Maureen Tucker
| Maureen Tucker | |
|---|---|
Moe Tucker (1992)
|
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Maureen Ann Tucker |
| Also known as | Moe Tucker |
| Born |
August 26, 1944 Jackson Heights, Queens New York, New York, US |
| Genres | Experimental rock, protopunk, rock and roll, art rock, avant garde, folk rock |
| Occupation(s) | Drummer, musician, singer-songwriter, singer |
| Instruments | Drums, percussion, guitar, vocals, bass |
| Years active | 1963–c. 2007 |
| Associated acts | The Velvet Underground, Half Japanese, Daniel Johnston, Jonathan Richman |
Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker (born August 26, 1944) is an American musician and singer best known for having been the drummer for the New York City-based experimental rock band the Velvet Underground.
Maureen Tucker was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, and grew up in Levittown, New York, in a middle-class Catholic family. Her father, James, was a house painter and her mother, Margaret, was a clerical worker. She had an older brother, Jim, who was friends with Sterling Morrison, and a sister Margo. As a teenager she was an avid fan of Babatunde Olatunji, whom she first heard on the Murray the K radio show. Olatunji, along with Bo Diddley and the Rolling Stones, inspired her to become a musician.
Tucker began playing the drums in 1963, at age 19. Without any formal instruction, she learned by playing along with popular songs on a second-hand drum kit.
When she was asked to join the Velvet Underground, Tucker had dropped out of Ithaca College and was working for IBM as a keypunch operator. The band's original percussionist, Angus Maclise, had left in November 1965 because he felt the band sold out when it took a paying gig. Tucker was drafted because Velvets guitarist Sterling Morrison remembered her as the younger sister of one of his college friends who played the drums. Tucker was frequently noted for her androgynous appearance.
Tucker's style of playing was unconventional. She played standing up rather than seated (for easier access to the bass drum), using a simplified drum kit of tom toms, a snare drum and an upturned bass drum, playing with mallets rather than drumsticks. She rarely used cymbals; she claimed that since she felt the purpose of a drummer was simply to "keep time", cymbals were unnecessary for this purpose and drowned out the other instruments. Rock critic Robert Christgau said of Tucker, "Mo was a great drummer in a minimalist, limited, autodidactic way that I think changed musical history. She is where the punk notion of how the beat works begins."
...
Wikipedia