The Meters - The Meters
This was an LP that had two songs I first heard on 45s. One of the pieces was called ‘Sophisticated Cissy’ and the other was ‘Cissy Strut’ - a lot of musicians know that song. Their drummer, Zigaboo [Joseph ‘Ziggy’ Modeliste], is a master of the tightest, loosest funk drumming ever. When that came out, that’s when I first started studying drums and I felt, if I could pick up that kind of thing, I would really be doing something. I was born in Louisiana but raised in Chicago, and hearing these guys playing this amazing funk, but also having a jazz background too and doing a combination of both things, gave me the inspiration to really want to go more deeply into this instrument. Because I grew up on rock & roll and funk, to hear Zigaboo play, the way he could break those grooves up but still stay right there, was very inspiring for me. To this day, the groove he plays on ‘Cissy Strut’ is one of the things that I’ll practice. It’s that New Orleans backbeat, mixed with a whole lot of other stuff.