Jimmy Van Eaton, Alabama, who played drums on such groundbreaking hits as Jerry Lee Lewis' “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On” and brought spontaneity and imagination to the freewheeling sound of influential Memphis label Sun Records; He died Feb. 9 at his home in Tuscumbia, Co. He was 86 years old.
His daughter, Terri Van Eaton Downing, said the cause was complications of kidney disease.
Van Eaton's perfectly placed accents and fills were heard not only on Lewis' recordings, but also on popular singles by Charlie Rich (“Lonely Weekends”), Johnny Cash (“Guess Things Happen That Way”), and others. He toured with Roy Orbison and Conway Twitty, and was the Sun's de facto house drummer, playing on saxophonist Bill Justis' bluesy instrumental “Raunchy,” which reached the top ten in 1957.
Mr. Van Eaton, sometimes referred to as JM, was a full-time musician for a short time in the mid-1950s to early 1960s, after which he performed sporadically before pursuing a career as a financial advisor. But his influence was lasting and deep. In particular, Mr. It was seminal work with Lewis.
“A lot of people try to copy the sound of a Jerry Lee Lewis record.” Mr. Van Eaton was quoted in “Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock 'n' Roll” by Colin Escott and author as saying: Martin Hawkins. But he added that they couldn't do it because what he played was a “shuffle with a backbeat” and not a straight 4/4 beat.
“I’ve never been able to do a straight country shuffle like that,” Mr. Van Eaton said. “Probably around bar 8 or bar 16, and then you start falling off your chair. “You have to concentrate, but if you concentrate, you lose the feeling,” he said.
Feel was everything about Mr. Van Eaton's drumming. Mr. Lewis's galloping accompaniment was at times so free-spirited that the tempo almost seemed to outpace both men mid-session.
In “Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On” Mr. Van Eaton accelerated the cadence between the first two stanzas, spilling out beats that gave the impression of a locomotive steaming as it pulled out of the station. Likewise, his hair-long rhythms in “Great Balls of Fire” and especially the aptly titled “Breathless” are Mr. It threatened to overtake Lewis and his piano.
(Although some sources say Van Eaton did not play on “Great Balls of Fire,” experts such as Escott and Sun drummer authority Hank Davis assert that he did.)
“The looseness and unpredictability of his drumming can sound out of place in the modern era, when most drum tracks are derived from computer samples that are repeated with mathematical precision,” said Mr. Escott and Mr. Hawkins, citing Mr. Van Eaton’s intuitive musicianship. I wrote about it. “But the sound of wonder he captured in his playing was the pulse of Sun Records.”
James Mack Van Eaton was born in Memphis on December 23, 1937, one of six children of Hobart and Annie Lou (Watson) Van Eaton. His father worked in a lumber yard. His mother ran the household.
As young Jimmy grew up, he was fascinated by the big band music and black gospel rhythms he heard at a church in Memphis. He formed his first band, Echoes, during his high school years. The group recorded a demo that caught the ear of Sun's producer and engineer Jack Clement, who was recruiting musicians for rockabilly singer Billy Lee Riley's band.
While still a teenager, Van Eaton played on Riley's best-known and most incendiary 1957 albums, “Flyin' Saucers Rock 'n' Roll” and “Red Hot,” recorded for Sun.
In 1960, Mr. Van Eaton left Sun to become Mr. Van Eaton. Joining Riley and guitarist Roland Janes. Both men became disillusioned with the way Riley was promoted to staff drummer at the newly formed Rita Records. Their greatest success came with singer Harold Dorman's 1960 Top 40 hit “Mountain of Love.”
Van Eaton also released a single under his own name in 1960 for Rita, an atmospheric surf-style recording called “Beat-Nik”. But by mid-decade he had largely retired from music. business. He worked at his father-in-law's vending machine company before becoming an asset manager in the 1980s.
Mr. Van Eaton performed only occasionally over the next several decades, including appearing at a rockabilly reunion concert and performing on the soundtrack to the 1989 film “Great Balls of Fire!,” starring Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis. (Singer Mojo Nixon, who died this month, played Mr. Van Eaton on screen.) He also did regular session work at Alabama's Muscle Shoals Sound Studio into the 2020s. In 1998, he released the album “The Beat Goes On”, which featured drumming, vocals, and songwriting.
A longtime member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, he was also inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2022.
In addition to his daughter, Terri, Mr. Van Eaton is survived by his brother, Richard; another daughter, Anna Blumberg; two sons, Mack and Tim; stepson, Alex Lebrija; 13 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
“There are a lot of influential people that no one hears about, like guitarist Roland Janes or Jimmy Van Eaton, who was the drummer on a lot of the songs,” Mr. Clement said on “Good Rockin’ Tonight.” ”
“It was partly because of that that the sound became so magical to so many people. It’s so funky and captures the fun at the same time.”