Sander Lloyd Nelson (December 1, 1938 – February 14, 2022) was an American drummer. Nelson, one of the best-known

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

and modern

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

drummers of the late 1950s and early 1960s, had several solo instrumental

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...

hits and released over 30 albums. He was a session drummer on many other well-known hits.Bob Cianci, ''Great Rock Drummers of the Sixties''. Hal Leonard Corporation, 2005, pp.120-131 He lived in

Boulder City Boulder City is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It is approximately southeast of Las Vegas. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population of Boulder City was 14,885. The city took its name from Boulder Canyon ( ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, where he continued to experiment with

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

and

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Life and career

Sander Lloyd Nelson was born in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

to Lloyd and Lydia Nelson on December 1, 1938. Nelson attended high school with

Jan Berry Jan and Dean was an American rock duo consisting of William Jan Berry (April 3, 1941 – March 26, 2004) and Dean Ormsby Torrence (born March 10, 1940). In the early 1960s, they were pioneers of the California Sound and vocal surf music styles ...

and

Dean Torrence Jan and Dean was an American rock duo consisting of William Jan Berry (April 3, 1941 – March 26, 2004) and Dean Ormsby Torrence (born March 10, 1940). In the early 1960s, they were pioneers of the California Sound and vocal surf music styles ...

, who later became recording stars as

Jan and Dean Jan and Dean was an American rock duo consisting of William Jan Berry (April 3, 1941 – March 26, 2004) and Dean Ormsby Torrence (born March 10, 1940). In the early 1960s, they were pioneers of the California Sound and vocal surf music style ...

, and Kim Fowley. In 1959, Fowley produced Nelson's first recording, "Geronimo" by the Renegades (a band made up of Nelson,

Richard Podolor Richard Allen Podolor (January 7, 1936 – March 9, 2022) was an American musician, record producer and songwriter. His career started as a session musician in the 1950s, and he was best known as the producer of Three Dog Night. Life and caree ...

Bruce Johnston Bruce Arthur Johnston (born Benjamin Baldwin; June 27, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who is a member of the Beach Boys. Johnston also collaborated on many records with Terry Melcher (his bandmate in Bru ...

, and songwriter Nick Venet). Although the single flopped on the national charts, it charted in some of the

Mid West The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

markets. The song featured in the 1959 film '' Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow'' released by

American International Pictures American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing fi ...

. After gaining respect as a session drummer, Nelson played on several hit singles including the

Teddy Bears A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy bear ...

' "To Know Him Is To Love Him" (1958),

The Hollywood Argyles The Hollywood Argyles were an American musical ensemble, assembled for studio recordings by the producer and songwriter Kim Fowley and his friend and fellow musician Gary S. Paxton. They had a US number one hit record, " Alley Oop" (Lute Records ...

' "

Alley Oop ''Alley Oop'' is a syndicated comic strip created December 5, 1932, by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin, who wrote and drew the strip through four decades for Newspaper Enterprise Association. Hamlin introduced a cast of colorful characters an ...

" (1960) and Kathy Young and the Innocents' "

A Thousand Stars "A Thousand Stars" is a song written by Eugene Pearson and performed by Kathy Young and the Innocents. The song was produced and arranged by James Lee, and was featured on her 1961 album ''The Sound of Kathy Young''. Background Sandy Nelson p ...

" (1960).Charlie Gillett, ''The Sound of the City: the rise of rock and roll''. Da Capo Press, 1996, p.104 His

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

recording "

Teen Beat ''Teen Beat'' is an American magazine geared towards teenaged readers, published from 1967–c. 2007. Over its history, the magazine had multiple teen idols on its cover, including John Travolta, David Cassidy, Leif Garrett, Menudo, Michael J. ...

", on

Original Sound Records Original Sound is a Los Angeles, California-based record label. It was founded in the early 1950s by KPOP deejay Art Laboe. It began as a small label that specialized in compiling and re-releasing "oldies" R&B and rock 'n' roll songs. History The ...

, rose to number 4 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in 1959. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a

gold disc Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

. Subsequently he signed with the

Imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texa ...

label and pounded out two more

hits, " Let There Be Drums", which went to number 7 on the Hot 100, and "Drums Are My Beat". In December 1961 the British music magazine, ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'', reported that "Let There Be Drums" had gone Top 10 in both the United Kingdom and United States. All three were

s (a feat rarely repeated).

Guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

on these hits was played by co-writer

, later a

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...

and

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

. Near the end of 1963, Nelson was in a motorcycle accident. The injuries necessitated amputation of his right foot and part of that leg. Nonetheless, Nelson continued to record into the early 1970s, releasing two or three albums a year, consisting of

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

s of popular hits plus a few original compositions. In September 2008, Nelson and a few friends, recording as Sandy Nelson and the Sin City Termites, released a new record of original compositions, ''Nelsonized'', on the independent Spinout label. Other band members included Eddie Angel (guitarist for

Los Straitjackets Los Straitjackets is an American instrumental rock band that formed in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, in 1988. Originally comprising guitarists Danny Amis (formerly of the Raybeats), Eddie Angel and drummer L. J. "Jimmy" Lester under the na ...

), Remi Gits, and Billy Favata of Torturing Elvis. Nelson died in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

on February 14, 2022, at the age of 83 from complications of a stroke he suffered in 2017.

Discography

(with Billboard (BB) and Cashbox (CB) peak positions)

Singles

" (BB #4, CB #4) / Big Jump—Original Sound 5 (1959) *"Drum Party" / "Big Noise From Winnetka" — Imperial 5630 (1960) *"Party Time" / "The Wiggle" — Imperial 5648 (1960) *"Bouncy" / "Lost Dreams" — Imperial 5672 (1961) *"Cool Operator" / "Jive Talk" — Imperial 5708 (1961) *"Big Noise From The Jungle" / "Get With It" — Imperial 5745 (1961) *" Let There Be Drums" (BB #7, CB #9) / "Quite A Beat" — Imperial 5775 (1961) *"Drums Are My Beat" (BB #29, CB #57) / "The Birth Of The Beat" (BB #75) - Imperial 5809 (1962) *"Drummin' Up A Storm" (BB #67) / "Drum Stomp" (BB #86, CB #100) - Imperial 5829 (1962) *"All Night Long" (BB #75) / "Rompin' & Stompin'" - Imperial 5860 (1962) *"...And Then There Were Drums" (BB #65, CB #95) / "Live It Up" (BB #101) - Imperial 5870 (1962) *"Teenage House Party" / "Day Train" — Imperial 5884 (1962) *"Let The Four Winds Blow" (BB #107) / " Be Bop Baby" — Imperial 5904 (1962) *"

Ooh Poo Pah Doo "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" is a song written and performed by Jessie Hill. It was arranged and produced by Allen Toussaint. The single reached No. 3 on the ''Billboard'' R&B chart and No. 28 on the Hot 100 in 1960. Ike & Tina Turner versions Ike & Tina T ...

" / "Feel So Good" — Imperial 5932 (1963) *"You Name It" / "Alexes" — Imperial 5940 (1963) *"Here We Go Again" / "Just Bull" — Imperial 5965 (1963) *"Caravan" / "Sandy" — Imperial 5988 (1964) *"Drum Shack" / "Kitty's Theme" — Imperial 66019 (1964) *"Castle Rock" / "You Don't Say" — Imperial 66034 (1964) *"Teen Beat" '65 (BB #44, CB #37) / "Kitty's Theme" — Imperial 66060 (1964) *"Reach For A Star" (BB #133) / "Chop Chop" — Imperial 66093 (1965) *"Let There Be Drums '66" (BB #120) / "Land Of 1000 Dances" — Imperial 66107 (1965) *"Drums A Go Go" (BB #124) / "Casbah" — Imperial 66127 (1965) *"A Lover's Concerto" / "Treat Her Right" — Imperial 66146 (1965) *"Sock It To 'Em, J.B." / "The Charge" — Imperial 66193 (1966) *"Pipeline" / "Let's Go Trippin'" - Imperial 66209 (1966) *"The Drums Go On" / "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" — Imperial 66246 (1966) *"Peter Gunn" / "You Got The Hummin'" - Imperial 66253 (1966) *"Rebirth Of The Beat" / "The Lion In Winter" — Imperial 66350 (1969) *" Manhattan Spiritual" (BB #119) / "The Stripper" — Imperial 66375 (1969) *"Let There Be Drums And Brass" / "Leap Frog" — Imperial 66402 (1969) *"Sapporo '72" / (B-side unknown) - United Artists 50830 (1972, unreleased) *"Dance With The Devil" / "Sunshine Of My Life" — United Artists 383 (1974) *"Drum Tunnel" / "Boogie #5" — Veebletronics 1 (1984) *"Hunk Of Drums" / "Witch Hunt" — Veebletronics 2 (1984) *"A Drum Is A Woman" / "Boogie #5" — Veebletronics 3 (1984)

Albums

NOTE: There were separate Cashbox charts for stereo and mono albums until 1965 *''Sandy Nelson Plays Teen Beat'' - Imperial 9105 (Mono)/12044 (Stereo) (1960) ::Originally issued with white cover, later issued with red cover. Features re-recorded version of "Teen Beat" *''He's a Drummer Boy'' (Later retitled ''Happy Drums'') - Imperial 9136/12089 (1961) *''Let There Be Drums'' (BB #6) - Imperial 9159 (CB #7)/12080 (CB #17) (1962) *''Drums Are My Beat'' (BB #29) - Imperial 9168 (CB #24)/12083 (CB #31) (1962) *''Drummin' Up a Storm'' (BB #55) - Imperial 9187 (CB #82)/12189 (1962) *''Golden Hits'' (BB #106) - Imperial 9202/12202 (1962) *''Country Style''- Imperial 9203/12203 (1962) ::Reissued in 1966 as ''On The Wild Side'' *''Compelling Percussion'' - Imperial 9204/12204 (1962) ::Reissued in 1966 as ''...And Then There Were Drums'' *''Teenage House Party'' - Imperial 9215/12215 (1963) ::Reissued in 1966 with different cover *''The Best of the Beats'' - Imperial 9224/12224 (1963) ::Reissued in 1966 with different cover *''Beat That Drum'' - Imperial 9237/12237 (1963) *''Sandy Nelson Plays'' - Imperial 9249/12249 (1963) *''Be True to Your School'' - Imperial 9258/12258 (1964) *''Live! In Las Vegas'' (BB #122) - Imperial 9272 (CB #58)/12272 (1964) ::Despite the title, all tracks are studio recordings with live audience dubbed in *''Teen Beat '65'' (BB #135) - Imperial 9278/12278 (1965) *''Drum Discothèque'' (BB #120) - Imperial 9283/12283 (1965) *''Drums a Go-Go'' (BB #118, CB #82) - Imperial 9287/12287 (1965) *''Boss Beat'' (BB #126) - Imperial 9298/12298 (1966) *''"In" Beat'' (BB #148) - Imperial 9305/12305 (1966) *''Super Drums'' - Imperial 9314/12314 (1966) *''Beat That #!!@* Drum'' (CB #94) - Imperial 9329/12329 (1966) *''Cheetah Beat'' - Imperial 9340/12340 (1967) *''The Beat Goes On'' - Imperial 9345/12345 (1967) *''Soul Drums'' - Imperial 9362/12362 (1967) *''Boogaloo Beat'' - Imperial 9367/12367 (1968) *''Rock and Roll Revival'' - Imperial 12400 (1968) *''Rebirth of the Beat'' - Imperial 12424 (1969) *''Manhattan Spiritual'' - Imperial 12439 (1969) *''Groovy'' - Imperial 12451 (1970) *''Disco Dynamite'' - United Artists L35491 (1975)

Budget compilations

*''Walkin' Beat!'' - Sunset SUM-1114 (Mono)/SUS-5114 (Stereo) (1966) *''Teen Drums'' - Sunset SUM-1166/SUS-5166 (1967) *''And There Were Drums (Drums And More Drums)'' - Sunset SUS-5224 (1968) *''Heavy Drums'' - Sunset SUS-5261 (1969) *''Sandy Nelson Plays Fats Domino Hits'' - Sunset SUS-5291 (1970) *''Drums, Drums, Drums'' - Sunset SLS 50060 (Stereo) (1972)

References

Bibliography

Joel Whitburn Joel Carver Whitburn (November 29, 1939 – June 14, 2022) was an American author and music historian, responsible for setting up the Record Research, Inc. series of books on record chart placings. Early life Joel Carver Whitburn was born in Wau ...

, ''Top 40 Hits'' *Marc Ribowsky, ''He's A Rebel'', 1989, Penguin Books,

External links

Sandy Nelson & The Sin City Termites on MySpaceDiscography at Instromania (in French)
* Sandy Nelson biographyat

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

* *
Sandy Nelson -- Boulder City's cave man - Las Vegas Sun NewspaperSandy Nelson
NAMM Oral History Interview (2012) {{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson, Sandy 1938 births 2022 deaths American amputees Imperial Records artists Musicians from Santa Monica, California 20th-century American drummers American male drummers 20th-century American male musicians American songwriters The Teddy Bears members