{"id":61644,"date":"2026-04-03T18:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/james-gadson-drummer-for-diana-ross-and-bill-withers-dead-at-86\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:03:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:03:47","slug":"james-gadson-drummer-for-diana-ross-and-bill-withers-dead-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/james-gadson-drummer-for-diana-ross-and-bill-withers-dead-at-86\/","title":{"rendered":"James Gadson, Drummer for Diana Ross and Bill Withers, Dead at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tJames Gadson<\/a>, the drummer most famous for recording funk, soul, and disco classics with Diana Ross, Bill Withers, and Marvin Gaye but whose discography includes sessions with Beck, Kelly Clarkson, and Leonard Cohen, among several others, died on Thursday. Gadson\u2019s wife, Barbara, confirmed the news to Rolling Stone, <\/em>saying he\u2019d had some health challenges recently including surgery and a bad fall that hurt his back. He was 86.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was a wonderful man,\u201d Barbara says. \u201cHe was a great husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, and one hell of a drummer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA versatile and talented drummer, Gadson kept the beat on the one for Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band\u2019s funky \u201cExpress Yourself,\u201d played behind the beat on Withers\u2019 feel-good \u201cLean on Me,\u201d and mastered the four-on-the-floor disco beat for Jackson 5\u2019s \u201cDancing Machine\u201d and Gloria Gaynor\u2019s \u201cI Will Survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMost grooves, especially for dance music, are very simple,\u201d Gadson told Modern Drummer<\/a><\/em>. \u201cEven so, to learn them, you have to slow them down. A lot of times we do all these rudimental things to see how fast we can play. I think you have to slow it all down and simplify it. Then you can kind of feel whether it\u2019s danceable or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHis skill made him an in-demand session drummer whose CV reads more like a \u201cgreatest artists of all-time\u201d list than a discography. Gadson recorded with the Temptations, Bobby Womack, Barbra Streisand, Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle, Herbie Hancock, Freddie King, B.B. King, Albert King, Ray Charles, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, D\u2019Angelo, Beck, Kelly Clarkson, Justin Timberlake, and Harry Styles, among many, many others.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSome drummers are soulful,\u201d Questlove wrote on Instagram<\/a>. \u201cSome drummers are funky. Some drummer are a-rockin\u2019. Some drummers are swinging \u2014 but NO drummer, has impacted the art of breakbeat drummer (danceable drums) like James Gadson.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe played together over 50 years,\u201d Ray Parker Jr. commented<\/a>. \u201cHe changed the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the way Gadson, who was born June 17, 1939 in Kansas City, Missouri, told it, he learned everything on the job. \u201cAt first, during the time I didn\u2019t really know how to play R&B, it was awful,\u201d he recalled in Modern Drummer <\/em>of his first sessions with Dyke & the Blazers and Wright\u2019s band. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even charge them it was so bad. I felt bad about wasting their studio time. I couldn\u2019t keep a steady pattern because I was coming from a free-jazz mindset.\u201d But Gadson was born into music. His father was a drummer who initially attempted to dissuade Gadson from entering into the music industry.<\/p>\n

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\n\tNevertheless, Gadson\u2019s father, Harold, bought him and his brother, Thomas, cornets to play in their school\u2019s drum and bugle corps, Gadson recalled in author Jim Payne\u2019s The Great Drummers of R&B, Funk & Soul<\/em>. As a teenager, though, he was more interested in singing, performing doo-wop with a group called the Carpets at 13. His mother kept him from going on the road. He discovered funk music while stationed in Louisiana with the Air Force and joined his brother\u2019s band, learning piano to play keys and singing, after he left the service. He also taught himself the drums.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I first started playing drums, I practiced all day and all night \u2014 18 to 20 hours a day,\u201d he said in The Great Drummers<\/em>. \u201cI did my homework.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter switching to drums in his brother\u2019s band, Gadson found work as a backing drummer for artists touring through Kansas City. He backed Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, Jimmy Reed, Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding at various dates. Eventually, he linked up with Dyke & the Blazers and Charles Wright, whom he recorded with playing drums and singing.<\/p>\n

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\n\tAfter resettling in Los Angeles, Motown producer Hal Davis started recruiting him for sessions. \u201cI remember the first Motown session I did, which was the Jacksons\u2019 \u2018Dancing Machine,’\u201d he told Modern Drummer<\/em>. \u201cWe were out there creating, and I put that 8th-note hop in, and they said, \u2018Hey, do that again.\u2019 They liked what I was doing, and they said, \u2018Let\u2019s keep him because he has good time.\u2019 And then the song became a hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen a contractor spotted him and asked him if he could read charts, Gadson lied and said he could, teaching himself how to read music at night. Those L.A. sessions, when he recorded one gold record after another, is when he felt like he found his footing as a drummer, leading him to become a go-to drummer for artists of all genres.<\/p>\n

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\n\tGadson released very little work under his own name. In the early Seventies, he released a couple of funky 45s, \u201cGot to Find My Baby\u201d<\/a> and \u201cGood Vibrations\u201d<\/a> (not the Beach Boys song), and later, the disco single, \u201cGo By What\u2019s in Your Heart.\u201d<\/a> In 2018, he shared a credit on Chicken Burrito <\/em>with Raphael Wressnig and Alex Schultz. Additionally, he appeared as a band member in the 2009 movie, Funny People<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been blessed,\u201d he reflected in The Great Drummers<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019m still doing this for a living. I wanted to hear myself on the radio someday, but I never dreamed I\u2019d be on so many records.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n