Badoompa-doompa-doompa-doom

Graham Coster

• Stone Alone by Bill Wyman and Ray Coleman
  Viking, 594 pp, £15.99, October 1990, ISBN 0 670 82894 7
• Blown away: The Rolling Stones and the Death of the Sixties by A.E. Hotchner
  Simon and Schuster, 377 pp, £15.95, October 1990, ISBN 0 671 66316 X
• Are you experienced? The Inside Story of the Jimi Hendrix Experience by Noel Redding and Carol Appleby
  Fourth Estate, 256 pp, £14.99, September 1990, ISBN 1 872180 36 1
• I was a teenage Sex Pistol by Glen Matlock and Pete Silverton
  Omnibus, 192 pp, £12.95, September 1990, ISBN 0 7199 1817 0
• Bare by George Michael and Tony Parsons
  Joseph, 242 pp, £12.99, September 1990, ISBN 0 7181 3435 4

Everyone is agreed: it is the drummer who is most important. ‘No group is any better than its drummer,’ the Rolling Stones’ late piano player Ian Stewart tells A.E. Hotchner. ‘Drummers are the heart of a group,’ confirms Noel Redding of the Jimi Hendrix Experience: ‘a good one is worth his weight in gold.’ And here is the Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock on drummer Paul Cook: ‘that steady rhythm of his was the whole backbone of the Pistols’ sound.’ Then you have the singer, the showman – who probably does the lyrics too; and the lead guitarist, who probably comes up with the music; not forgetting the manager, even, without whom there would he no gigs, hotel rooms or backstage Jack Daniels on the contract rider.