Bruce Gary

Bruce Gary (7 April 1951 – 22 August 2006) was best known as the drummer for the music group The Knack. He was nominated for two Grammy Awards as a stage performer, producer, and recording artist.

Born in Burbank, California, the young Gary was diagnosed with hyperactive disorder and ADD. At age 5 his parents put him on a pharmaceutical regimen of Ritalin and other drugs in a vain attempt to control his behavior. At about that same time he was removed from public schoool and enrolled at Ridgewood Military Academy near the family home in Woodland Hills, California, where his ill-advised parents believed that military discipline would cure his hyperactivity and "inappropriate behaviors."

It has been written that Gary's parents "allowed him" to set up the drum kit that his cousin had offered him after getting bored with it. This is absolutely untrue. His cousin, the renowned percussionist, Z'EV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z'EV) and Bruce were very close in age as well as close friends, but he never gave Bruce a drum kit. Much to the dismay of his parents, Gary somehow acquired a set of drums and taught himself to play.

At about age 15 Gary finally fled from the covert torturous physical, psychological and mental abuse as well as the daily beatings he received in the violent home of his abusive, manic-depressive mother and his angry rage-filled father, and went to live in nearby Topanga Canyon with a family named Lathers, whose father worked at Juvenile Hall and was known to help children who were in difficult, violent or abusive situations. The Lathers' home was a well-known place for wayward and runaway children to go to be safe. This was around the time when he met and became friends with guitarist Randy California, who lived in Topanga as well.

In the 60's and early 70's he played and toured with bluesman Albert Collins. By the time he was twenty-four he was touring and recording with former Cream bassist Jack Bruce and guitarist Mick Taylor, who had just left the Rolling Stones. This stellar lineup also included jazz pianist Carla Bley. Gary also worked with Dr. John in the 70's.

In 1978 he found himself in a band with singer Doug Fieger, guitarist Berton Averre, and bassist Prescott Niles. Fieger and Averre brought in a tune they'd written about Sharona Alperin, a teenage girl Fieger was obsessed with. Despite his initial reservations about the song, Gary came up with a beat to match "My Sharona"'s stuttering style. He later said he approached the song like a surf stomp. As he explained, drummers in surf bands often play songs using no cymbals, just kick drum, snare drum, and toms. He also borrowed from the drum part to "Going to a Go Go" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The final ingredient, he said, was the drum rudiment called a flam, in which one drumstick strikes the drum just before the other does; the flam registers as a single beat, but with a particularly full sound. Gary's immediately recognisable kick-and-snare-drum intro helped propel the power-pop anthem to the top of the US charts.

The Knack's debut album "Get the Knack" sold 6 million copies. Unfortunately, Gary did not substantially benefit financially from this, as the publishing rights never included him.

After the breakup of The Knack in the early 1980s, Gary became an in-demand drummer for studio work and live performance with some of the premier musicians of the era including Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Stephen Stills, Rod Stewart, Sheryl Crow, Bette Midler, Yoko Ono, Harry Nilsson, and Doors guitarist Robby Krieger. He also worked with blues masters Albert King and John Lee Hooker.

In addition to his work as a drummer, he achieved recognition for his work as a producer - recording new albums with The Ventures and co-producing (with Alan Douglas) a series of seminal archival recordings of Jimi Hendrix including the Blues compilation.

He died at the age of 55 at the Tarzana Regional Medical Center in Tarzana, California of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

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