The Soundtrack to Our Lives

EPISODE 314: We done hired The Hitmaker.

This episode’s very special guest — Elkton, Maryland’s Bernard “Pretty” Purdie — isn’t just one of the most prolific and underrated figures in the history of recorded music.

Bernard Purdie is a teacher.

But if you’re like me, until fairly recently, you’d never been taught the name Bernard Purdie before.

Because another term for the job Purdie still does, at age 83, is session musician. Meaning that he gets hired to take his customized, precisely-measured drumsticks and improve the music of thousands of artists — from Aretha Franklin to James Brown to Steely Dan to Gil Scott-Heron to Louis Armstrong to Al Green to, allegedly, the Beatles. All of whom stood to benefit from a signature groove Bernard Purdie invented, and then perfected, and then exported (birthing the sound of hip hop along the way):

The Purdie Shuffle.

I first encountered Purdie last month, when I went to see Friend of PTFO Joey Dosik and one of my favorite bands, Vulfpeck, play Madison Square Garden.

It is hard to capture the depth of Bernard Purdie’s legend. He sees music as a team sport, accomplishing omnipresence at the cost of visibility.

But some weeks later, we figured out how to install a drum kit in our studio.

And we asked The Hitmaker to do his thing.

YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

Thank you,

Pablo