Adam Mansbach/J. Period Excerpt #5 - Bonham vs. Jones lyrics
by Outside the Lines With Rap Genius
Adam Mansbach: There's a famous story about him having a drum battle with -- is it John Bonham? Is that the cat?
Brian Viglione: From Led Zeppelin?
AM: Yeah
BV: Yeah, sure
AM: Yeah. This is doc*mented in the liner notes to the Impulse Elvin Jones, there's a two-record set, if you've ever seen it, on Impulse. There's a whole series of them. They did an Ahmad Jamal one. They do these two-record sets, and they're excerpts from different songs, different album, you know?
BV: Yeah
AM: And the liner notes to this detail how Elvin gave an interview to Downbeat, one of those blindfold tests, in like '69, and inadvertently disses John Bonham -- I'm pretty sure it was John Bonham. They play him some sh*t and Elvin's quote is something like, "He needs to lose his ass in space, cause he ain't playing sh*t"
And somehow, this got back to Bonham. I guess they were friends, I don't know. They end up having this battle in London, in some big hall, balconies, standing room only. And Bonham shows up with some huge set, some big-ass rock set with fifteen different kinds of splash cymbals. Elvin's got the four-piece joint, and blows him the f*ck away. The end