Del Blake: “The Greatest [Unknown] Drummer in the World” or “Obsessive Compulsive Drummer” By Stephen Boudreaux, Jan 6, 2020
[email protected] In 2019, if you Googled “Del Blake” or “Del Blake Drums” nothing comes up…literally nothing save for two Facebook entries I personally made a year or so ago. In our modern world of social media and everything-Internet, one would think that you would get a hit, a photo, a wedding pic, a something. But nothing. I have known Del Blake for over twenty years. We would spend time at least once per month over that span having lunch or a visit over the phone or email about mostly drums and drumming. But sometimes just life things, too. Of all the stories I extracted out of Del, there just HAD to be record of that online somewhere connected to his name. I mean…there was just too much. Even if most of his fanfare happened pre-Internet, there is no excuse for there not to be a recorded history of a guy who accomplished so much. What made Sammy Davis, Jr., proclaim during a high profile concert at Carnegie Hall that Del Blake, at age 27 was, “The Greatest Drummer in the World!” while at the same time being on tour with Buddy Rich who was almost universally known as “The Greatest Drummer in the World?” Surely Sammy could have suffered the wrath of the temperamental Buddy Rich over a statement like that. Del Blake passed away quietly on November 4, 2019 at the age of 76.