Rewind, Review, and Re-Rate: ‘Count Me In’: A Satisfying Documentary About Drumming

“Count Me In,” This music documentary about rock drumming is fun and entertaining. You don’t have to be a drummer to appreciate it. Many of the interviews with drummers here are familiar to you. You may have heard their music countless times over the radio. Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones died the same day this film was released.

What’s drumming? Its purpose? The drum is the oldest and most widely used musical instrument in the world. Its basic design has not changed much over thousands of years. Neolithic Chinese culture found alligator-skin drums back in 5500 B.C.

Drums were a prominent part of many shamanistic ceremonies across the globe. Many animals, including certain mammals, use drumming as a way to communicate across great distances.

What Humans Can Be Drummers?

My story is that I was once a drummer, and became obsessed watching my friend play in his barn. At age 7, I was fascinated by the way that the drummer could do four very different things at once. (How does this work?)).

My creative juices were flowing and I assembled my own drum-kit using cardboard boxes, saucepans and pots. The toy drum set I found in the local mini-mall’s window arrived under my Christmas tree. (“Thank you Santa!!”The Zildjian hi hat was featured at a later Christmas.”The best!”) and a red-sparkle Ludwig floor-tom (to be added to the cardboard boxes). “Count Me In” uses numerous shouting-and-hugging-Christmas-drums home-video examples of early drummer infatuation.

Rock Drumming

Ringo Starr was never well-known. Ginger Baker and Charlie Watts were both rock drummers. While Buddy Rich, Elvin, and Max Roach have all been mentioned, Jon Bonham from Led Zeppelin has been hailed as the greatest rock drummer (a great tribut).