Jim Keltner

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James Lee Keltner (born April 27, 1942) is an American drummer best known for his session work.

Howard Sounes, a Bob Dylan biographer, referred to him as "America's top session drummer."

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Career

Keltner was inspired to start playing because of an interest in jazz, but the popularity of jazz was declining during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and it was the explosion of pop/rock in the mid-1960s that enabled him to break into recording work in Los Angeles. His first gig as a session musician was recording "She's Just My Style" for the pop group Gary Lewis and the Playboys.

Keltner's music career was hardly paying a living, and for several years at the outset he was supported by his wife. Toward the end of the 1960s, he finally began getting regular session work and eventually became one of the busiest drummers in Los Angeles. His earliest credited performances on record were with Gabor Szabo on the 1968 album Bacchanal.

In 1968, Keltner was also working in a music shop in Pasadena just down the street from the old Ice House coffeehouse when he was recruited to play drums in a "psychedelic" vocal group named "MC Squared" along with Michael Crowley, Michael Clough, Linda Carey, (all from the folk group The Back Porch Majority) and session guitarist/bassist Randy Cierley Sterling. They were signed by Mo Ostin and recorded an album for Warner/Reprise originally titled "MC Squared" which has later been re-mastered and re-released in 2012 with the album title "Tantalizing Colors." They appeared live that same year on the Hugh Hefner / Playboy Magazine television show Playboy After Dark playing two songs: an original by MC Squared members Michael Clough and Michael Crowley titled "I Know You" and a version of the Fred Neil song Everybody's Talkin'. Both Playboy After Dark performances with Keltner playing drums can currently be viewed on YouTube.

It was his work with Leon Russell playing on Delaney & Bonnie's Accept No Substitute that attracted the attention of Joe Cocker, who recruited Russell and everyone else he could out of the Delaney & Bonnie band for his Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour. Playing with Joe Cocker led to work in 1970 and 1971, on records by Carly Simon (No Secrets), Barbra Streisand (Barbra Joan Streisand), Booker T. Jones (Booker T. & Priscilla), George Harrison (The Concert for Bangladesh) and John Lennon (Imagine).

Keltner is well known for his session work on solo recordings by three members of the Beatles, working with George Harrison, John Lennon (including Lennon solo albums, as well as albums released both by the Plastic Ono Band and Yoko Ono), and Ringo Starr.

Keltner played on many key former Beatle solo releases, including Harrison's 1973 album Living in the Material World and Lennon's 1974 album Walls and Bridges. When Ringo Starr recorded his first full-fledged pop album, Ringo, Keltner was featured on several tracks. Following this, Keltner joined George Harrison on his 1974 tour of the United States.

In 1974 Keltner played on the Lennon-produced Harry Nilsson album Pussy Cats alongside Ringo (and Keith Moon) on "Rock Around the Clock". Keltner was featured on the Nilsson albums Son of Schmilsson with Harrison, Starr and Beatles associate Klaus Voormann as well as Duit on Mon Dei with Starr and Voormann.

Keltner's relationship with the former Beatles was such that his name was used to parody Paul McCartney on albums released by Harrison and Starr in 1973. Early that year, McCartney, the only Beatle not to have worked with Keltner, included a note on the back cover of his Red Rose Speedway album, encouraging fans to join the "Wings Fun Club" by sending a "stamped addressed envelope" to an address in London. Later that year, both Harrison's Living in the Material World and Starr's Ringo contained a similar note encouraging fans to join the "Jim Keltner Fan Club" by sending a "stamped undressed elephant" to an address in Hollywood.

Keltner played the role of the judge in the music video for George Harrison's 1976 Top 30 hit, "This Song".

In 1989, Keltner toured with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.

Keltner is an endorser of DW drums, hardware and pedals, Ahead drumsticks/gloves/griptape, Paiste Cymbals, Remo drumheads and world percussion and Roland electronics.

In 1987, Keltner, along with guitarist Ry Cooder and bassist Nick Lowe, played on John Hiatt's Bring the Family. Four years later the four musicians reunited as the band Little Village, recording an eponymous album.

Keltner played drums on both albums released by the 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys, playing under the pseudonym "Buster Sidebury".

Keltner became Ry Cooder's go-to drummer, recording with him on many of his albums for over 40 years, including the following, as well as playing with him in Little Village.

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