Terry Williams (Swansea-Abertawe, 11th January 1948) is one of today’s great drummers.
He started playing with the COMMANCHEROS when he was fifteen, in 1963 until 1966.
Then he joined SMOKELESS ZONE (first known as THE JETS) in summer 1966 with Deke Leonard, Martin Ace and Plum Hollis.

Deke and Martin will be his musical partners for thirty years.

In January 1967 he joined the BOBCATS (also with Martin Ace) for six months until he and Martin left and joined THE DREAM in 1967-1968 with Wes Reynolds and Deke Leonard again.
In December 1968, Terry and Martin joined another band, PLUM CRAZY.
Terry left PLUM CRAZY in April 1969 to join a London band called THE SPICE and then joined HAVERSON APRICOT (a.k.a HAVERSON and JAMES HOGG).
LOVE SCULPTURE was his first band for 1970, including a six week U.S. tour with Dave Edmunds, John Williams and Mickey Gee. Terry didn’t record with Love Sculpture.

 

Then Terry joined MAN -still in 1970- where he met again Deke and Martin.
He made a lot of recordings and concerts with MAN (see Discography).
He also made studio sessions with ICEBERG -the Deke Leonard’ solo band- in 1972-1974. MAN temporarily split in 1977.

Terry played some months with THE DODGERS in 1976. The band was Tom Evans (bass, vocals), Bob Jackson (keyboards, vocals), John Wilson (guitar, vocals) and Terry.

Terry did some concerts and recordings with Trevor Trott Trio and also Dave Tipton Band (more info wanted!).

Then he played some time in the DEKE’S DEMOS BAND 1977 with the scraps of MAN.
In 1977 he also played live with ELVIS COSTELLO & THE ATTRACTIONS, Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe, as a second drummer.

 

Then joined the great rock band ROCKPILE (Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe and Billy Bremner) in 1978-1981 and recorded many LP’s, only one under the name of Rockpile: ‘Seconds of pleasure’.

 

In late 1981/early 1982 Terry was in THE FORCE, a band formed by Deke Leonard and Sean Tyla. He was only some time to record two tracks for an album called ‘Force’s first’.

 

MEAT LOAF wanted to have his own band to play live, so he formed ‘THE NEVERLAND EXPRESS’ and call Mark Doyle (ex-Lou Reed) on guitar, Steve Hunter (ex-Alice Cooper) on guitar, Davey Johnstone on guitar, Steve Buslowe on bass,
Paul Jacobs on piano, George Meyer on keyboards, Eric Troyer on vocals, Pam Moore as a singer, Terry Williams on drums and occasionally Ted Neely (Jesus from ‘Jesuschrist Superstar’ film).
They did a Tour in 1981-1982. There are two concerts and 2 videoclips available with Terry on drums.

 

In summer 1982 Terry joined dIRE sTRAITS. He was on the band until 1989. He played in two world wide tours (1982-1983 and 1985-1986). He was the drummer on ALCHEMY (1983 live concert). He also took part in BROTHERS IN ARMS recording the songs Walk of life and the intro of Money for nothing, at least. 1985 was the year for LIVE AID festival and 1988 for NELSON MANDELA festival.

He played drums on three MARK KNOPFLER soundtracks for films: LOCAL HERO (1982) , CAL  (1984) and COMFORT AND JOY  (1984) .

While the era 1982-1985 Terry recorded with lots of other artists: Tracey Ullman (Move over darling), Carlene Carter (C’est c bon), Phil Everly (Phil Everly), Cliff Richard (The rock connection), Dave Edmunds (Riff raff), The Everly Brothers (EB 84), John Illsley (Never told a soul), Billy Bremner (Bash), Tina Turner (Private dancer), …

Terry did some concerts with PAUL BRADY in 1983 and 1984. They recorded two live shows for german Rockpalast shows and LP in London called “Full moon”. The band was Paul Brady, Phil Palmer, Micky Feat/Ian Maidman, Kenny Craddock and Terry.

WILLIE AND THE POOR BOYS was a band and an album of timeless rock’n’roll standards (You never can tell, Slippin and slidin’,…) recorded in 1985 by a group of friends of Bill Wyman like Charlie Watts, Jimmy Page, Chris Rea, Geraint Watkins, Mickey Gee, Paul Rodgers, Andy Fairweather-Low, Ray Cooper… It included Terry on three tracks: (‘You Never Can Tell’, ‘Chicken Shack Boogie’ and ‘Poor Boy Boogie’).

DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH was a studio band in 1986 for a Peter Singh’ never released album, with Terry, Martin Ace, Micky Jones, Paul Durden and Brian Breeze. They released some cassette copies in 1989 and it was edited in 2002 under the name of URBAN TURBANS.

On 18th October 1986 he was the drummer in the CHUCK BERRY’s 60th BIRTHDAY CONCERT, with Dave Edmunds, Chuck Leavell (keyboards) and John Entwistle (bass) in the Madison Square Garden, NY. Audio available.

 

Terry joined the RACKETEERS in 1987 with Micky Gee and Martin Ace. He returned to the band some years after, as we’ll see.

 

In 1987 he appeared some seconds in the film ‘HEARTS OF FIRE’ (Director Richard Marquand). The cast is formed by Fiona Flanagan, Bob Dylan and Richie Havens.
He plays the drums in the film with Bob Dylan, Ron Wood, Clem Clempson and Richie Havens. They play the songs ‘Had a dream about you, baby’ and ‘Fear, hate, envy, jealousy’. Terry didn’t play in the LP of the movie.

 

He rejoined MAN for a short period, from march 1987 until february 1988.
They recorded three songs on the record ‘2nd Blues Festival’ live in Bonn 27th September 1987.

 

In autumn 1987 Terry also joined Jim O’Rourke and recorded an LP in welsh called ‘Y bont’. The band was Jim O’Rourke, Dave Bell, Davy Spillane, Greg Harries, Donal Lunny and Terry. 

 

In 1988 there was a Festival called LEGENDS OF ROCK’N’ROLL in Rome, Italy (available on DVD), with B.B.King, Little Richard, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino and James Brown. Terry was the drummer for BB King and Ray Charles songs.

 

On June 1988 there were some dIRE sTRAITS special concerts in June in London, and Terry was in. Eric clapton was the 2nd guitar in the band, They did two warm-up concerts and the third one was the great Nelson MANDELA Tribute Concert. DVD and audio available.

 

That same year 1988 played in the SPENCER’S BI-ANNUAL BAND with Martin Ace, Clive John and Tweke Lewis.

 

In 1989 toured with CLIFF RICHARD with some gigs, one of them in Wembley Stadium in July. The band was formed by Tom Marshall on 2nd keyboard, with Tony Rivers, Anthony Rivers, Mick -?- on backing vocals, Terry Williams on drums, and several members of Shakin’ Stevens band. They recorded the DVD “The event”.

 

In May 1989 there was a charity gig in Egham with dIRE sTRAITS and musicians and guests like Ben Elton, Joe Brown, Dave Dee and many others. Terry played again with dIRE sTRAITS for the last time. The line-up was Mark Knopfler, John Illsley, Alan Clark, Guy Fletcher, Brendan Crocker and Terry. The set-list was: ‘Sultans of swing’, ‘Two young lovers’ , ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘So far away’, ‘Money for nothing’, ‘Nadine’ and ‘Twisting by the pool’. Audio available.

 

Next band was THE BROADCASTERS in 1989-1990 with Taff Williams and Gary Pickford Hopkins.

 

In May 1990 Terry played at the JOHN LENNON TRIBUTE CONCERT in Liverpool
where he was the ‘Lennon band’ drummer, and played with Natalie Cole, Lou Gramm, Terence Trent D’Arby, Joe Cocker, Dave Edmunds, Al Green and Cyndi Lauper. In December there were the same tribute but this time in Tokyo. Concert available in DVD.

 

October 15th 1991 was the day Terry played at the GUITAR LEGENDS concert, in Sevilla, Spain, with Dave Edmunds, Robert Cray, Bo Diddley, Steve Cropper, Albert Collins and B.B. King. Concert available in DVD.

 

He played with THE BREEZE with Brian Breeze and Dave Bell in 1991-1992. They recorded a great private CD called ‘Blowin’. He rejoined them in 1994 and 1997 as we’ll see.

 

THE DREAM (Terry, Deke, Martin and Wes) reformed in 1991 and made some gigs.

 

At the end of 1992 he toured with the MOODY MARSDEN BAND in places like Manchester and Aberdeen. This band was a four piece band (bass, drums and two ex-Whitesnake guitarists, Micky Moody and Bernie Marsden). They played slow blues/blues rock like Free’s ‘The stealer’ and a few Whitesnake numbers like ‘Love hunter’, ‘Ain’t no love in the heart of the city’, ‘Here I go again’,etc…

 

Terry played with MAN on 14th November 1992, at ‘The Welsh Convention’, in Feltham.