A pair of musician uncles inspired this journeyman performer, one of them providing drum lessons to the preteen.
Herb Lovelle's professional career began near the close of the '40s in a combo led by trumpeter
Hot Lips Page. As the next decade dawned,
Lovelle joined up with the
Hal Singer combo, the following year grabbing the drum seat in
Johnny Moore's Three Blazers. The drummer then became something of a fixture at the Savoy Ballroom in New York City, shifting away from the house band job to tour in 1954 with tenor saxophonist
Arnett Cobb and pianist
Teddy Wilson. Classic jazz continued to be
Lovelle's forte, accompanying the great pianist
Earl Hines, among others. In 1957 the drummer became more involved in the R&B styles that were developing out of the echoing backbeats of music such as the aforementioned
Moore combo.
The driven sax honker
Sam "The Man" Taylor became one of his main bosses,
Lovelle meanwhile finding himself in demand for a variety of studio assignments outside the jazz scene, including ribald so-called "party records," new breed folkies
Bob Dylan and
David Blue, and even some of
the Monkees' drum parts. Success in any one area would inevitably lead to further requests along the same lines,
Lovelle eventually drumming for many aspects of the folk-rock pantheon from the mightiest to the wimpiest.
Lovelle began an acting career in the '80s, starting with small roles as janitors and hospital orderlies, the assignments eventually taking over from drumming as his main employment as well as creative outlet. He acted on four episodes of the popular Law and Order series between 1995 and 2004. In 2006
Lovelle appeared in a film entitled Bella as a homeless man: not such a great difference in lifestyle according to people who like making jokes about drummers.
–
Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi