{"id":30947,"date":"2026-04-21T05:30:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=30947"},"modified":"2026-03-17T09:02:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T13:02:55","slug":"take-five-great-tracks-featuring-aynsley-dunbar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/take-five-great-tracks-featuring-aynsley-dunbar\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Great Tracks featuring Aynsley Dunbar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Few drummers in the history of rock have a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 as varied and extensive as Aynsley Dunbar. The Liverpool-born musician and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee has worked with some of the biggest names in rock and beyond. Though he\u2019s effectively retired these days \u2013 he turned 80 on January 10 \u2013 Dunbar can proudly look back on a lifetime of impressive musicianship. Here are five tracks that merely scratch the surface of the amazing body of work featuring drummer Aynsley Dunbar.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cThe Stumble\u201d from John Mayall &amp; the Bluesbreakers\u2019 <em>A Hard Road<\/em> (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nJohn Mayall was the leading light of the British blues boom of the 1960\u2019s. His band The Bluesbreakers was a stop on the career trajectories of countless musicians who wold go on to bigger things. Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Mick Taylor and John Hiseman are just some of the names who played with Mayall. And those Bluesbreakers albums are very, very good. When Clapton left for the Yardbirds, his replacement on guitar was (the arguably superior) Peter Green. On drums for that lineup\u2019s first record <em>A Hard Road<\/em> was 21-year-old Aynsley Dunbar. Their reading of Freddie King\u2019s classic \u201cThe Stumble\u201d is an exemplar of the record.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NLpziHTO-Nc?si=h0onsOkO-5s2QQGq\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cRoad Ladies\u201d from Frank Zappa\u2019s <em>Chunga\u2019s Revenge<\/em> (1970)<\/strong><br \/>\nAfter his time with Mayall, Dunbar briefly led a blues outfit of his own, the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation. That group released four albums in the space of two years and was a regular fixture on the festival circuit, but never gained much in the way of mainstream success. Shortly after their last release, the band folded, and Dunbar joined Frank Zappa\u2019s band in time for <em>Chunga\u2019s Revenge<\/em>. They didn\u2019t play a lot of blues, though \u201cRoad Ladies\u201d falls into that category. Dunbar would eventually be heard on 11 Zappa albums released during the composer\u2019s lifetime, plus at least eight posthumous releases.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zVeqVqifJ2Q?si=M9oSMnwtzT0LOQH5\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cRebel Rebel\u201d from David Bowie\u2019s <em>Diamond Dogs<\/em> (1974)<\/strong><br \/>\nWhile with Zappa, Dunbar did a fair amount of work with other artists. He played on Shuggie Otis\u2019 landmark <em>Freedom Flight<\/em> LP, drummed on two records by ex-Turtles (and ex-Mothers) Flo &amp; Eddie, and played on Lou Reed\u2019s <em>Berlin<\/em> and Herbie Mann\u2019s <em>London Underground<\/em> (both 1973), plus many other sessions. By 1974 he was drumming with David Bowie. Dunbar played on Bowie\u2019s <em>Pin Ups<\/em> (1973) and 1974\u2019s <em>Diamond Dogs<\/em>. The latter included the hit single \u201cRebel Rebel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U9l23zncj08?si=kHSw6sCYCHVNrNdX\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cOf a Lifetime\u201d from Journey\u2019s <em>Journey<\/em> (1975)<\/strong><br \/>\nBetween 1974 and 1976 Dunbar could be heard on releases by former Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson, Nils Lofgren, former Mott the Hoople front man Ian Hunter, and Sammy Hagar. But he also joined a new Bay Area-based band, Journey. That group\u2019s original drummer was Prairie Prince (best known for his work with the Tubes and Todd Rundgren), but by the time of their debut, Dunbar had taken over on the drums. In their earliest guise, Journey was an exciting, progressive-leaning rock band. Dunbar was with the group through its first four albums, leaving shortly after 1978\u2019s <em>Infinity<\/em> (the band\u2019s first with new singer Steve Perry) \u201cOf a Lifetime\u201d from the band\u2019s debut is among the best early tracks from Journey.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hc_q_zb7nts?si=yK3dp8e6Z58XhXPv\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cJane\u201d from Jefferson Starship\u2019s <em>Freedom at Point Zero<\/em> (1979)<\/strong><br \/>\nAfter leaving Journey, Aynsley Dunbar joined another San Francisco group, Jefferson Starship. Led by former Jefferson Airplane guitarist Paul Kantner, the band made <em>Freedom at Point Zero<\/em>, their first album since the departure of fellow former Airplane crew members Grace Slick and Marty Balin. <em>Freedom at Point Zero<\/em> was also the band\u2019s first album with new singer Mickey Thomas, and the group scored a major hit single (no. 14 on <em>Billboard<\/em>\u2019s Hot 100) with \u201cJane.\u201d Dunbar remained on board until 1982, after which he continued his illustrious career, working with a succession of hard rockers including Ronnie Montrose, Pat Travers, Whitesnake, Michael Schenker, UFO, Leslie West and even (on two albums) with Keith Emerson.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LJCuB-uhNgM?si=b7Yf5HZOyOUx77eb\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Few drummers in the history of rock have a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 as varied and extensive as Aynsley Dunbar. The Liverpool-born musician and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee has worked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5883],"class_list":["post-30947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-aynsley-dunbar","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30949,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30947\/revisions\/30949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}