Hal Blaine
Psychedelic Percussion

When listening to a hit that's gone down in history, even if it's from another era, still echoing in the minds of more or less trained listeners, it's easy not to wonder who is responsible for certain instrumental details that are essential and vital for that specific pop creation. Listening to "Mrs. Robinson" by the New York duo Simon & Garfunkel, one certainly notices the percussions (the congas) that accompany Paul's guitar without being intrusive. Yet, few will know who's behind those percussions that so enchant within the framework of the song's composition. The matter becomes more complex, and not knowing becomes decidedly embarrassing when it comes to a musician who collected success after success as a collaborator, secluded behind his instrument, in the melodic-rhythmic construction. Shall we talk about "Mr. Tambourine Man", written by Bob Dylan, revisited by the Byrds, published by the Californian group in their first self-titled album? Great drums, aren't they!? But who's playing them? "The most sought-after drummer in the world between the second half of the '60s and the early '70s," aka Harold Simon Belsky, aka Hal Blaine.

There are many numbers to bring up, but someone might mistake me for one who sees the quantity of successes as determining the quality of an artist if I were to present them. They would be right, in most cases, but for artists like Hal Blaine, it can well be said, without fear of contradiction, that quality and quantity go hand in hand. A native of Holyoke (a city tied to the birth of modern volleyball), Blaine, at 15 years old, survived one of the greatest disasters in American history: the Hartford circus fire. It was 1945, and much water was still to pass under the bridge before the release, in 1963, of his first album titled "Hal Blaine (The Drummer Man) & The Young Cougars." Already in '64, he collaborated with Jack Nitzsche and the Ronettes. Hal became so recognizable, thanks to his omnipresence, that a special stamp would be created to apply to the sheet music and places where he played, "Hal Blaine Strikes Again." Not a minor recognition and a truly juicy anecdote, which should make everyone, including me, feel ashamed for taking so long to know him or worse, to even know just his name. In those golden years, guarantees of creativity, musical minds of the caliber of Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, and the Velvet Underground emerged. Don't think Blaine wasn't keeping up! A few sessions with the Beach Boys, absorbing some studio quirks, a bit of personal intuition, dictated by instrumental genius, were enough for him to conceive, in the height of the psychedelic period, an experimental album, in which the sound trend of the times fuses with avant-garde Jazz, in the form of improvisation. It was June 1967 when "Psychedelic Percussion" hit the stores.

The album is filled with pre-Ummagumma suggestions, foreshadowing, especially, certain electronic improvisations of Richard Wright on keyboards and drumming by Nick Mason, as is natural. The album title is a whole program. The atmosphere is creepy and sinister, the percussions are often frenetic, yet extraordinarily orthodox, so that the improvisation doesn't coincide with a chaos without head or tail. The tracks, all instrumental, each refer to a month of the year: it starts from December ("Love-In") to the following November ("Wiggy"). "Psychedelic Percussion" is a concept based on sounds that can easily recall, in retrospect, "Days of Future Passed" by the English Moody Blues, from December of the same year. Almost certainly, there is no connection between the two LPs, except that they both exist within the same Universe of Creativity, which in those years had its own raison d'être. Those were years (not experienced by yours truly) in which anything was possible, but at the same time, one couldn't afford to make mistakes or not contribute something original.

Still active at 88, fully "played" years, Hal is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame. What's happening!? Are you still red with shame? I still haven't completely gotten over it.