88 Years Ago Today: The Stranglers' Founding Drummer Jet Black Was Born

Brian John Duffy was born August 26, 1938, in Ilford, Essex, England, per Wikipedia. He spent his twenties and thirties as a businessman, not a musician: he owned a fleet of ice cream vans, one of which later toured the UK with the band in its early years, and ran a Guildford off-licence called The Jackpot whose upstairs apartment doubled as unofficial Stranglers headquarters. He also sold some of the earliest home brewing equipment on the market.

Duffy did not become a full-time professional musician, or take the stage name Jet Black, until the mid-1970s. He met guitarist Hugh Cornwell, then playing in a band called Johnny Sox, after Cornwell answered an ad Black had placed in Melody Maker. Cornwell joined Black's band in 1974. The two are both credited as co-founders of what became The Stranglers, and in his mid-30s when the band coalesced, Black was notably older than most of his UK punk scene peers.

The Stranglers broke out of the UK pub-rock scene and into the front rank of British punk and new wave, opening UK tour dates for the Ramones and Patti Smith before racking up hits of their own. Per Billboard's obituary, Black kept the beat on 23 UK top 40 singles and 19 top 40 albums, including "Golden Brown," "Peaches," and "No More Heroes." Wikipedia describes his usual approach as simple and jazz-influenced, though songs like "Duchess" and "Down in the Sewer" show a faster, more frantic side of his playing. In the mid-1980s he set acoustic drums aside for studio work in favor of an electronic Simmons kit, most notably on the "Feline" and "Aural Sculpture" albums.

Health problems, mostly respiratory, chased Black through his final decade on the road. Per Wikipedia, he took planned breaks in 2007 and 2008, was hospitalized before a 2012 gig, and by the mid-2010s was playing only part of the band's sets, with drum technician Ian Barnard or later drummer Jim Macaulay covering the rest. His final Stranglers performance came March 20, 2015, at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, and his departure from the band was officially confirmed in 2018, also per Wikipedia. Former bandmate Hugh Cornwell, who had not spoken to Black since leaving the group in 1990 per Wikipedia, said on his death: "We shared a special period of our lives when we strived to become professional musicians... The Stranglers' success was founded on his determination and drive."

Black's practical streak followed him into music. He patented a "Power Bass Drum Pedal" designed to let a kick drum sit anywhere on a cramped stage and still play properly, per Wikipedia. He also wrote about the band's most notorious brush with the law: The Stranglers were blamed for riots in Nice, France, and Black turned the episode into two short books, "Much Ado About Nothing" and a 2010 follow-up, "Seven Days in Nice," per Wikipedia. He died of respiratory problems at his home in Wales on December 6, 2022, at age 84, confirmed by both Wikipedia and Billboard's obituary.

Black's drumming leaned on a simple kit and a clean, controllable head rather than anything flashy, the same foundation plenty of punk and new wave drummers of his generation reached for.