That time Tommy Aldridge told me why Black Oak Arkansas wasn’t mentioned in his bio

By Steve Newton

When it came to hard rock drummers in the ’70s, there were a couple who particularly turned my crank. One was Cozy Powell, mainly for his work with Rainbow, and the other was Tommy Aldridge, mainly for his work with Black Oak Arkansas and the Pat Travers Band. (In the ’80s he’d get better known for his work with Ozzy and Whitesnake and such.)

But when I called Aldridge up in 2001, to cover his appearance at a Vancouver drum festival, I noticed that there was no mention at all of Black Oak Arkansas in his bio, even though he’d played on their most popular albums and gained a lot of exposure from playing with them at high-profile gigs like the California Jam of ’74.

So I asked him what was up with that.

Have a listen:

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