Clem Burke, whose versatile drumming propelled the enduring rock group Blondie throughout its many years performing all the pieces from new-wave punk to disco-infused tunes, has died. He was 70.
The band stated in an announcement on its web site Monday (Apr 7) that he died from most cancers however no further particulars have been offered.
“Clem was not only a drummer; he was the heartbeat of Blondie,” the band stated in an announcement. “His expertise, vitality, and fervour for music have been unmatched, and his contributions to our sound and success are immeasurable.”
The self-proclaimed “rock & roll survivalist” began taking part in the drums when he was 14 in his faculty orchestra however was kicked out for taking part in too loud, in response to Blondie’s web site. Within the 1970’s, he answered a band’s advert within the Village Voice in search of a “freak vitality” rock drummer, kicking off his decades-long profession with lead singer Debbie Harry and the remainder of his Blondie bandmates.
The band recorded its first album in 1976 and by the next 12 months was touring with such icons as Iggy Pop and David Bowie. It grew to become often called probably the most commercially profitable band to emerge from a fertile New York rock scene that additionally produced Speaking Heads and the Ramones.
In 2006 Burke and the opposite unique members of Blondie have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame after promoting greater than 42 million information, in response to Blondie’s web site.
Throughout the late Nineteen Seventies and early ’80s, the band had eight Prime 40 hits, together with 4 No 1s: Coronary heart Of Glass, Name Me, The Tide Is Excessive and Rapture, which is thought to be the primary No 1 hit to function rap. There’s additionally a five-track 1975 album demo that features Platinum Blonde, a kind of band mission assertion. However Burke’s mark was particularly solidified together with his fast, highly effective drumming firstly of Dreaming in 1979.
In 2022, after unearthing a New Wave treasure trove of reel-to-reel tapes, cassettes and information, the band created the field set Blondie: In opposition to The Odds, 1974-1982, with 124 tracks and 36 beforehand unissued recordings, demos, outtakes and remixed variations of Blondie’s preliminary six studio albums.
Burke mirrored on the invention in an Related Press article: “We by no means would have thought that we might nonetheless be right here in the present day. Wanting again at our archives, it’s fairly superb.”
The Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame described Burke in a publish Monday on the social platform X as “a flexible and distinctive drummer who performed precisely what every tune required – and, when referred to as for, let unfastened with blistering punk rock vitality”.
