The Invisible Hitmaker Behind the Soundtrack of Your Life
He's played with Aretha, Steely Dan and thousands more. He's influenced Zeppelin, hip-hop and "MMMBop." He is your favorite musician's favorite musician — a role player with too many rings to count who's been helping you dance for decades. So it's about time you slowed down to appreciate legendary drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie. Because at 83 years young, he's rock-steady as ever, with wisdom to burn on the meaning of perfection, consistency and how to keep it smooth in your own valley.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Press play and read along
Transcript
Speaker 1 Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
Speaker 1 Right after this ad
Speaker 2 Millions of players.
Speaker 3 One world.
Speaker 3 No lag.
Speaker 2 How's it done?
Speaker 2 AWS's is how.
Speaker 2 Epic Games turned to AWS to scale to more than 100 million Fortnite players worldwide, so they can stay locked in with battle-tested reliability.
Speaker 2 AWS is how leading businesses power next-level innovation.
Speaker 4 The holidays are about family and quality time, right? But while we are carving roast beef, our dogs are stuck with dry kibble mystery meat.
Speaker 4 And yes, they notice, It's time to make the switch to Sundays. Sundays is clean, whole food-based food made for the dogs we love.
Speaker 4 It's air-dried and made in a human-grade kitchen using the same ingredients and care you'd use to cook for yourself and your family.
Speaker 4 Every bite of Sundays is clean and made from real meat, fruits, and veggies with no kibble, no weird ingredients, and no fillers because your dog deserves food made with care, not in the interest of cost-cutting.
Speaker 4 And the best part, you just scoop and serve.
Speaker 4 No freezer, no thawing or prep, no mess, just nutrient-rich, clean food that fuels their happiest, healthiest days so you get more of them to share together.
Speaker 4
Sunday's holiday sale is going on right now. Go to sundaysfordogs.com/slash ACAST50 and get 50% off your first order.
Or you can use code ACAST50 at checkout.
Speaker 4 That's 50% off your first order at sundaysfordogs.com/slash ACAST50. Don't miss out on Sunday's best sale of the year at sundaysfordogs.com slash a cast50 or use code ACAST50 at checkout.
Speaker 5 Did I talk too much to the family? Can I just let it go?
Speaker 5 Did I talk too much?
Speaker 6 Take a breath.
Speaker 7 You're not alone. Let's talk about what's going on.
Speaker 4 Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals, and online therapy makes it convenient. See if it's for you.
Speaker 4 Visit betterhelp.com slash random podcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel better.
Speaker 1 How old are you right now?
Speaker 8 I'm 83.
Speaker 1 83 years old.
Speaker 1 I just need to introduce the premise of why we've put a drum kit into the studio for the first time in our show's history and why I demanded that Bernard Purdy be the person to sit behind it.
Speaker 8 Well, the beauty for me is that
Speaker 8 part of the sound,
Speaker 8 so no matter what kind of drum kit that I get,
Speaker 8 my drumsticks
Speaker 8 has the length and it has the capability of
Speaker 8 that. So I can hear that.
Speaker 8 And that is all I ever want.
Speaker 1 The sound that you're making there is the sound that I think everybody who has ever listened to music in America has on some level appreciated, even if they didn't quite know that Bernard Purdy is the reason that they were moving in that way.
Speaker 8 You're right.
Speaker 1 But I also want to just make sure I clap on front of the microphone so we can just
Speaker 1 because, well, first off, I'll clap for having you here.
Speaker 8 Thank you.
Speaker 1 Bernard, could you clap as well, though, just for tape sync? Could you mind just giving us a clap in front of the microphone?
Speaker 1 There it is.
Speaker 1 Even your claps are, of course, perfectly
Speaker 1 on beat.
Speaker 1 It's putting everybody to shame who's ever stepped into this podcast studio and has had to tape sync a clap.
Speaker 1 So, if you're not watching on YouTube right now, what you should be aware of is that there is, in fact, a fully functioning drum kit in our studio.
Speaker 1 Because our guest today, Elkton Maryland's own Bernard Pretty Purdy, is not just one of the most prolific and underrated figures in the history of recorded music. Bernard Purdy is a teacher.
Speaker 1 And if you're like me, until fairly recently, you had never been taught the name Bernard Purdy before.
Speaker 1 Because another term for Bernard's job is session musician.
Speaker 1 Meaning that Bernard gets hired to take his customized, precisely measured drumsticks and improve the music of everyone from Aretha Franklin to James Brown to, allegedly, the Beatles.
Speaker 1 pretty much all of whom wanted a signature groove Bernard invented called the Purdy Shuffle, which has inspired everybody from John Bonham and Led Zeppelin to the genre of hip-hop itself.
Speaker 1 What What a diva. You're a real diva, Bernard, demanding your special sticks.
Speaker 8 Listen, when I talk with people about something,
Speaker 8 there is a reason for it.
Speaker 8 Because everything that I do, everything
Speaker 8 represents
Speaker 8 my sound.
Speaker 1 Your sound, the way you've calibrated over 60 plus years, I do need to explain why and how I'm obsessed with, especially artists who are omnipresent, but can sometimes feel invisible.
Speaker 1 Yes. And you, I want to quote our mutual friend, Joey Dosick from the band Wolfpack, one of the great bands that I love.
Speaker 1 But I just want to quote him here because he gives you, I think, the scouting report that people need to hear.
Speaker 12 Joey says, quote, Purdy is at the forefront and in the shadows at the same time. He's on the radio at every moment, every day, everywhere, yet he walks amongst us, mostly unrecognized.
Speaker 12 He made the soundtrack to our lives.
Speaker 10 The world is a fan, but the world doesn't know his name.
Speaker 1 And
Speaker 1 it's remarkable, man, to look into your life and know that Joey's kind of underselling you.
Speaker 8 Well, a lot of people have,
Speaker 8 but they've done it because they've asked me to come to them around the world.
Speaker 8 And I have already, I've been teaching for
Speaker 8 60 plus years.
Speaker 8 Almost 70.
Speaker 8 Let's just say it's closer to 70.
Speaker 1 I wasn't going to carry the one there, but I think you're right. What Rolling Stone said about you, Bernard Purdy, is that, quote, the question isn't who Pretty Purdy played with, it's who he hasn't.
Speaker 1 And so, just to give us the numbers here, how many artists would you say you've worked with in total?
Speaker 8 A minimum of
Speaker 8 5,000
Speaker 8 different
Speaker 8 artists
Speaker 8 around the world.
Speaker 1 James Brown.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 1 It's a man's, man's, man's world. If you listen to that, 1966,
Speaker 1 there you are.
Speaker 1 Steely Dan.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 1 Home at Last, 1977.
Speaker 1 Guess who?
Speaker 1 Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 1
I'm thinking of Rocksteady. Yes.
In 71, the owner of one of the great drum breaks
Speaker 8 ever. That drum break
Speaker 8 was an accident.
Speaker 1 Please explain.
Speaker 8 Okay.
Speaker 8 The drum break was an accident because Aretha
Speaker 8 was also keyboardist and vocalist.
Speaker 8 And the young man who was the arranger and the writer
Speaker 8 for her,
Speaker 8 Arif Martin,
Speaker 8 we had to listen to what she was doing.
Speaker 8 So what happened,
Speaker 8 almost halfway through the song, the sheet music fell off the piano
Speaker 8 and
Speaker 8 we didn't stop. Aritha
Speaker 8 was
Speaker 8 stopped singing,
Speaker 8 but not stopped singing, and she kept saying, Rock,
Speaker 8 steady,
Speaker 8 rock
Speaker 8 She did that for approximately 12 minutes.
Speaker 8 And Arif,
Speaker 8 who saw what was happening, he was also the producer, the guy who was in charge of Atlantic Records and all that, finally came out
Speaker 8 and picked it up, put it back on the piano. Mind you,
Speaker 8 we were still doing
Speaker 8 the break.
Speaker 1 Right, you were still playing, still recording.
Speaker 8 You were still playing. The rock.
Speaker 8
Steady. You know, and she's doing this and waving.
Rock. Yeah.
Speaker 8 Steady.
Speaker 8 We never stop.
Speaker 8
You don't stop when the boss don't stop. It's that simple.
Didn't bother me. I'm just doing my job.
Speaker 1 This is the part about you, right? So your legend, and again, I'll keep on listing the artists, right?
Speaker 8 Yeah.
Speaker 1
Holland Oates, Roberta Flack and Donnie Hathaway, B.B. King, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Kat Stevens, Nina Simone, Herbie Hancock, Gil Scott Herron, Louis Armstrong, Al Green, Quincy Jones.
I mean,
Speaker 1 you're a walking Hall of Fame.
Speaker 8 Well, thank you. I never looked at it.
Speaker 8 Yeah, but thank you.
Speaker 1 Is there a song that you're most proud of that you think back and like, oh. That's actually my personal favorite?
Speaker 8 I really didn't. I was happy to be there,
Speaker 8 and I was always happy because I was doing demos.
Speaker 8 I was doing demos at that time.
Speaker 8 And these demos became hits just like the big artists became hit.
Speaker 8
I had Ray Charles. I had everybody.
I played for everybody.
Speaker 8 The beauty for me was
Speaker 8 I was there to do my job and they allowed me to do it.
Speaker 1 But the one that our friend Joey points out, he says, the song that best demonstrates
Speaker 1 your strength, your power is Ooh, Child.
Speaker 1 So this is 1970. It's the five stair steps.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 1 Could you play a little bit of what you did on that song for us, just for people who don't know what I mean when I say you make that song what it became?
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 8 Oh boy.
Speaker 8 Walking away the rest.
Speaker 8 Something
Speaker 8 right now.
Speaker 1 Wait, hold on. Were you just like, wait, that guy's good? Is that the reaction you just had?
Speaker 1 Yeah. Bernard Perdi in 1970 was pretty good at this.
Speaker 8 What I was doing, I kept the time going, and everything that I did was time,
Speaker 8 time, time,
Speaker 8 and picking up and allowing it to happen. Let it flow.
Speaker 8 Stay out of the way of the vocal, but let it flow.
Speaker 8 And the figures,
Speaker 8
all that. I was singing all these things.
I was singing them. And I didn't realize that I was even singing it.
You know, I was playing it.
Speaker 8 But
Speaker 8 it was a job.
Speaker 1 The job you did, though, has been imitated, sampled
Speaker 1 by so many more thousands of people that you did not personally even play with.
Speaker 1 Okay, so we got to explain why hip-hop as a genre owes you something.
Speaker 8 Okay.
Speaker 1 How do you explain the purdy shuffle?
Speaker 8 Now,
Speaker 8 now that we've got the 12-4 and the 12-8,
Speaker 8 I'm gonna explain to you, remember that word,
Speaker 8 call
Speaker 8 explain.
Speaker 8 Not explain, but I'm gonna explain to you
Speaker 1 what the purdy shuffle is all about.
Speaker 8 It's gonna surprise you.
Speaker 9 It's porters.
Speaker 8 It's apes.
Speaker 8 The Purdue shuffle basically happened because
Speaker 8 of the train.
Speaker 8 The actual railroad that went by my house in Elkton, Maryland.
Speaker 8 The train that stopped in Elkton had its own
Speaker 8 the slowdown of the train because
Speaker 8 when the train is moving
Speaker 8 it's so fast you don't really hear
Speaker 8 where
Speaker 8 a time is or anything else.
Speaker 8 All you know is that as it slows down
Speaker 8 you get
Speaker 8 And then it gets down to that point where it shh
Speaker 8 it stops
Speaker 8 and it's the same thing when it starts up
Speaker 8 going out
Speaker 8 you got shoo
Speaker 8 shoo
Speaker 8 shoo
Speaker 8 shoo shoo
Speaker 8 shoo shoo shoo shoo And it just gets up to a certain point that
Speaker 8 it disappears.
Speaker 8 It actually disappears. And you don't hear that.
Speaker 8 You don't you feel it.
Speaker 8
You feel the train. You feel it.
When you're on the train, you feel it.
Speaker 8 It's just something that I
Speaker 8 picked up and I realized that I had something going.
Speaker 8 That's all.
Speaker 8 And I used to play it because I was only
Speaker 8 a block away.
Speaker 1 So you sampled a locomotive is what happened?
Speaker 8
I sampled the locomotive. The train that was stopping in Elkton, Maryland.
It was the marriage capital of the world for 100 years.
Speaker 1 What does that mean?
Speaker 8 People stop into Elkton to get married and leave.
Speaker 8 And that's how... Elkton became
Speaker 8 known.
Speaker 1 The elopement capital of the United States became known for truly, I would say, one of the most lasting vows in American cultural history, which is: if we got a record and we need a drummer, we got to go get Bernard.
Speaker 1 Led Zeppelin, fool in the rain.
Speaker 8 And Led Zeppelin,
Speaker 8 his wife, his wife called me.
Speaker 8 She called me when he was on his deathbed.
Speaker 8 She called me and she wanted me to know how much she felt and he felt about me.
Speaker 8 And
Speaker 8 I was stunned.
Speaker 8 I was stunned.
Speaker 1 But what you did, the shuffle, which I hope you can show us a little bit here,
Speaker 1 it's a fingerprint.
Speaker 1 It's a unique, magnificent fingerprint.
Speaker 1 The world dances, is what our friend Joey said. Laughs and cries to his beat without even knowing it's him.
Speaker 1 He influenced everything after him.
Speaker 8 Now the difference
Speaker 8 is that when you do the drums live, there's more
Speaker 8 space
Speaker 8 that actually
Speaker 8 works
Speaker 8 even more so that it just
Speaker 8 keeps going.
Speaker 1 This is the never-duplicated part.
Speaker 8 This meet
Speaker 8 it only works
Speaker 8 when it's half time.
Speaker 8 Halftime is the only way to make the purdy shuffle last
Speaker 8 where it can bring in, everybody can come in and do their things, and the purdy shuffle can stay on. But you got to remember, it only works slower.
Speaker 1 That part, I want to explain that in the context of a term that I think people may have heard, but I didn't really think about until I started thinking about you, which is the session musician.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 1 Which is to say that you get brought in almost to help the star
Speaker 1 and to be that. what you just did, that timekeeping texture that everybody knows they want, even if they don't want to admit that they want it.
Speaker 8 Yeah.
Speaker 1 And your job is to fit yourself around some of the biggest egos that have ever lived.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 1 And to make sure that they and the band around you get to be the best version of themselves.
Speaker 8 Exactly. For so many years,
Speaker 8 everybody wanted,
Speaker 8 but yet they didn't ask for it because they didn't know what to ask for.
Speaker 8 That Purdy Shuffle worked for 20 to 30 years
Speaker 8 before
Speaker 8 other
Speaker 8 people
Speaker 8 and
Speaker 8 other bands, drummers were playing it and they were doing it the best that they could,
Speaker 8 even though they didn't understand it.
Speaker 1 Right, right.
Speaker 8 And
Speaker 8
I was fortunate. Traveling around the world at that time.
I was going around the world
Speaker 8 in the 70s.
Speaker 1
You were fixing music one session at a time. Yes.
Telling people to slow down.
Speaker 1 This groove is not going to work if
Speaker 1 you try to. By the way, if you, as the drummer, try to make yourself the star.
Speaker 8 Yeah.
Speaker 8 Yeah.
Speaker 1 How is it that you made peace with that? The idea that invisibility was going to be the exchange for being omnipresent?
Speaker 8 Just so I could play with the stars
Speaker 8 all of a sudden people started calling me
Speaker 8 because of what i was doing and what i wasn't doing trying to take the credit right
Speaker 8 for everything hit record is a hit record no matter how you look at it and those hit records
Speaker 8 still go oh my gosh
Speaker 8 yes they've been going now for 50 60 70 years that ain't gonna stop
Speaker 1 Feeling safe in your home is one of the most important things in life.
Speaker 1 You might be scared of fire or burglary, or, you know, maybe there are just three active, concurrent federal investigations related to your reporting.
Speaker 1 Whatever it is that keeps you up at night, simply safe, is there to help you sleep better, like it has for me. And here's the way I look at it.
Speaker 1 If you could actually stop someone from breaking into your home before they got inside, why wouldn't you want to?
Speaker 1 While traditional security systems respond after someone breaks in, SimplySafe is designed to stop crime before it happens.
Speaker 1 They utilize AI-powered cameras that detect threats while they are still outside your house, and they alert real security agents. That is a game changer.
Speaker 1 And it's why I trust them to keep my family secure 24-7. With SimplySafe's monitoring agents, I don't have to rely on my phone for alerts that someone is at my door.
Speaker 1 I have real people who have my back and will let an intruder know that they are being watched and that the police are already on their way. But don't just take my word for it.
Speaker 1 SimplySafe has been named best home security system by the U.S. News and World Report five years running.
Speaker 1 And with a 60-day money-back guarantee, you can try it and see the difference for yourself with no financial risk involved.
Speaker 1 And right now, PTFO listeners get exclusive early access to Simply Safe's Black Friday sale where you can save 60% on any new system.
Speaker 1 This is the biggest deal of the year, aka there will never be a better time to get real security for your home. So go to simplysafe.com slash Pablo.
Speaker 1 That's S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E.com slash Pablo to get your system today and take advantage of their biggest sale of the year.
Speaker 13 300 sensors, over a million data points per second. How does F1 update their fans with every stat in real time? AWS is how.
Speaker 13 From fastest laps to strategy calls, AWS puts fans in the pit.
Speaker 13 It's not just racing, it's data-driven innovation at 200 miles per hour. AWS is how leading businesses power next-level innovation.
Speaker 5 Did I talk too much?
Speaker 5 Did I just let it go?
Speaker 5 Did I talk too much?
Speaker 6 Take a breath.
Speaker 7 You're not alone. Let's talk about what's going on.
Speaker 4 Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals, and online therapy makes it convenient. See if it's for you.
Speaker 4 Visit betterhelp.com/slash random podcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel better.
Speaker 1 Who is the hardest person to work with? Because you're the easiest person to work with.
Speaker 8 Okay.
Speaker 1 Who is the hardest person you had to work with?
Speaker 8 Arisa
Speaker 8 was close.
Speaker 1 The original D.Va.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 8 I was also, when I became the musical director,
Speaker 8 it made it even nicer for me.
Speaker 8 But
Speaker 8 I had Quincy Jones.
Speaker 8 I I had run-ins with a lot of people, all because
Speaker 8 I was doing something that nobody else was.
Speaker 1 Right.
Speaker 8 I love what I was doing.
Speaker 8 They didn't understand
Speaker 8 what I was doing until I showed them.
Speaker 1 Wait, hold on. So, Steely Dan, what they say about you, right? This is what Walter Becker once said about you, right?
Speaker 1 Walter says, Quote, Bernard always did some unique, stylistic thing that you'd never imagine in advance that nobody else would do, which is to say that even though your job, as you saw it, was to stay out of the way,
Speaker 1
you also needed to impress upon everybody else the best version of how to do this. And so there is leadership from a role-playing position.
yes. And I think of sports, yes.
Speaker 1 Everybody knows Michael Jordan, everybody knows the guy on the poster, in the commercials, on all the billboards. But there are some athletes whose careers are full of championship rings,
Speaker 1 and they do it at multiple places.
Speaker 1 And that is its own special thing.
Speaker 8 That's what my job was
Speaker 8 because my job also
Speaker 8 so many demos
Speaker 8 became hit records.
Speaker 1 You serve the song first.
Speaker 8 Thank you.
Speaker 8 That's my whole life.
Speaker 8 Because as a kid,
Speaker 8 when I was playing as a kid,
Speaker 8 I didn't quite understand what I was doing.
Speaker 8
But it was working because it was out of the way. It didn't bother anybody.
You know, I'm four years old when I was playing drums and I knew I was going to be a drummer. I heard it from Mr.
Speaker 8 Hayward, who the one who actually ended up being my teacher.
Speaker 8 He was the next block down,
Speaker 8 next street over.
Speaker 8 I was getting attention.
Speaker 8 By the time I was 10, 11, and 12, because I had something and I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 8 I just knew that I liked these songs. I liked what I was doing and I liked what I was hearing.
Speaker 8 And it was working.
Speaker 1 Do you remember the moment, and this could be any point in your career, in your 70 years playing music professionally, it seems like.
Speaker 1 Do you remember the moment when you thought to yourself, I am doing exactly what I should be doing on this planet?
Speaker 8 Yes, I knew that by the time I was 10 and 11.
Speaker 8 Yes, I knew that. I had a band by then.
Speaker 1 What was your band's name?
Speaker 8 Bugsy.
Speaker 8 Bugsy Purdy.
Speaker 1 Was Bugsy Purdy shuffling back then?
Speaker 8 Oh, yeah.
Speaker 8 Oh, yeah. But the point is, is that,
Speaker 8 you know, it was just called a shuffle.
Speaker 8 You know, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do,
Speaker 8 that's what people would, everybody this.
Speaker 1 I can say this with clarity, having studied this in terms of researching this episode, every drummer,
Speaker 1
I've seen so many articles, so many videos. I've talked to so many of them.
They worship you. You are your favorite musician.
Speaker 1 If you're listening out there, Bernard Purdy is your favorite musician's favorite drummer. And the way I encountered you is, of course, relatively late in life because I'm not a musician.
Speaker 1 I'm just a guy who likes music. And I went to see Wolfpack at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1 And I was just talking to your lovely wife, Celia, who is sitting outside on the side of this glass right now, because we were both,
Speaker 1 it turns out, having this experience of seeing you in your 80s in front of Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 1 And what I said to Joey that night and what I'll say to you here, it was just one of the most fun times that I've had listening to music, let alone being in what is often a cursed building on account of how the Knicks have been doing in the course of my life.
Speaker 1 But that performance.
Speaker 1 I mean, you've played those intimate sessions as well as the grandest arenas.
Speaker 1 And I was sort of stunned to hear Celia talk about how moving it was for her emotionally, like tearing up, to see her husband in 2025
Speaker 1 teaching an entire arena of people how to keep time.
Speaker 8 That's why everything
Speaker 8 continued for so long, for so many years.
Speaker 8 But the beauty for me was I didn't have to go through the changes anymore.
Speaker 8 It took me 20 to 30 years to be able to
Speaker 8 give something
Speaker 8 and it stayed
Speaker 8 and it stayed.
Speaker 8 And it stayed.
Speaker 1 And the thing that I marvel at now that we've been talking for this long is how much you still enjoy it.
Speaker 8 Oh,
Speaker 8 that's the whole point.
Speaker 8 That is one of the main reasons why I still work.
Speaker 8 Because I love what I'm doing.
Speaker 8 And I'm so thankful that the man upstairs has given me this opportunity all of these years.
Speaker 8 But I had to learn how to
Speaker 8 do it and do it right.
Speaker 8 Once I learned how to do it and to do it right,
Speaker 8 there was no fighting anymore.
Speaker 8 There was no more fighting, and nobody can take it away from me.
Speaker 8 And I didn't know until I started going back. Not only James Brown,
Speaker 8 oh, you name him.
Speaker 1 Bernard, the band Hansen.
Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 Yeah, that's you too.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 1 The band that had their photo in my older sister's locker also owes a debt to the guy sitting in the studio right now.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 1 Your role on this planet may not be
Speaker 1 that of
Speaker 1 the superstar on a billboard.
Speaker 8 It's not.
Speaker 1 But you might wind up happier than all of the big egos and superstars that you played with.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 8 That's why I'm comfortable
Speaker 8 in my own
Speaker 8 valley here. And I really am
Speaker 8 because teaching is something that I've been doing all my life and I didn't know I was going to be a teacher. But as time went on, I started developing.
Speaker 8 I became friends with the biggest name drummers in the world.
Speaker 8 I wasn't in competition, I was just consistent with what I was doing. I never got out of the way of
Speaker 8 not wanting to play my part, but I
Speaker 8 sit down sometimes, you know.
Speaker 8 You know, I used to do that when I was
Speaker 8 teaching.
Speaker 8 Let's kept the time.
Speaker 8 And people,
Speaker 8 you could see this. You could see other people outside the door
Speaker 8 looking and listening.
Speaker 8 Oh my gosh, that's that
Speaker 8 shuffle. That's that pretty shuffle.
Speaker 8 I was grinning from ear to ear
Speaker 8 because
Speaker 8 I created something.
Speaker 1
There's something about being a drummer. Again, I'm not a musician of any kind.
I tapped out at piano lessons when I was in grade school.
Speaker 1 But there's something about a drummer and the philosophy of being a drummer that's different from, I mean, look, because the drum solo is a thing.
Speaker 8 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Right? But you explained to me that when you were doing one of the great drum breaks in recorded musical history in 1971 for Rocksteady, that was an accident.
Speaker 1 But when I think about guitarists and the guitar solo,
Speaker 1 there's just something different. Well, what would you explain is different in terms of how you think a drummer as a profession ought to behave in a group?
Speaker 8 Any drummer, if he's smart,
Speaker 8 the one thing that you do, you learn what moves people.
Speaker 8 What moves people and i'm learning the people with the money
Speaker 8 the people who making things work for themselves are all looking for that little
Speaker 1 to make them feel good i just realized this right so you're from the wedding capital of of america wedding capital of the world and
Speaker 1 You, a product of that, are also responsible for so many people dancing at wedding receptions.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 1 There is something that does feel
Speaker 1 like you're in this flow state
Speaker 1 where people are following your lead and it feels natural, and they suddenly feel like they're better, they feel like they're better at dancing than they are.
Speaker 8 I learned how, I've really learned how to
Speaker 8 move my body
Speaker 8 when I'm
Speaker 8 playing the groove.
Speaker 8 And it cracks me up because
Speaker 8 it's automatic. It goes on automatic.
Speaker 1 I've been noticing.
Speaker 8 It just goes on automatic.
Speaker 1 If you're not watching on YouTube, you've missed Bernard Verdi really enjoying
Speaker 1 his own work.
Speaker 8 I'm happy.
Speaker 8 I am happy as a lark.
Speaker 8 I really am.
Speaker 8 And it's been,
Speaker 8 I talk about it to young people.
Speaker 8 I talk about it to older people. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 8 I enjoy what I do. When you want to work and you don't want to be putting on the side when you can't do it because you're so mad or you're upset and this, that,
Speaker 8 you're not going to work.
Speaker 8 It's that simple you're not gonna work
Speaker 8 but when you got that camaraderie with the rest of the band and the band looking over at you and smiling and grinning you got your job
Speaker 13 300 sensors over a million data points per second. How does F1 update their fans with every stat in real time? AWS is how.
Speaker 13 From fastest laps to strategy calls, AWS puts fans in the pit.
Speaker 13 It's not just racing, it's data-driven innovation at 200 miles per hour. AWS is how leading businesses power next-level innovation.
Speaker 5 Did I talk too much?
Speaker 5 Did I just let it go?
Speaker 7 Take a breath. You're not alone.
Speaker 7 Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals, get matched with a therapist online based on your unique needs, and get help with everyday struggles like anxiety or managing tough emotions.
Speaker 4 Visit betterhelp.com slash random podcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel better.
Speaker 9 Trading at Schwab is now powered by Ameritrade, giving you even more specialized support than ever before, like like access to the Trade Desk, our team of passionate traders ready to tackle anything from the most complex trading questions to a simple strategy gut check.
Speaker 9
Need assistance? No problem. Get 24/7 professional answers and live help, and access support by phone, email, and in-platform chat.
That's how Schwab is here for you to help you trade brilliantly.
Speaker 9 Learn more at schwab.com/slash trading.
Speaker 1 As you put it, you've been doing this for basically 70 years.
Speaker 1 You're in your 80s. And what's so clear to me, and I wonder if you think about this,
Speaker 1
is that whenever, finally, Bernard Purdy says, I'm going to hang it up. God's making me hang it up.
You're still going to be in everyone's ears.
Speaker 1 We can't get rid of you.
Speaker 8 Exactly.
Speaker 8 Exactly.
Speaker 8 Yes.
Speaker 8 And that's why the beauty of it, and when I started going back and remembering all of these other folks that I hadn't played with for
Speaker 8 15 or 20 years.
Speaker 1
Well, the list is longer. I just gave you a sample of like the name.
It goes on and on.
Speaker 8 Oh, believe me. Believe me, it's long.
Speaker 8 There's thousands.
Speaker 1 That could be an entire episode, just me saying names that Bernard Purdy has played with.
Speaker 8 Yeah.
Speaker 8 Because I have done
Speaker 8 that many recordings.
Speaker 8 Yes, I've done that many recordings with so many different artists. Songs that have now, they live on.
Speaker 8
These people became, you know, yeah, they became rich. They became very wealthy.
But the thing is, is that
Speaker 8 I can stay working.
Speaker 8 All right, I'm not wealthy, but I can stay working and have a good time, love what I'm doing, and not hurting anybody. And it's a wonderful feeling.
Speaker 8 It's a wonderful feeling.
Speaker 1 Bernard Purdy,
Speaker 1 the man who has kept time
Speaker 1 for the United States for 70 years, who has been our soundtrack, even though we didn't fully appreciate everything that he has done, I am very glad to find out at the end here
Speaker 1 that
Speaker 1 much like you did
Speaker 1 for Aretha Franklin in 1971,
Speaker 8 you're just going to keep playing.
Speaker 8 I love it. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 Would you mind playing this out?
Speaker 8 Sure.
Speaker 8 Thank you, everybody. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 8 Amen.
Speaker 1 Bernard Purdy,
Speaker 1 as our control room is clapping so so loudly we can hear it through the glass.
Speaker 1 Thank you for making this weird show the coolest it has ever been.
Speaker 8 Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Averoma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McRae, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumanello.
Speaker 1 RStudio Engineering by RG Systems, Sound Design by Andrew Bersick and NGW Post, Theme Song, as always, by John Bravo, and we will talk to you next time.
Speaker 14 When you're a forward thinker, you don't just bring your A game, you bring your AI game.
Speaker 14 Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage your people, money, and agents so you can transform tomorrow.
Speaker 11 Workday, moving business forever forward.
Speaker 15 You know, Hannah and I love a good bed rotting session, reality TV, snacks nearby, and now I've leveled up with my self-care game with this Shark Beauty Cryo Glow, the number one skincare facial device in the U.S.
Speaker 16 Wait, I'm obsessed with it. I've had it for a while, actually, and it's the only mask that combines high-energy LEDs, infrared, and under-eye cooling.
Speaker 16 I really need this because nothing wakes me up in the morning.
Speaker 16 You could do four treatments in one: better aging, skin clearing, skin sustain, and my favorite, the under-eye revive with insta-chill cold tech.
Speaker 16 You put it on and it just feels so good under your eyes. Like, I actually feel like I got eight hours of sleep.
Speaker 15 It's truly like a luxury spa moment while you're literally horizontal. It's perfect for post-workout, Sunday scaries, or when you just want to glow while rotting.
Speaker 16 To treat yourself to the number one LED beauty mask this holiday season, go to sharkninja.com and use promo code GigglySquad for 10% off your cryoglow.
Speaker 16 That's sharkninja.com and use promo code giggly squad for 10% off your cryoglow.
Speaker 11 Group health plans are limited to a single carrier and a few plan options, but that doesn't fit everyone's needs.
Speaker 11 Now, a new form of employer coverage called an ICRA allows employees to choose any plan from any carrier.
Speaker 3 Learn more at ambetterhealth.com/slash ICRA.