Mickey Hart: Finding New Inspiration

Grateful Dead founder and drummer extraordinaire Mickey Hart will join fellow Dead bandmate Phil Lesh at this year’s 10,000 Lakes Festival. It will be Lesh’s second time at the Soo Pass Ranch for this event.
Though Hart and Lesh will play on different nights, this festival is extremely fortunate to have both of them appearing on the same bill.

Hart always will be known for his work with the Grateful Dead, but his mark on music came through his own research into world drums and drum technique.
He released the book “Drumming at the Edge of the World” and the record “At the Edge” in 1990. The book and album “Planet Drum” followed in 1991.

For those records, Hart brought together percusionists from all around the world into a space where they could create something uniquely theirs. “Planet Drum” had people listening, causing that percussion album to rank #1 on the Billboard charts for 26 weeks.

Then the Recording Academy responded by creating a new Grammy category to honor the percussionists’ efforts, presenting Hart and his fellow drummers an award for the Best World Music Album.

In 2006, Hart gathered many of those same percussionists together for a Planet Drum Reunion Tour. That sparked an idea to bring those same musicians to his Sonoma County Studio X for another drum experience he called the Global Drum Project.

That album, released last year, featured Indian tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, Puerto Rican conga giant Giovanni Hidalgo, Nigerian talking drum master Sikiru Adepoju, and Hart.

Other percussionists assisted, including Taufiq Qureshi on percussion and vocals, Niladari Kumar on sitar, and Dilshad Khan on sarange, an Indian stringed instrument.

As a tribute, Hart sampled vocals by the late Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji, who was showcased on the original Planet Drum recording.

But Hart departed from straight drumming on this album, even choosing not do do flashy drum solos.

“The trick was to have everybody agree to just do soundscapes as opposed to soloing,” Hart said about that experience. “We just wanted to get into the zone and take people on a trip…When you play with percussionists of this caliber, there are two ways it can go. It can turn into a giant drum challenge with everybody trying to outdrum each other.

“But the egos have been put aside here…Everyone was very committed to the groove.”

Those soundscapes included the use of electronics, found sounds, and traditional instruments, as well as Hart himself sampling vocal cuts from AM radio.
The 2008 version of The Mickey Hart Band features Steve Kimock (The Other Ones) on guitar and pedal steel, George Porter Jr (The Meters, Porter Batiste Stoltz) on bass, Kyle Hollingsworth (String Cheese Incident) on keys, Jen Durkin (Deep Banana Blackout) on vocals, Walfredo Reyes Jr. (Carlos Santana, Jackson Browne, Steve Winwood) on drums, and Nigerian talking drum master Sikiru Adepoju (Planet Drum, Global Drum Project).

It will offer fresh takes on Dead favorites “Fire on the Mountain” and “New Speedway Boogie,” as well as songs by Robert Hunter who wrote for another Hart band, the Rhythm Devils.

This band formed to complete a 20 city tour that will end at the 10,000 Lakes Festival.

The Mickey Hart Band: Main Stage, 10KLF; Thur., July 24, 6 p.m.