Without Clem Burke, the blondie would have been more mosci

Clem Burke dei Blondie has gone, one of the best rock drummers ever. His way of playing exuberant and full of energy defined the group's sound as much as Debbie Harry's singing. He united the chaotic fervor of his idol Keith Moon and the style of the Motown House drummers at Benny Benjamin. He imposed the rhythm with which the group started from the CBGB to conquer the world. “He was not just a drummer,” the blondie write today, “it was the beating heart of the band”.

To understand the unique style it is enough to listen to the first 26 seconds of Draaming from 1979. The first thing you hear is Burke who prepares Debbie Harry's entry. When she starts singing, the wait and emotion are already high, it is an adolescent melodrama outlined by the battery.

Before embarking Burke in the adventure, the blondie already played in the Lower East Side bars, but it was he who made the band make the decisive shot. Before he arrived in 1974, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were not even sure they wanted to play. Then, and this was told by the singer at Chicago Tribune«Clem arrived and he was a star. He knew how to play, it was understood that it was his life. It was that type of person, a Rock'n'roll Kid».

Burke was just 18 years old and came from Bayonne, New Jersey, but had no doubts about the band and in fact he never gave it up. It was the engine of the hectic race at the time of the new wave and classics such as Hanging on the Telephone, Fan email or Rip her to shreds. He kept the groove of Type Disc pieces together Heart of Glass And Atomicbut also of the rap of Lines and of the reggae of The Tide is high. He knew how to do everything. He was left -handed, but he played the right kit because he had seen him do to Ringo.

When the previous rhythmic section gave up the blondie (with the bassist Fred Smith who went to the television), everyone thought that for the band it was the end. Non Harry and Stein, who published an announcement on Village Voice And he made auditions to about fifty candidates, the last of which was Clem. They remained speechless. “He was charismatic,” Harry recalls in Making Tracks of 1981. “And he was also the only one who brought elegant shoes.” It was the shock they needed. “It was exactly what we were looking for. He was the son of a professional drummer, he was a show man ».

Show is a keyword. Burke had the typical quality of the stars. He was the blondie fashionista thanks to his impeccable and elegant suits and the models of models that everyone imitated. “I put beer and oil on the hair, I turned on the oven and put my head into it,” he said. “I had the hair fired because I didn't have the hairdryer.”

You can hear his childish energy since the attack on X offenderwhich opens the debut of the blondie and which was his favorite performance. Play with Harry in the spoken introduction typical of the 60s Girl Group, on the model of My Boyfriend's Back. In its performance, the maniacal energy of punk with pop embellishments to Hal Blaine combines in its performance, and then accelerating in the final minute, fastest goes and the more excited. I never listened X-offnder Without the desire I feel like it a second time.

“Debbie, who has about ten years more than me, is like an older sister,” said Burke. But it was he, the minor little brother, who encouraged Harry and Stein who wrote. “He kept telling us that we were good, that we had something,” said the singer. “I never asked him what that something was, but he pushed us to try again.”

He never felt in the shade by a very cool frontwoman like Harry. “I don't like being in the background,” he said. «The Beatles were four stars. The New York Dolls were five stars. Keith Moon was a great source of inspiration, like Ringo, and they were both Rockstar drums, they did not remain in the background. I did not feel jealousy for the role of Debbie, but I too wanted to be famous and when you are young and you want to become famous, you are cheeky. I wanted to be the best drummer in circulation ».

In the punk scene of the CBGB he was unguarded. At the beginning, he remembered, “there were no t-shirts, there were no punk-Rocker and not even many women. It was understood that things were moving when the girls arrived. ” If they arrived, it was also thanks to him and the Pop app which he gave the blondie. «He was one who went to Woolworth to buy the discs of the Shangri-Las and the Ventures. It is clear that it was enthusiastic about our project to form a pop group capable of modernizing the music transmitted by the Radio AM, “said Harry. “Clem wanted only one thing: to become a pop star.”

Everyone wanted to play together. Over the years, it has been the drummer of a lot of people, from Iggy Pop to Nancy Sinatra, from Pete Townshend to Eurysthmics and Joan Jett. He played with his hero Bob Dylan in Knocked Out Loaded of 1986 and with the old go-gos friends, instead of Gina Schock. He joked about: “I was the most beautiful boy of the band.” He also played with the Ramones in the summer of 1987 with the nickname of Elvis Ramone, but lasted only two concerts. Johnny didn't like her too loose style.

If you saw Clem at a concert, he meant that you were in the right place. He was a seducer and he was witty (when the go-gos entered the rock and roll hall of Fame in 2021, I wrote on social media that Gina Schock was the most pussy drummer of the hall, to what Clem replied: “I'm sorry Rob, but I don't really think, ah!”.) In the 80s he trained the chequered pasta with the bassist of the blonde Nigel Harrison and the guitarist of the sex Pistols Steve Jones. He played in the International Swingers with another pistol, Glen Matlock, and in the Empty Hearts with members of Cars, Romans and Chesterfield Kings.

“My favorite drummers are Earl Palmer, Hal Blaine, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr and Jackson, from the Booker T band,” said Burke in 2022. “Sometimes you have to play in a flashy way, sometimes just giving the rhythm, you have to find the right balance. This is what I try to do, always putting ourselves something of mine, something that makes people understand that I am there too ». Not that there were problems noticing him when he played. He managed to illuminate any music. It has always been an irrepressible Rock'n'roll Kiduntil the end.

From Rolling Stone Us.