Donnie Vosburgh - featured drummer (Vic Waters - The Entertainers - Don Gregory - Tampa / St Pete - 1969 / Al Green - Curtis Mayfield - Mothers Finest - Soul City - James Brown - Joe South -
Notes from an old drummer (featured drummer / Donnie Vosburgh 1969
Winter 1969. During our 3-weeks at Soul City in Fort Lauderdale, several band members went to hear a popular show band called The Mob. They were very well known on the nightclub, entertainment “show-band” scene.
They were impressive. They sounded good, switched instruments, played popular Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears horn tunes. Fancy stage outfits.
Playing with Vic and Donnie was a new experience. Vic had a couple records with The Entertainers.
We played a tune he recorded called The Greatest Love.
Looking back 50 years is a unique reflection.
The Greatest Love, that song, Vic’s voice and the production is very good. Vic’s record producers were connected to The Bill Lowery and Hugh Rogers Agency in Atlanta. They were having success with Joe South, Billy Joe Royal and The Classic IV. This record of Vic’s is right on solid in that bag.
That tune was written by Joe South and produced by Dan Penn. Reputable names with music business record success.
Again, looking back...the business of music is a different line of work. There was a lot of talent in those days. Vic had as much as anyone I’d seen and heard. He was also a very real dude with a great personality.
Those 3-weeks of playing with that band at Soul City was memorable. The rhythm section was cookin. Andy on Hammond was from Otis Redding’s group. Stanley Cecil and Lonnie Lawson were from Memphis, home of Stax and that sound. It was fun playing Booker T tunes.
Our arrival at The Blue Room gig was a welcome adjustment. We had free accommodations built in to the club/motel. All of the members, with exception of Vic lived at the motel. St. Pete was Vic’s home.
Vic and Donnie Gregory really connected with the audiences every night. I enjoyed playing the music and being a “show drummer” when Vic and Donnie were on.
Vic’s former band, The Entertainers were playing up the street at a club called The Office. During our break, myself and other band members went to go hear them. I’d heard the gossip and mumbo jumbo.
The Office club seemed a little more upscale than The Blue Room. It was well lighted. The inside was less like a nightclub. It had a high stage, easy for the audience to see the group.
The Entertainers were playing when we walked in. They sounded good. The drummer was Donnie Vosburgh. I’d heard about him from Vic and Don Gregory. He was playing a Rogers double bass drum kit. I really liked his sound and energy. I don’t know what snare he was using, but the Rogers metal snare drums always sound great on soul and RnB music.
It was musically educational to hear them live and in person. They were more RnB and funky than The Mob. There is a photo of James Brown with Vic and The Entertainers.
Donnie Vosburgh had a solid groove and sound. The Entertainers were tight and impressive.
The record “Taking Inventory” is the sound I heard from Donnie Vosburgh’s Rogers kit that night in 1969. It reminds me of Al Jackson Jr. It’s a grooving track. The drum break is very hip. I’m surprised it hasn’t been sampled. Cool organ, backup voices, Wurlitzer tremolo piano.
Unfortunately, the new Vic and Donnie group didn’t connect on the scene. I think the band had 2 or 3 weeks at The Blue Room, but nothing else happened. Booking 11 pieces may have had something to do with it.
The Blue Room gig was a wrap for my brief stint on the road. I’d return to West Palm Beach and continue my lounge lizard journey.
From 1972 to 1973, I worked different gigs with Vic Waters and Donnie Gregory in Clearwater, Tampa and St Pete. Those bands included the guitarist and bass player from The Entertainers. Dennis and Don.
I always enjoyed playing with the musicians from that area. I was still commuting from Orlando. My gig history was always sketchy in Orlando. I seemed to connect more with the players in the Tri-City / Tampa-Clearwater-St Pete area.
I heard Donnie Vosburgh a couple times after the 1969 Entertainers gig at The Office. I’m not sure of the timeline when he was playing with Mothers Finest. This is what I remember.
(It was? 1972-1973?) I was in a road group / we were playing in Atlanta. On a night off, I went to a club to hear Mothers Finest. I actually played this club in late 1970 with a band from Little Rock, Those stories in the future.
It was late in the evening when the band announced, if there was a drummer in the house. Their drummer / Donnie Vosburgh was sick and needed to leave. I volunteered and went to the stage. I played the last set of the night.
It was fun and funky. On bass was Jerry “Wyzard” Seay / Gary “Moses Mo” Moore on guitar / Joyce “Baby Jean” Kennedy, on vocals. I don’t remember who was on keyboards. I think there was another male vocalist.
I enjoyed playing the set. The band seemed a bit surprised at my playing...I knew their groove, a combination of Funk and Rock n Roll.
I never heard Donnie with the band. The Mothers Finest discography has Donnie Vosburgh on their first record, 1972.
Post the Atlanta Mothers Finest event- I’m guessing it was 1973-I was working with Donnie Gregory in Clearwater at a club called The Courthouse? Vic came in with his new band to sit in. It was Donnie Vosburgh on drums and a couple musicians from a group called The Melting Pot. They had a recording history on Capricorn Records. Kenny Tibbets/ Bass – Dick Gentile / Keyboards
Vic’s new band sounded good, they would start working in the area. I heard them a few times at Cheshire Cat and The Alibi Club on Dale Mabry. Crazy joints those places...wow.
My thing with Donnie Gregory was always popular Top 40, but it was RnB or Groove. Donnie Gregory was usually high energy and wanted things “on top” but grooving. Don had a great voice and played funky solid guitar.
Marvin Gay, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, War, Billy Preston, Curtis Mayfield were a few of the standard artist Don Gregory would cover in our band.
The term “In The Pocket” was a [buzz-word] pertaining to some of that music.
Vic’s new band was into a laid back groove. It wasn’t the energy of soul RnB like the James Brown intensity and energy I heard in 1969.
Donnie Vosburgh was playing a nice Ludwig wood shell drumset. He may have had double bass drums, I don’t remember. His playing and sound was fatter, but different. It wasn’t that crisp Al Jackson Jr. sound I heard with The Entertainers in 1969. He was playing more laid back with a style like Carmine Appice.
I enjoyed hearing Donnie Vosburgh. He’s a unique player on my lengthy drummers list. Folklore has it he continued in a rock tradition and worked with a few reputable name groups.
My time period in the area, working and playing with those Bay Area musicians was very memorable. My gig thing was always the nightclub lounge lizard arena. Historically there are many non-night club bands from that area with notable popularity.
I’ve written about that in my book “Notes of a Young Drummer 1966-1969”
Next on my list is Gregory Coleman of The Winstons. The famous Amen Break.