Not only have millions of such choruses been played without exhausting the form and its possibilities, but the fact of its constancy has underscored the challenge of keeping it meaningful. The blues remains the outer domain of musical exploration. You enter every chorus at peril, tempted by cliché and banality. Yet when you negotiate the trip per-fectly, whether a single stanza or a whole series of them finessed with expeditious turnbacks, nothing in art is more satisfying.
November 13, 2025 at 10:19 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
In 2019, he finally released Tuscaloosa, an archival set from the Buttrey half of the tour, which includes Harvest songs alongside the wilder new tunes like "Time Fades Away" and "Don't Be Denied," and the result is more coherent and better recorded, and doesn't sound difficult to make like it apparently was. Buttrey is as good onstage as he is in the studio, and the band is closer to Harvest's acoustic dirge-folk style than the official live record. However, those of us who love this era of Young's music don't necessarily overvalue coherence. We love the tumbledown glory of songs that sound like they could fall apart at any second, where the time between bass drum downbeat and snare drum backbeat feels impossibly long, where the one thing holding it all together is the pained-sounding man's strained voice. The back cover of HARVEST, featuring the Stray Gators in Neil’s barn.
November 12, 2025 at 4:21 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Happy 80th birthday to Neil Young, an Olympian figure and the subject of some of the funniest quotes in BACKBEATS thanks to his tempestuous relationship with Kenny Buttrey.

“Neil hires some of the best musicians in the world and has 'em play as stupid as they possibly can.”
Neil Young was among the folk rockers to follow Dylan's lead to Music City. He was still largely known as a crunchy electric guitarist at that point; he used distortion to signify joy and abandon on "Cinnamon Girl" and heartbreak on "Ohio." But his recent songs had been written during extensive physical recovery, like Dylan's had been, and were calmer for it. Buttrey, along with Tim Drummond on bass, Jack Nitzsche on piano, and Ben Keith on pedal steel, became Young's Nashville band, which he dubbed the Stray Gators. Harvest, the record they made together, was Young's biggest in every way. It featured a full orchestra on multiple tracks, two career-defining singles ("Old Man" and "Heart of Gold," his first number 1), guest background vocalists Ronstadt and James Taylor, and some of his best songwriting, particularly the straightforwardly country title track. Buttrey helped Young achieve that, even if their relationship was hardly chummy. "Neil tells everybody what to play, note for note," Buttrey said later. "If you play somethin' he doesn't like, boy, he'll put a look on you you'll never forget. Neil hires some of the best musicians in the world and has 'em play as stupid as they possibly can." Young told Buttrey not to play cymbals, and to hit his hi-hats with his nondominant left hand. Everything about Neil Young was defiant— his overdriven guitar tones, his nasal high tenor, the mix of unaffected directness and inscrutable poeticism in his lyrics. And that extended to his sense of rhythm. The prehistoric stomp of his work with Crazy Horse, like his distinctive hammer-on acoustic guitar style, was all about riding a groove, and the ambitious productions of Harvest didn't get in the way of that goal. "Out on the Weekend" and especially "Harvest" have a methodical, subdued gait that comes directly from Young's strumming, not the drums, as Buttrey acknowledged. The strings of Young's guitar fill the spaces where cymbals would otherwise go. "It's just ultra-, ultra-simple, a laidback kinda thing nobody but Neil does, and if you're right with him it sounds great, and it sounds awful if you're not," Buttrey explained. "If I can't see Neil's right hand when he's playin' guitar, then I'm not playing. His rhythm playing is just perfect—it'll feel like he's slowing down, but it's just the Neil Young feel. No drummer should ever hold Neil to a certain tempo, because if you put a metronome on it, you kill the Neil Young feel." After the success of Harvest, Young brought the Stray Gators on a 1973 tour, the first time Buttrey had allowed himself to be lured out of the studio and on the road. Supposedly the drummer requested an exorbitant payment of $100,000 to offset his lost record-making wages, which prompted the other musicians to ask the same. The anger never abated between Buttrey and Young, who was also reeling from the recent overdose death of his friend and Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten. Increasingly reliant on tequila to calm his nerves, playing in bigger venues than ever before, and bereft of his harder-rocking backing group, Young was at his wits end through this tour and took it out on Buttrey. "Neil would just jump all over me," Buttrey said. Young kept hectoring him to hit the bass drum harder and get bigger sticks, and Buttrey kept buying thicker and thicker ones until a music store clerk told him, "Son, anything bigger than this is gonna have bark on it." Young once got so angry he punctured Buttrey's snare with a drumstick during a sound check. "I was playin' ten times louder than I had ever played in my life," the drummer recalled. "I was tryin' thicker heads, bigger sticks. It was drivin' me crazy. I looked down at the snare drums one night and saw somethin' splatter. My hand would bleed, it was drippin' down the stick and formed a big puddle on the snare. And when I hit the drum, blood would fly through the air.. It was the roughest time of my life." He quit midway through the tour, and the other musicians, Young included, plowed ahead in wretched shape from overdrinking. Incredibly, Young released a live album from this tour, Time Fades Away, though he chose performances from the leg that featured Jefferson Airplane drummer Johnny Barbata as Buttrey's replacement. It also contained only raw and rowdy new songs, recorded sparely, not the recent melodic hits that made his fame. In the longer context of his career, especially the chilling records that followed in Young's "ditch trilogy," it remains an exhilarating album, with songs that aren't found elsewhere in his catalog and a bleary, brown sound to match its cover. Yet Young basically disowned it, and let it fall out of print for nearly fifty years.
November 12, 2025 at 4:18 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Bellson rockin’
November 11, 2025 at 4:56 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
BACKBEATS is out today!

Come see me & @andreapitzer.bsky.social at Kramers in DC tonight at 7: kramers.com/events/36367...

DM me a receipt if you’d like a signed book plate in the mail.

And read an excerpt in @rollingstone.com: www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...
Cover of BACKBEATS Interior photo pages featuring Ringo, the Stones, the MGs and more. PRAISE FOR BACKBEATS "[Exhibits] passion and deep knowledge... The only moments I put this book down were to pause and listen to the perfect examples that Lingan, a drummer himself, cites as crucial.... Here we see and hear the music of our lives." -BILL JANOVITZ, author of Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time's Journey Through Rock & Roll History "A thrilling ride... In exquisite detail and deft prose, John Lingan relates the creative insights and technical mastery of fifteen of rock's most influential groove merchants-many still unsung. In doing so, he reclaims the rock narrative from all those frontmen and guitarists, showing how the wizards at the back of the stage were moving the music all along." -IAN S. PORT, author of The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll "An intelligent, heartfelt, and long-overdue tribute to the unsung heroes of modern music. Because, let's face it—if it ain't got that swing, it don't mean a thing." -BRAD TOLINSKI, coauthor of Play It Loud: An Epic History of the Style, Sound, and Revolution of the Electric Guitar "Backbeats glows with enthusiasm and delivers an insightful glimpse into the sultans of swing who create fire by rubbing two sticks together." —BOB SPITZ, author of The Beatles: The Biography and Led Zeppelin: The Biography "Sitting ten feet from stardom, drummers have had a central but slightly removed view of rock 'n' roll. A drummer himself, John Lingan captures that unique perspective.... Backbeats delivers to the reader something fresh and different. It's a hit." -PRESTON LAUTERBACH, author of The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock A sticker book plate
November 11, 2025 at 1:56 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Great publication-eve surprise at @solidstatebooksdc.bsky.social, where BACKBEATS is already on sale. Find it between Geddy Lee and Gucci Mane.
A bookshelf with my book included.
November 10, 2025 at 11:47 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
BACKBEATS is out tomorrow! And you can read an excerpt of the Charlie Watts chapter at @rollingstone.com, including one of my fav interviews, Steve Albini.

www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

As always, preorder at johnlingan.com
'HE MARCHES RIGHT THROUGH THE SONG': STEVE ALBINION HOW CHARLIE WATTS'S SNARE DEFINED THE ROLLING STONES In his new book 'Backbeats,' John Lingan explores what made drummers like Watts so extraordinary By JOHN LINGAN NOVEMBER 8, 2025
November 10, 2025 at 3:06 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
If you or a loved one would like your copy of BACKBEATS signed, DM me your receipt and I’ll mail you one of these bookplates.

johnlingan.com to preorder
A BACKBEATS sticker bookplate
November 7, 2025 at 3:48 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
About to mail these to three of my drumming heroes. One originally from Melbourne (Aus), one from Brighton (UK), and one from San Francisco. First person to guess any of them wins a copy for themselves.
Three copies of BACKBEATS: A History of Rock and Roll in 15 Drummers, out 11/11/25!
November 5, 2025 at 3:13 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Saw Richard Thompson last night. This beautiful man has written some of my favorite songs, played many of my favorite guitar solos, and somehow he’s also been shockingly kind to me. A legend in every way.
Me and Richard Thompson, who wanted to hold my new book. Richard Thompson’s blurb for my previous book, one of the great honors of my life.
November 3, 2025 at 2:44 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Why yes, this is an autumn sweater and no, I don’t care that two women just burst out laughing at the sight of me.
A truly psychedelic sweater in black, blue, and neon yellow. Ridiculous and hideous.
November 1, 2025 at 4:38 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Thank you @jsief.bsky.social for this smoldering pic of Hal Blaine so we can see the eyes that seduced Earl “Not Gay or Nothing” Palmer.
Drummer Hal Blaine, about to steal your girl.
October 25, 2025 at 8:21 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Today is the birthday of Earl Palmer, a crucial architect of rock and roll drumming and a mentor to another legend, Hal Blaine. Here’s a bit about the two of them from BACKBEATS.
Palmer grew up as a child dancer in his family's traveling act and made his way as a solo performer on the Chitlin' Circuit of Black-owned venues during the era of segregation. He was already a jazz drummer of note before fighting in World War Il, but when he returned from Italy, rhythm and blues was the rage, and the rest is rock and roll as we know it. He played on "The Fat Man," "Tutti Frutti," "Tipitina," and perhaps the era's exemplary single, Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'," where his relentless snare and supple right foot practically invented rock and roll drumming as an art form. Palmer shepherded the new attitude into the mainstream as surely as Elvis, if less visibly. He claimed to have developed his style while trying to keep pace with Little Richard's manic right hand on the piano. Palmer was new to LA at the time but had played on a few instant classics of the growing teen-focused market, including Sam Cookes "You Send Me." Talking with Hal Blaine, an East Coast Jewish son of immigrants, Palmer took him for a guy who really hustled, a bit of a mouth but humble and hardworking. He was no overeager line-jumper, either. He'd paid his dues and could really play. Palmer was sold. He said he'd recommend Blaine for sessions he was too busy to take, and those came up often; there were more teenage record buyers every year. Record-making wasn't slowing down, and there weren't enough drummers in town who could play with a proper rock and roll feel. Palmer respected anyone who could manage the work. Maybe by following along with this master, the upstart Blaine would have a personal connection to the guy who created the mold. Oh, and another thing. "I ain't gay or nothing," Palmer remembered, "but Hal Blaine was a good-looking guy. I'm sorry, but Hal had pretty eyes."
October 25, 2025 at 4:34 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Printing this graphic out and framing it for my kitchen.
A video-play graphic of Shohei Ohtani pointing an index finger at a giant text reading “HOME COOKIN’”
October 18, 2025 at 2:06 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Black Love by the Afghan Whigs
October 15, 2025 at 11:54 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Still reeling from the D’Angelo news. The final chapter of my forthcoming book is about Questlove, who has said he considers Voodoo his own proudest accomplishment. A landmark in J Dilla’s legacy too, even if he doesn’t play a note. Monumental loss.
Questlove and his cohort showed that J Dillas influence extended to traditional instrumentalists as well. You could hear it on Ihings Fall Apart tracks like "Act Too (Love of My Life)," where the backbeat always seems to take just a second longer than it should to arrive. But he explored it most fully and fascinatingly in a record that Questlove has said was the high point of his entire career: D'Angelo's Voodoo. D'Angelo was a Virginia-born crooner in a familiar throwback mold: he collaborated with Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill, for example, and his first album, Brown Sugar, fit squarely in their realm of restrained, hip-hop-inspired R & B. But D'Angelo was as prickly and determined an artist as any, and his seemingly effortless music took ages to gestate. By the time he met Questlove, years had passed since Brown Sugar, and like the drummer, he was less concerned about completing a new record than he was about finding a new way of communicating with music. He wanted to work with the same breadth of intent as Marvin Gaye or Prince, but in ways that felt modern, not retro. You can imagine how he reacted to Jay Dee. Suddenly here it was, a new feel altogether: disjointed, laid-back, nearly breaking apart but never getting there. R & B music with J Dilla beats could be the essence hed been searching for. But it would take a band that was good enough to "unlearn" proper musicianship in the way that Dilla made his machines do. Questlove desperately wanted to play a role. At a Roots show with D'Angelo in the audience, the drummer subtly changed his playing style and quoted drum parts and fills from Prince records, 236 BACKBEATS which he knew would attract the singer's attention. When they started socializing and visiting the studio together, the band filled out with keyboardist James Poyser from the Roots and British session bassist Pino Palladino. Jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove added textures, and J Dilla was in the room most of the time as well, not as a contributor but as a kind of oracle. The album sessions took years, developing through endless late-night jams at Electric Lady Studios, Hendrix's own Manhattan for-tress. They were working out new grooves, like any band in search of a shared language, and Questlove was dauntless in his search for inspiration. He even brought back bootleg VHS tapes of old Soul Train episodes from Europe so they could watch the classic performances at Electric Lady. But the group's "North Stars" were Prince and J Dilla. Prince was of course a wizard with acoustic and electronic drums in any combination, but his steady robotic funk was the exact opposite of Dilla's artful sloppiness, and D'Angelo wanted a live band that could play both. Questlove and Palladino worked hard to separate the bass and drums like Dilla could, which is harder than it sounds. Musicians typically look for a shared beat, not a means of lagging behind one another on purpose. When Voodoo finally came out in early 2000, it was recognized as a major statement, won two Grammys, and turned D'Angelo into a star, especially after his nude appearance in the video for the incredible single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)." Questlove, always happy to explain his artistic intentions, wrote that the record was reflective of the group's "love for the dead state of black music, a love to show [their) idols how much they taught [them]," and listed Slum Village among their ancestors. Voodoo was the first time that live musicians made use of J Dillas rhythmic innovations. There have been Dilla-inspired jazz groups and orchestral compositions since, but Questlove brought that approach furthest, all the way to the pop realm. After J Dilla died in 2006 of a rare blood disorder, at age thirty-two, his legend only grew, and now Questlove carries his old friend's legacy in multiple ways as a constant presence in the books and films about him, and with his sticks.
October 15, 2025 at 3:35 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Can I say I’m proud of this back cover full of praise from writers I really respect? I am. @billjanovitz.bsky.social fer gods sake!
Praise for BACKBEATS "[Exhibits] passion and deep knowledge... The only moments I put this book down were to pause and listen to the perfect examples that Lingan, a drummer himself, cites as crucial.... Here we see and hear the music of our lives." -BILL JANOVITZ, author of Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time's Journey Through Rock & Roll History "A thrilling ride... In exquisite detail and deft prose, John Lingan relates the creative insights and technical mastery of fifteen of rock's most influential groove merchants-many still unsung. In doing so, he reclaims the rock narrative from all those frontmen and guitarists, showing how the wizards at the back of the stage were moving the music all along." -IAN S. PORT, author of The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock 'n' Roll "An intelligent, heartfelt, and long-overdue tribute to the unsung heroes of modern music. Because, let's face it—if it ain't got that swing, it don't mean a thing." -BRAD TOLINSKI, coauthor of Play It Loud: An Epic History of the Style, Sound, and Revolution of the Electric Guitar "Backbeats glows with enthusiasm and delivers an insightful glimpse into the sultans of swing who create fire by rubbing two sticks together." —BOB SPITZ, author of The Beatles: The Biography and Led Zeppelin: The Biography "Sitting ten feet from stardom, drummers have had a central but slightly removed view of rock 'n' roll. A drummer himself, John Lingan captures that unique perspective.... Backbeats delivers to the reader something fresh and different. It's a hit." -PRESTON LAUTERBACH, author of The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock
October 12, 2025 at 1:39 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
BACKBEATS is out one month from today and it’s a real book! One that Kirkus says is great! johnlingan.com to preorder.
BACKBEATS A HISTORY of ROCK AND ROLL' in FIFTEEN DRUMMERS JOHN LINGAN First page of the book’s intro. A two-page spread of photos featuring the Rollibg Stones, Earl Palmer, and more. "Fascinating reading...Loud but often overlooked, drummers get their due in this entertaining survey...Lingan does a terrific job explaining the technical aspects of drumming to a lay audience; this book is accessible to any rock fan, even ones who don't know the difference between a snare and a tom." —Kirkus Reviews
October 11, 2025 at 5:08 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
An incredible book built on small gestures and feelings about huge issues, and a male-female romance that I’d argue is actually a story about female friendship. Just gorgeous.
Her First American a novel Lore Segal
October 7, 2025 at 2:56 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
Are there any other people out there whose 2025 concert experiences included Vince Gill at the Opry and John Zorn at the Vanguard? Let’s meet up.

First time with venue and artist, ideal introduction for both. Incredible group, Zorn on fire, Wollesen one of my favorites, Lage is an alien.
Awning for the village vanguard Door and hand lettered gig poster: John Zorn Masada
September 24, 2025 at 4:43 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
When I hit the drum like this, I think the sound was there before the beginning, and everything has gone to make that sound, and after it everything is different.
September 23, 2025 at 8:37 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
My favorite writer? Most days. His books are hard enough to find, let alone signed first editions.
GERTRUDE OF STONY ISLAND AVENUE James Purdy James Purdy’s signature.
September 23, 2025 at 2:37 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
One way to put it.
DEAD MAN listed in the genre “Non-stop action”
September 21, 2025 at 12:54 AM
johnlingan.bsky.social
This novel—a 600-page faux anthropological study of a human society living in a post-apocalyptic Napa Valley 500 years from now, complete with drawings, maps, and songs—is one of the most audacious concepts I’ve ever come across. World-class opening sentence too.
URSULA K. LE GUIN ALWAYS COMING HOME Author's Expanded Edition Brian Attebery, editor THE LIBRARY OF AMERICA The people in this book might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California.
September 18, 2025 at 9:41 PM
johnlingan.bsky.social
THE NEPHEW by James Purdy
September 16, 2025 at 8:23 PM