Texas Flood Drum Part

I don’t often share materials from student lessons, but I recently had a student who wanted to learn this song. So, I transcribed the introduction up until the 1st verse. Chris Layton has always been an excellent drummer and was in Stevie Ray Vaughan’s band for many years. Watching him live, I couldn’t help but notice how relaxed his body was while rocking out pretty hard with some monster guitarists during the Experience Hendrix Tour a few years back.

This is a prime example of the “Drum Beat” to a song being used as a malleable template. Chris Layton has the basic idea of the groove of the song, but notice how each measure of the groove differs slightly. This is how all drumming always was (& still is today to a large part), whether it was in Jazz, Blues, Rock, Funk, Soul, etc. Nobody would just play the same 1 or 2 measure drum beat for whole sections of a song because it’s BORING. Really, this didn’t become popular until the late 70’s in the Pop world, and now it’s ever-present with the advent of “beat making” and computer-made drum parts to songs.