34 Years Ago Today: Session Drummer Larrie Londin, Called 'The Greatest in the World,' Dies at 48

Larrie Londin was born Ralph Gallant on October 15, 1943, in Norfolk, Virginia, and got his start behind a drum kit purely by chance. Per Wikipedia's account of his career, a teenage Londin was working as a cook and dishwasher at a Norfolk nightclub when the house band's drummer failed to show up one night. He volunteered to fill in, despite never having touched a drum before. "I moved a lot of beer kegs and I mopped up every night," Londin recalled in a 1991 interview cited by American Songwriter. "One night the band's drummer didn't show up and I volunteered. I had never played a drum before but I figured it beat washing beer mugs and it paid better." He was almost entirely self-taught from there.

Londin's first big break came at Motown, where he and stage partner Eugene Bunten performed as "Lonnie and Larrie Londin" in a group called the Headliners, the first white act signed to a Motown label. When Funk Brothers session drummer Benny Benjamin suffered a heart attack, Motown owner Berry Gordy asked Londin to sub rather than cancel sessions, and Londin ended up playing on records by The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Jr. Walker & the All Stars. "I was scared to death," Londin recalled in the same interview, quoted by American Songwriter. "Here's all these great soul artists, and I'm this white boy from Norfolk, Virginia." Encouraged by guitarist Chet Atkins and singer-guitarist Jerry Reed, Londin moved to Nashville in 1969 and grew into the city's top session drummer, reportedly practicing eight to twelve hours a day and becoming one of the first American drummers to record extensively with electronic drums.

Londin's session credits span an unusually wide range of American music. He subbed for Ronnie Tutt in Elvis Presley's TCB Band in 1976 and 1977, a run that put him behind the kit for Presley's final two concerts, in Cincinnati and Indianapolis, and he played drums on the 1980 remix of "Guitar Man," Presley's final No. 1 hit on the country charts. He went on to record with B.B. King on 1982's Love Me Tender, with Journey on 1986's Raised on Radio, and with Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler on 1990's Neck and Neck, along with Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, and Lonnie Mack. Atkins introduced him from the stage during the 1991 Guitar Masters tour with a line American Songwriter's anniversary piece quotes directly: "Larrie Londin is the greatest drummer in the world, at least, that's my opinion, and it should be yours too." Unable to read standard music notation, Londin developed his own shorthand "stick charts" to work sessions, a system Wikipedia's account notes became common, if not widely publicized, practice among Nashville's session drummers.

On April 24, 1992, Londin suffered a heart attack and collapsed while teaching a drum clinic at the University of North Texas, according to Wikipedia's sourced account. He spent the next four months in a coma before he died in Nashville on August 24, 1992, at age 48. With his wife, Debbie, Londin had already founded D.O.G. Percussion, reportedly the Nashville area's first dedicated drum shop, and he'd spent years mentoring younger session players, including future top-call Nashville drummer Eddie Bayers. Modern Drummer magazine inducted him into its Hall of Fame posthumously in 1994, and in 1999, cymbal maker Sabian, with whom Londin had a longtime association, co-sponsored a benefit concert with the Percussive Arts Society that established an ongoing musician scholarship fund in his name.

Wikipedia's account of Londin's career doesn't pin down a specific model he played night to night, but it does document a longtime association with Sabian, the same cymbal maker that later co-sponsored his memorial scholarship fund.