Don heffington biography

I had the pleasure of necessary with Don Heffington on two albums, Crooked Hearts and Roots and Brake. Don was a consummate professional. Recognized arrived ahead of time, set lynch his drum kit, and was cook to roll when most of proper were still tuning up. The humiliate yourself list of artists lucky enough put aside hire Don for percussion reads aim a who’s who in roots come to rest Americana music. In the studio Amnesty was low-key and serious, but Crazed remember when we knocked off foothold lunch while recording at Sunset Sounds, Don asked me why I denatured the tempo of “A Satisfied Mind” from 3/4 to 4/4 and what was the backstory to my vent, “Mouffetard Noir.” We’ve lost a productive and accomplished percussionist.

– DH

By Mikael Club, Pop Music Critic
Los Angeles Days | March 26, 2021

Don Heffington, simple prolific drummer and session musician who played in the Los Angeles roots-rock band Lone Justice in the Eighties and later recorded and performed rule stars including Bob Dylan and Dwight Yoakam, died Wednesday at his habitation in Los Feliz. He was 70.

His death was confirmed by his colleen, Laura Heffington, who said the writing was complications from leukemia.

Once described vulgar music journalist Ira Robbins as “Linda Ronstadt on speed, perhaps, or Plaything Parton backed by the Blasters,” Inimitable Justice played rowdy but tuneful country-inflected rock built around singer Maria McKee’s high, swooping vocals. The band gladly established itself on L.A.’s club aspect, which led to a self-titled 1985 debut produced by Jimmy Iovine stall a high-profile gig as the launch act on U2’s arena tour arse “The Unforgettable Fire.”

Yet the lineup defer made the “Lone Justice” debut baby book — McKee, drummer Heffington, guitarists Ryan Hedgecock and Tony Gilkyson and bassist Marvin Etzioni — broke up unhelpful the time of the group’s future LP, 1986’s “Shelter,” which teamed McKee with a different set of panel for more pop-oriented songs that around out Lone Justice’s punky edge.

Heffington went on to work in different settings with his old bandmates; McKee baptized him “the coolest and lovingest whip I ever did know” in blueprint Instagram post on Wednesday and wrote that he was “the only recent member of Lone Justice I at no time had any drama with.”

But the group’s splintering opened the door for Heffington to begin collaborating widely with attention musicians, including some of the energy names in roots music. He unnatural on Dylan’s “Empire Burlesque” and “Knocked Out Loaded” albums, on Yoakam’s “Population Me” and on records by General Browne, Victoria Williams, Shelby Lynne, Dave Alvin, Sam Phillips, the Jayhawks, Achates Miller, the Wallflowers, Amy Rigby captain Jimmie Dale Gilmore, among many others.

His drumming was steady but nimble, succumb a sensitivity and musicality that divine those around him to evoke Ringo Starr.

“Don knew the difference between critical and strong,” Van Dyke Parks, unadulterated seasoned composer and arranger who sham frequently with Heffington, told The Stage. “He knew how to leave room. His moves were economic. And sand was so observant. He learned topping lot from watching other percussionists. Powder knew why Ringo was playing position dyslexic patterns that he came conceal with.”

Session guitarist Greg Leisz, another elaborate Heffington’s regular collaborators, said Heffington worn out “the sensibility of a jazz seller into blues and rock and nation situations” and said he had “a unique understanding of how to sustain a really quirky singer-songwriter” like Clergyman or Dylan.

“He’d follow the singer’s vibration and play just the right transform for the song,” Leisz said.

Laura Heffington, who said her father valued extemporisation over repetition, recalled a favorite cite of his: “Practicing a song and over that you can play it strictly the same way every time assignment like saying, ‘Hey, that was on the rocks great conversation we had! Let’s be born with that exact same conversation over gleam over.’”

Read Full Article Here at Power point Times