Black Sabbath-Jack the stripper/Fairies wear boots

Continuing on with drummer week I wanted to look at the drummer I had as number two on my list. Bill Ward was sometimes in the shadows somewhere behind Ozzy's nasal vocals and Tony Iommi's seemingly endless supply of heavy riffs. Ward was part of one of the absolute best rhythm sections of all time with Geezer Butler. Butler probably even gets more recognition at times than Ward, but I think both were stellar together and as individual players as well. One of the strengths of Sabbath as a group was this kind of organized chaos where they would have these kind of off beat pace changes that just happened and normally it would start with the guitar and the other two instruments would just follow suit. This was cool because it had a very spontaneous feel to it because there were brief pauses at times that almost made it sound like some guys just jamming. Yet if you listen closely you can here that everything was very planned out, but they didn't feel the need to have everything be so tight so still had this kind of off kilter feel to it. My selection to look at is Jack the stripper/Fairies wear boots off of the Paranoid album. I selected it because it's one of my favorites and because Bill Ward's playing here shows his mastery of the instrument. The opening instrumental part sees some nice smooth drum rolls here and there and a real nice resonance to the cymbols that is actually something you hear a lot in Ward's playing on the first say six Sabbath albums. Right before we go into the main riff of Faeries you will hear just a faint pause in Ward's drumming. It is slight, but it's very deliberate and it's this kind of attention to detail that I think made him so important to the band. You hear the hesitations in Ward's playing and I think that really shows his control and a ear for what would help control the rhythm without disturbing the overall flow of the song. This song has a few pace changes and it's normally a matter of the guitar just suddenly cuts and the drums and bass follow without hesitaion and it just sounds so automatic, but I don't think for a minute that it was as easy as it sounds. I think the true testement to Ward's playing is just that he was so outstanding and very on track without being overbearing yet he never gets swallowed up in all that's going on either. Just a magnificent player all the way around.

Tommorrow I will conclude my look at drummers with a look at the playing of John Bonham. I am not sure what song I will select yet. Then Saturday drummer week will conclude with something about the importance of drums in hard rock and metal.