Percussionist Jim Brock needs no introduction to those in the music industry. He has during his career played live with and recorded on the projects of such esteemed artists as Kim Carnes, John Melencamp, Al Kooper, Brandford Marsalis, Victor Wooten, Hootie and the Blowfish, Kathy Mattea, Hal Ketchum, Janis Ian, Joan Baez and Bebo Norman.    He has however remained one of those artists who has remained untarnished from the lure of developing an insensitive ego, and has not become jaded by a music industry that from a fan’s perspective can sometimes appear glamorous, but often does not return to the artists the financial rewards that one would assume, once the labels, management and other business expenses take their toll on earnings. Brock understands the importance of investing everything that he has in terms of his passion, creativity and talent into making music that gives the listener far more than empty hooks or hollow drumbeats. He is a man who also has never stopped being grateful for the opportunities and compliments that have come his way.

During my recent conversation with the warm and congenial Brock, he related an event from a recent performance. “Last week a man who must have been eighty years old wanted to come back stage and he didn’t care who was going to try to stop him. The stage guys told me about this old guy and said that he didn’t need to be up there.  (They said) he was liable to get hurt. (The stage guys) told me he wanted to talk to me really bad and they asked me if I could meet him halfway so something didn’t fall on his head. He (the old man) shook my hand, and he hung onto it for the longest time. He told me that he felt everything that I was playing (Brock’s voice gets emotional). I thought wow, of everyone in the audience that he would be the last one to get it. That is what keeps me packing my bags and going out there.” 

On his website (www.jimbrock.net), Brock continues to enrich the lives of others through the section he has named Tips And Tricks, which any aspiring drummer would do well to check out.  “Websites are places people can go and learn something about me, who I have played with or where I am playing, but I wanted to give them something else. I wanted to get them involved in it without the website just being all about me. I get a lot of comments on that page, and people thank me for it because they walk away with something more than just what I have done. Now they can take something with them that they can use. I wish more sites and more players would do that. Maybe they could put a little notation or lesson on their (website).  A lot of people will keep what they have to themselves and they will horde it. I don’t see it that way. If I discover some trick or something, then I should share it with people so they can better themselves. They appreciate it too. I see a lot of things in the younger guys that they are doing wrong or (something) they don’t even know exists and this is a way to get to them. They don’t know that they don’t know. They might remember something that they read from that page that will help them out. We are all in this together,” he says.

I had noticed in one of the videos on Jim Brock’s website that during a performance he would place his elbow down on the head of the drum. “It is just one of my quirky things that I do.  Applying pressure on the head with my elbow makes the head bend. It gives you a (he imitates a sound). What you saw was the floor tom, and it is a big drum. It takes a lot to bend the head far enough to get a difference in pitch. I use my elbow so I have a whole lot of weight behind it,” Brock explains.

 September 2007