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FULL BIOGRAPHY
Jimmy Griego
 I was born in
a crossfire hurricane, well not exactly, actually, I was born
in Sacramento, California. I started to play the drums at 7
years old, but before that I was introduced to music by my father
James Griego, he was a Boogie-Woogie piano player and had a
passion for piano music, mostly classical, Chopin was heard
as well as Cozy Cole a drummer who said Topsy part 1 in a very
low voice and began to play the hottest jungle drums I ever
heard. This was my introduction to drum music and then I was
hooked and I had to play the drums.
As far back as I can remember my parents used to go to parties
where all my uncles played Spanish guitars and sang in Spanish
with the old 2-3 son clave as the rhythmic base. I was invited
to play the clave or bongos or maracas, I did this when I was
able to talk and ask to play them. So this is going way back
but to continue my first influences were Gene Krupa, Cozy Cole
and Buddy Rich who was too unbelievable to be true and still
is. At the same time all the cute girls liked the Beatles and
the Monkees. I liked the Beatles but I did not like the Monkees,
they were just too bubble gum for my taste but I went along
with it because there was a very cute girl who liked them.
The moment she would leave I would put on Miles Davis Bitches
Brew and listlen to Jack DeJohnette play the wildest drumming
I've ever heard. Latter on in my life I was accused of playing
like Jack while I was in a punk band. O.K. are you still with
me? Durring the 60s I started to listlen to what was called
Blues- rock, bands like Cream, Jeff Beck and my all time favorite
Jimi Hendrix. I am still greatly influenced by Hendrix to this
day and forever will be. I saw him play at the Cal-Expo, in
Sacramento just after the Woodstock movie was released, he played
like a maniac. Not too long after that he died. I cried and
I played my drums for hours until my hands were full of blisters.
He has even influenced me to learn how to play the guitar, an
instrument that I have always loved, I still think that I should
have quit the drums and played the guitar but I just love the
drums too much .
In the 70s blues rock turned into jazz rock and John McLaughlin
and the Mahavishnu Orchestra was all I could listlen to with
Billy Cobham totally tearing the drums into another universe.
When I got to see them perform in the Berkley Community Theater
I was hypnotized, they came out and asked for silence and then
John started to play the guitar intro to Birds of Fire and then
all hell broke loose for the next 2 hours. At this time also
Weather Report was on the scene and Chick Corea, everybody was
playing a million notes and totally going for it. Durring this
period of my life I was playing in my own original band playing
odd time meters, playing in the high school jazz ensemble and
working in all black soul bands playing James Brown, Ohio Players,
Rufus and other black radio hits. In my last year of high school
I won the Most Outstanding Musician of the Year Award from the
Pacific Jazz Competition in Stockton, California and also at
another competition I won a full schalarship to attend the Stan
Kenton Jazz Clinic for 2 weeks.
At this time I was taking drum lessons from jazz drummers Jimmy
Robinson and George Walker, As I was learning more about music
I met some key people who have influenced me until this day,
guitarist/bassist Micky Valentino, guitarist Henry Robinette
( cousin to Charles Mingus) and keyboardist Roger Smith (currently
with Tower of Power). I'd like to thank these 3 men for leading
me in the right musical directions. Micky introduced me to one
of the greatest bassist I ever played with Ronnel Bailey, he
had a monster groove that was untouchable, god blessed him.
Micky also introduced me to Roger Smith who I played and recorded
with quite often as I was growing up, Roger was our town hero.
Henry Robinette was constantly making me learn more about jazz
music by making me listlen to John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Charles
Mingus and Duke Ellington among many others.
This was a very intense time in my life and I was going to the
California state university of Sacramento and playing in a world
music band called The Runners. All I did was study music and
play music. Elvin Jones and Tony Williams were my big influences
at this time and thru Henry I got to meet his cousin Mingus
at a jazz club in San Francisco called the Keystone Corner,
every jazz band played there from Miles Davis to Art Ensemble
of Chicago. I saw so many bands there Pat Martino, Cecil Taylor,
Jack DeJohnette, Roy Hanes, Art Blakey, Sam Rivers, Dexter Gordon
and many others. On Monday nite Keystone Corner had a jam session
for local musicians and I was invited to play, the leader counted
off impressions and an unbelievable fast tempo to knock me out
of the session but I prevailed and was accepted as one of the
jammers. And on another Monday nite I performed there with jazz
pianist Jessica Williams who I had been playing with in Sacramento.
Well it was not easy to make a living at playing jazz so I still
played commercial music, this is where Ray Torres stepped into
my life and gave me big time funk lessons, his concept of groove
and time is matched by no one, he is gifted by god to be funky
and as the Head Hunters song said, GOD MAKE ME FUNKY. Well he
did that for Ray. Ray was also the drum teacher of the groove-a-saurus
Mike Clark. Ray would always tell me to call Mike on the phone
and one day I did and he said in his bass tone voice COME OUT
AND WE'LL HANG, I can never forget this statement that he said
to me. I can only thank Ray and I am happy to still be his friend.
Henry Robinette had a fusion band called Black Ice with saxaphonist
Joe Espinoza and they asked me to join the band. This is when
Ronnel Bailey needed a gig and I got him in. Ronnel had a thumb
that would not quit, he was without a doubt the funkiest bassist
I have ever played with and his groove was way deeper then any
of us, so I always felt like a little kid next to him and he
was also a very large black man. One day he came to the gig
and he looked very sad, so I asked him Ronnel what's wrong and
he told me he only felt half funky, mind you he was playing
like his ass was on fire, so I told the rest of the guys in
the band what he had told me and they just could not believe
that he had said that and they told him that he was 2xs as funky
as we were when he was only half funky, so it made him feel
better. Well about the same time I went to see the rock band
Journey and they had this guy named Steve Smith on drums well
I said he's not a rock drummer he's a jazz drummer playing rock
and I can also do that and then my brother keyboard extrodinaire
Chris Griego invited me to play in his rock band Raydio Flyer.
Previously the only rock experience I had was playing in a punk
band called Labial Fricative. We had Henry Robinette on mutron
bifased guitar, a punk bassist and his 6- foot tall androgenis
girlfriend with butch cut hair and 2 drummers. This is when
I got accused of playing like Jack DeJonette, I broke all the
rules and pissed off all the musicians because I was the lead
drummer and I was playing something that no one under stood.
I think that you can learn from every experience. Well after
playing in this rock band with my brother I had finally had
it with Sacramento and I moved back to Los Angeles, I forgot
to mention that I lived there when I was young. So now I'm in
this big city and looking for work with a million other great
drummers, it was hard at first but then I joined the cruise
ship and went to Alaska for 3 months, Mexico for 3 months and
to the Caribbean for 7 and ½ months, it was an easy way
out all I had to do was play in the show band for 2 hours a
nite reading music charts. It was a lot of fun but I missed
Los Angeles and when I returned, the bass player Vince Bilbro
from the Raydio Flyer band got me a gig with none other than
BOBBY KIMBALL, I could not believe it. He kept me working around
the world for over 7 years .we went to France, Equador, Bolivia,
Holland, Germany, Puerto Rico. Japan, New Foundland, Iceland,
Alaska, Venezuela and Canada. It was a very challenging job
to play like Jeff Porcaro and I never was able to fill his shoes
but I must'a done something right because I lasted until I left.
Bobby was a great man to work for and he is so full of life.
He took me to so many places in this world that I would have
never seen. We toured thru the south of the United States several
times and I got to eat Cajun food from his mom Ruby and eat
crayfish at the Gulfport crayfish festival and go to New Orleans
and eat at K-Pauls. Great memories! thanks Bobby.
Durring this period I also learned how to play a shuffle and
in Los Angeles the other drummers were calling me SHUFFLE KING.
I was playing in a top L.A. blues band called the CAPITOL HOMEBOYZ
this was a really great experience because of the talent involved.
Jimmy Zavala was the harmonica player and he had played with
Rod Stewart, Tom Petty, Eurythimics and he had a very big attitude
and was very cool, next was Chuck Kavooras who is one of the
best slide guitar players in the world and he is still undiscovered,
my friend Vince Bilbro was on the bass, and once again he had
hired me for the band saying- I'm starting a blues band with
Chuck and you are the drummer, I said I don't know how to play
the blues and Vince said you are gonna learn now , so I did
and now the last member of the band was organist Teddy (ZigZag)
Andreatis ,who was playing with Guns and Roses. At this time
I played with a lot of rock stars that wanted to play blues
with the Capitol Homeboyz some of the jammers were Steve Lukather,
Slash, Mike Landau, Scott Henderson, Rick Derringer, Steve Stevens,
Alex Liegertwood and well I think you get the picture it was
a big scene. One day Teddy calls us up on the phone and says
you guys want to be in a video? Well it turned out to be Guns
and Roses NOVEMBER RAIN which was one of the biggest rock videos
ever, we spent all day there and I'm playing drums in the wedding
band while everyone is dancing, I was in the clip for about
1 second. Well this was the start of my love affair with the
blues and I'm still playing it.
Before I move on I want to mention a couple of bands that include
some very great talent, one is Blues Farm which included a brilliant
guitarist from east Los Angeles Mike Tovar who also played in
the Bobby Kimball band, singer David Shelly and once again Vince
Bilbro on the bass. The other blues band is Allie and the Delta
Diciples which featured Allie Tolliver from Mississippi/Chicago
who was a personal friend of Willie Dixon. The last band I would
like to mention is guitarist Iain Hersey who I have recorded
a cd called Fallen Angel. I would also like to thank my drum
teachers Glen Sobel and Richard Wilson.
This brings me to where I am now, living in Amsterdam the Netherlands.
For the last 5 or so years I have been playing my music here
and I mostly play original music or Blues. My current working
band is the Blues Summit, an all star Dutch blues band which,
includes, Thys Van Leer the lead vocalist, flute player, organist
from the legendary Dutch band FOCUS. I also have a jazz trio
of original music that I wrote called BIRDS OF FIRE named after
my favorite fusion band Mahavishnu Orchestra, and a latin jazz
funk project called PUERTO CHA CHA. I have one last thing to
say if you want to become a serious musician never stop learning
and continue to practice no matter what.
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