The Beat of a Different Drummer

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Minerva was the daughter of Major Elisha Patterson, lived in Jersey, Ohio.  The May 10, 1860, issue of the Tipton Advertiser reported this:

"In Ohio they have a lady drummer, who has received a diploma for her skill.  Her name is Minerva Patterson, a daughter of Major Elisha Patterson, a wealthy farmer of Jersey, Licking County.  The Major has organized a band, consisting wholly of his children.  Two of his girls play the drum, and the band is said to be one of the best in the State."

This news item was widely published beyond Ohio including in the states of California, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., mostly likely due to her father's tenure of service during the Civil War.

It was unusual for women to receive a notice in the newspaper about receiving a diploma, but for it to also mention her skill as a drummer is nearly unheard of.  The article mentions that another sister plays drums, so more research is in order.  The Patterson family included three other sisters at the time this article was written:  Rebecca, Margaret, and Catharine.  Stayed tuned for a new vignette once this mystery is solved!

An English-born resident of St. Louis, the September 30, 1900, issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote an article featuring Belle, calling her "The Only Female Trap Drummer" (although we know she was NOT the only female trap drummer) and was a member of the Musician's Union and was highly respected within the music community.

She survived a brutal attack by her jealous and drunk violin-playing husband.  This incident was widely published in newspapers.  She continued successfully performing and enjoyed a long career.

Thanks to Brittany Devonshire for sponsoring this vignette.

Clara Schumann, famous in her own right and married to composer Robert Schumann, toured the world with her Ladies Orchestra.  An 1895 newspaper ad states that Cora Belle would perform on drums, bells, tympani, and xylophone.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune issue of May 10, 1896, included a lengthy article.  In part, it reports:

"The features in this line will be the violin playing of Miss Mignon Coursen, admitted to be one of the best lady violinistes before the public; trombone solos by Miss Ada Rudolph, whose playing on the big instrument has been received with the most kindly approval by musical critics; drum and xylophone solos by Miss Cora Belle Lewis, who is said to have completely mastered the drums, traps, and other instruments that belong to her position as drummer, and cornet solos by Miss Brownie Greaton, one of the few lady cornetists who have the ability to play this instrument and bring out the full beauty and depth of tone which it is possible to produce."

The reduced-price tickets to their Wednesday matinee performance was 25 cents for any seat in the house.

Cora's daughters, Jessie and Myrtle, also performed in the Clara Schumann Ladies Orchestra.

In August 1933, Cora resigned her membership to Musician's Local 146 based out of Lorain, OH.

Nora performed on drums with the Colorado Cactus Blossom Concert Company in the early 1890s with her sister, Lizzie, and father, Major M. L. Pembleton, who was said to be the Drummer Boy of  the Shenandoah during the Civil War.  She was born in Pennsylvania and resided in Nebraska for some time.

The Pembleton Ladies Band was based out of York, NE, and, long before this image was taken, she and Lizzie toured the region billed as the Pembleton Baby Drummers.  

A publicity photo of the band shows the whole family dressed in find uniforms/costumes, with the girls wearing dresses and a Prussian-style snare drum.

Nettie was born in California in 1876 and along with her twin sister, grew up with a large number of siblings, some of whom were half-siblings and others who were adopted from the Washoe tribe.  Their father's military career, followed by his work as a lawyer, historian, and author, gave the children opportunities that perhaps other families would not have enjoyed.

Like her younger sister, June, Nettie was a member of the Truckee, CA, Girls' Drums Corps in 1893, the same year they performed for the big Independence Day celebration in Reno, NV.  Also like her sister, she was trained on snare drum.

In addition to local celebrations, the girls' drum corps performed at the 1895 encampment -- a gathering of former Civil War soldiers and their families, where soldiers could rekindle old acquaintances.

After her drumming experience, she attended the Hopkins Art Institute, where she gained notoriety as a sculptress.  In 1904, a magazine article was published with a photo of Nettie in her studio.

The August 1905 issue of "Sunset" magazine printed her re-telling of the Washoe legend of Tahoe.  Her adopted sister, who was Washoe, told her of the legend and you can read it here.

Estelle was a member of The Fadettes Orchestra by the year 1897, just one of several drummers and percussionists would who serve during the decades-long history of the orchestra.

In addition to first serving the orchestra on tympani, she later became quite adept at the trap kit, including tambourine, cymbals, and bells.  She was also an accomplished pianist and frequently accompanied soloists during the performances.

A review of one of her performances with The Musikal Girls (a quintet which followed after The Fadettes) tells of her beautiful voice and comedic bits, as well.  

The Fadettes had more than 6,000 performances to their credit, and Estelle was a member of the band for thousands of those performances.

She is found in city directories of the time as a music teacher, too.

Lizzie performed on drums with the Colorado Cactus Blossom Concert Company in the early 1890s with her sister, Nora, and father, Major M. L. Pembleton, who was said to be the Drummer Boy of the Shenandoah, of the Civil War.  She was born in Wahoo, NE, and died in Grafton, ND.

The Pembleton Ladies Band was based out of York, NE, and, well before this image was taken, she and Nora toured the region billed as the Pembleton Baby Drummers.  

A publicity photo of the band shows the whole family dressed in find uniforms/costumes, with the girls wearing dresses and a Prussian-style snare drum.

Bertha and her siblings, six of them, were born to musical parents, her father being a bugler in the Civil War.  She was the youngest of the six, born in 1877 in New Brighton, PA.

She was a part of the highly-respected Noss Family Band, which toured for weeks at a time through the vaudeville circuits.  As a young girl, she was quite visible contributing to the band on a bass drum which was nearly as tall as her, trading it in during the later years for a trombone and saxophone.

She married in 1902 and tried to "settle down" for a while, but the travel and opportunity to perform were interwoven into her personality and, against the suggestion of her husband, George Russell.

News articles in 1909 show her touring in a production called "Little Miss Muffet," a musical comedy and in 1912 with "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway."  Her husband filed for divorce, claiming a "show-mance" had developed between her and a castmate.  She later remarried.

She retired from show business later in life.

Learn more about the Noss Family Band here.

Maud was one of the 10 young girls of the "Maidens Drum Corps" of Canton, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota).  Maud was born in Dakota Territory, while some of her siblings were born in Iowa.  She grew up knowing farm life, as her father was a dairyman.  She was about 7 years old when she first performed with the Maidens Drum Corps.

The girls were trained in drumming by Professor C. F. Gates, who accompanied the girls on fife alongside Alex Remsen.  

The Maidens' August 1885 performance was more than 70 miles from home.  The girls and their entourage traveled by train, performing at the depot when they arrived.

In 1889, she moved from Dakota Territory to Oklahoma Territory.  It in unknown if she continued to play drums going forward.

Lasky's Imperial Musicians was a traveling Vaudeville troupe who performed all across the United States.  The September 10, 1909, issue of the Indianapolis Star newspaper reported this:

"There are two young women trip drummers with Lasky's Imperial Musicians at the Grand this week who do some phenomenal work in handling various traps during the descriptive number 'A Farmer's Visit to New York,' the climax of the musical offering.

May Sheinart and Gertrude Nudhall sit in front of the Imperials with their instruments scattered all about them.  Among the things they use right up to the second during the rendition of the characteristic number are the following:  imitation of a train moving on the track, horsehoof clatter, cow's bawl, baby's cry, locomotive bell, police rattle, popgun, slapsticks, sand blocks, steamboat whistle, cuckoo whistle, canary and mocking bird whistles, tom-tom drums, clog mallets, tambourine jingles, Chinese wood block, Chinese gongs, steel bells, Indian tom-toms, castanets, flash lamps, big rattles, tugboat whistles, rooster crow, goose cry, automobile imitation, auto horn, cow horn, all kinds of bells, flash lightning, rattles and storm finish.  The pair of young women give an exhibition of quick and effective work while they are introducing the effects into the number.  The Grand is being liberally patronized during State Fair week.  There has been no advance in prices with a superior show for out-of-town visitors.

Lasky's Imperial Musicians was a traveling Vaudeville troupe who performed all across the United States.  The September 10, 1909, issue of the Indianapolis Star newspaper reported this:

"There are two young women trip drummers with Lasky's Imperial Musicians at the Grand this week who do some phenomenal work in handling various traps during the descriptive number 'A Farmer's Visit to New York,' the climax of the musical offering.

May Sheinart and Gertrude Nudhall sit in front of the Imperials with their instruments scattered all about them.  Among the things they use right up to the second during the rendition of the characteristic number are the following:  imitation of a train moving on the track, horsehoof clatter, cow's bawl, baby's cry, locomotive bell, police rattle, popgun, slapsticks, sand blocks, steamboat whistle, cuckoo whistle, canary and mocking bird whistles, tom-tom drums, clog mallets, tambourine jingles, Chinese wood block, Chinese gongs, steel bells, Indian tom-toms, castanets, flash lamps, big rattles, tugboat whistles, rooster crow, goose cry, automobile imitation, auto horn, cow horn, all kinds of bells, flash lightning, rattles and storm finish.  The pair of young women give an exhibition of quick and effective work while they are introducing the effects into the number.  The Grand is being liberally patronized during State Fair week.  There has been no advance in prices with a superior show for out-of-town visitors.

Chicago-born Pauline Dove was a member of the world-famous hot jazz group, The Ingenues, which toured from 1927 to 1935.  (The length of Pauline's stay with the group is not known at the time this page was updated.)

Pauline is listed as a featured performer when they grace the Norva Theatre stage in Norfolk, VA, in 1926 and are already being compared with the Paul Whiteman Big Band.  

The Ingenues performed in Ziegfeld's Follies of 1927 and their notoriety continued to grow. 

In an interview, Pauline states, "It was ambition to take up a theatrical career after our college days were over, that induced us to accept Mr. Sherman's proposal to form a band."

 In the November 28, 1928, issue of The Courier-Mail newspaper of Brisbane, Australia, Pauline is credited as playing both drums and sousaphone for their Australian performance at the Wintergarden Theatre.

The Ingenues filmed several shorts during their time together.  This short entitled "The Band Beautiful," which you can view here, shows Pauline performing in the hot jazz style on drums and doubling on banjo.

Born in Rhode Island to parents of Scottish descent, Vina and her sisters were performing as young girls in the annual Caledonia Club events held in Fall Creek. Massachusetts.

In her early 1920s, she was listed as a "performer" in both the 1919 and 1920 city directories for the City of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Billed as "the First and Champion Girl Bass Drummer," Vina Keppie performed on the Association vaudeville circuit, touring America in the mid-1920s with the group "Echoes from Scotland" and later headlining  "The Kinkaid Kilties"  group which performed across the United States.

Later in life, she was the founder and director of the Glendale (CA) Women's Scottish Bagpipe Band.

As reported in the July 22, 1906, issue of the Minneapolis Journal:

"Women Rulers of a Town

"The recent election disclosed that of the 2,000 inhabitants of the town of Froissy, in northwestern France, 1,200 are female and only 800 male.

"All the town officials are women: there is a station mistress, a postmistress, a woman lettercarrier, and even a girl drummer, who rattles the official signal for the town council to meet."

The December 9, 1920, issue of the Ward County Independent newspaper reported:

"The Amidon brass band which was organized recently, boasts of the only lady bass drummer in the state.  This capable musician is Miss Irene Douglas."

Personally, I would like to think that there were several other lady drummers, but that they simply did not know of them.  Either way, we know of Irene and celebrate her musicianship.

Marian was given her first drum at age 4 by her father, as she was growing up in Belle Fourche, South Dakota.  

While in New York City in 1928, Marian met E. K. Nadel, who was a theatrical producer.  She saw her talent and put her the show entitled "Happiness Girls," which ran for 26 weeks on Broadway.  At this time, she was being billed as "Marian Mack."  She and E.K.  became romantically entangled.

in 1932, the year she and E.K. married, she was a "single" act, meaning she was the leading performer in her moments on stage, just one segment of a multi-act show touring the Orpheum vaudeville circuit.

At some point, Marian --or perhaps a marketing team-- changed Marian's stage name and age.  By the 1940 census married to Nadel and in newspaper articles, her age was said to be in the mid-20s, shaving nearly 10 years off of her actual age.

She drove to Iowa to audition for the Phil Spitalny Orchestra, but was sent home.  About 6 months later, the Spitalny organization called to offer her a job.  She performed with Spitalny for 6 years and eventually yielded her throne to another great...Viola Smith.

After the end of World War II, Mary went on to tour again, leading her own act and still playing drums.

In May 1958, she was living in Spokane, Washington, and was recently widowed.  Although she had taken a "real" job working in the government sector, the performing life was still in her.  She performed with an instrumental trio every Friday and Saturday night at American Legion Post 9.

She re-married later in life, moving to California, and living out her days there, being able to look back at an amazing career.

According to an information-filled article in the Norwich Bulletin, the Imperial Instrumentalists of Boston were performing with Louise on drums and traps as part of a trio and later during this special event, a sextet.  The April 18, 1922, article includes this special mention about the performance:

"The program was one that was very pleasing and of great versatility, there being several readings, pianologues and other attractive novelties.  One of the pleasing features of the program was the second number, Drumology, which featured Miss Arnold at the drums."

Viola grew up with in a musical family where every child had to practice piano for 2 hours a day...or work in the opera house their family owned in Mount Calvary, WI.  Needless to say, their 8 children would rather practice their scales than peeling potatoes.

Viola got a few lessons from her cousin at age 12 and by age 13, she and her sisters were touring the region in the Schmitz Sisters Orchestra.

From there, the sisters were the "house band" for the traveling Major Bowes Amateur Hour.  When that opportunity ended, she and several sisters, along with more fresh talent created The Coquettes, of which Viola was president.  The was also touring the country billed as "Viola and Her 17 Drums."

She moved to New York (getting a ride from none other than William F. Ludwig) where she performed in the Phil Spitalny "Hour of Charm" Orchestra.  The orchestra was featured in a weekly radio program and performed at the 1949 Inaugural Ball for President Harry S. Truman, sharing the stage that night with the orchestras of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey.

She enjoyed a solid career performing on Broadway in the "Kit Kat Band" of the Broadway musical "Cabaret."  The Kit Kat Band was featured on the television show "I've Got a Secret" and on the 1971 Tony Awards program.  This performance shows Viola's prowess in the style of traditional jazz -- just watch her snare-centered technique, along with cowbell and woodblock, plus an extended section performing with the typical "choke cymbal" technique of the day.  View the video -- and her escaping hi-hat -- here.

Despite all of her touring, she never once had to lug her own gear!

She retired after a 50-year-long career, moving to Morocco before settling down in California, still performing and giving quick lessons from time to time.

Thanks to Kelli Rae Tubbs for sponsoring this vignette.

"Brick Top," which one can hope and imagine is a stage name, was the figurehead of her own group.  The Winona Daily News issue dated July 2, 1935, ran this display ad which reads:

= = = = =

"DANCE

Hillside Tavern

Marshland, Wis.

Wednesday, July 3

Music by

Brick Top & Her

Syncopating Boys

Come and see the only and best lady drummer in 17 states"

= = = = =

Now...which 17 states?  The world may never know!

Phyllis performed with a girls' drum corps comprised of 8-year-old girls who were trained by drummer Ernie Owens in the military style.  Phyllis performed as one of two Scotch bass drummers (two-mallet style) in the young corps, which toured across America in 1922 and 1923.

The average age of the girls in the corps was just 8 years old.

The January 5, 1923, issue of the Evening Vanguard newspaper states the girls have been given the keys to several cities and reports: "These children were gathered together by that noted New York theatrical producer Hugo Hamlin, 51 Park Avenue, Venice, who came to Venice to live and gather talent."

During that same month, newspaper ads for the "Juvenile Song and Dance Revue" include Phyllis by name.

The girls in the group were all from the Venice and Bay District.  They performed January 5 and 6, 1923, at the Rosemary Theatre in Venice, CA.

With her early life in Dubuque, IA, heading on to Chicago, then California, Jerrie Thill began drumming at age 16.   In addition to drumming, she was also a tap dancer and vocalist, performing in many professional and touring groups through the years.

To view a humorous video featuring a song by GRAMMY-winner Allee Willis about 91-year-old Jerrie at the drums with images from throughout her career, click HERE.

She performed between 1935 and 1938 on the Vaudeville circuit.  In the 1940s and 1950s, she was the house drummer at The Flamingo Nightclub.  

In 1974, she began performing with Peggy Gilbert and the Dixie Belles, including television performances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Golden Girls, and Life with Lucy.

And in 1984, she began a 25-year stint at the El Cid Mexican Restaurant where she performed as a part of the Sunday Brunch entertainment.

The Star Gazette newspaper of October 18, 1938, reported this:

"One of the attractions of Towanda (PA) High School football games is Majol Johnson, formerly of Elmira (NY), who plays the bass drum in the school band.

It is said the Majol, who left Elmira during the past summer, puts on a show all by herself when she starts beating the drum -- left handed.  There are few girl bass drummers because not many can lug one of the big instruments up and down the field when the band is marching."

Born in Bessemer, AL, in 1921, Johnnie Mae was influenced by the Delta blues that crowded the airwaves of Memphis, TN, Clarksdale, MS, and other parts of the South.  She embraced the sounds at the heart of the blues music she loved and, in 1943, moved to Chicago.  She thrived in the clubs for nearly 30 years with her gritty style of singing and self-taught raw style of playing drums.  She is one of few women who fall into the "gutbucket" sub-genre of blues music.

Not only did she perform, but she was a songwriter, too, composing more than 600 songs, some of which were performed by legendary blues artists like Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed.

Her legacy continues on in recordings and a few live performances...and with her guitar-playing son, Jimi "Primetime" Smith, who continues on in the blues tradition.

She was convinced to get out and perform again late in life.  Click here to view a brief vocal performance by Johnnie Mae at the Chicago Blues Festival.  

American jazz drummer and esteemed member of the integrated musical group, The International Sweethearts of Rhythm," which got its start at the Piney Woods School for orphans in Mississippi in 1937.  By 1939, the group's reputation for fine quality dance music had grown and the Sweethearts were touring the country.

Pauline joined the group at age 17, and moved from clarinet to drums after another drummer dropped out.  Pauline was also a vocalist in the group.

A brief video showing the history of the ISR can be viewed here.

The October 17, 1939, Kansas City Times reported this, but takes a stab at progress at the same time: 

BAND GOES CO-ED:  The small town band has gone co-ed, there's no doubt about that; the Olathe band, in fact, has a girl bass drummer, which is carrying feminism to an alarming extent, because bass drumming is a highly responsible position in a marching band, and if a poor, weak female can handle that job, you might as well get ready to see co-ed quarterbacks on the football team in a year or two.