Buh-Doom!

AMG Review of Buh-Doom!

Mark Deming
All Music Guide

When you're widely regarded as one of the world's finest session musicians, have spent your career working with the likes of Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, Count Basie, and Frank Sinatra, and are probably the most recorded drummer in the world, you develop a certain level of eminence grise which allows you to do whatever you please. So if Hal Blaine wanted to make a comedy album, who was gonna stop him? Actually, mandolin virtuoso David Grisman got the idea of cutting an album of Blaine cracking his favorite jokes after recording a couple of albums with him, and knowing of his long-standing reputation as the funny guy among the circle of L.A. session players. But Blaine himself says it best when he announces, "I'm not a comedian, I'm not a comic, I play the drums" on the second track of Buh-Doom!, and while he's certainly not horrible, this album is a bit like listening to your Uncle Louie tell jokes for an hour -- it's mildly funny in small doses, but no one with any charity in their bones would ever suggest he give up his day job. And Blaine seems well aware of that, since he throws in six drum solo tracks along the way; you can tell in an instant this guy is a far better percussionist than a stand-up comic, but your enjoyment of his solo cuts will depend on how much you enjoy hearing the drums all by their lonesome. Hardly unlistenable, Buh-Doom! is still best left in your stack of odd and unlikely albums kept on hand for novelty purposes, though I'll bet you're Uncle Louie will get a kick out of the "Golden Urinal" bit.