Clarence Oliver (born January 7, 1954) – Leavin' Me (1976)

The longtime drummer for the Rimshots, the house band for Sylvia Robinson's All Platinum Records, Oliver played on this fierce funk bomb by Brother To Brother.

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Clarence “Foot” Oliver was the drummer of the Rimshots, the house band for Joe and Sylvia Robinson’s many record labels including Stang, All Platinum, and Sugarhill Records.

Clarence Alonzo Oliver was born and raised in Petersburg, Virginia. He began drumming professionally at age 14, and eventually became part of the backing band for the Washington, D.C.-based Moments along with two friends, bassist Jonathan Williams and guitarist Walter Morris. The Moments signed to Stang Records in the late 1960s, a division of All Platinum Records, headquartered in Englewood, New Jersey and owned by Joe and Sylvia Robinson.

Oliver, Williams, and Morris were put together with keyboardist Bernadette Randle, organist Mozart Pierre Louis, and rhythm guitarist and songwriter/producer Tommy Keith to become Stang’s initially unnamed house band. They backed up all artists on Stang and the other sub-labels owned by the Robinsons during the early to mid-seventies, including Turbo, Vibration, and Astroscope, and themselves released records and toured as the Rimshots.

In 1974, Oliver and Morris played on, co-arranged, and conducted the superb funky disco jam “Hey There Sexy Lady” by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. It was released on Stang with a very funky instrumental version on the flip.

Oliver drummed on both albums the Moments released in 1975, Sharp and Look At Me. In 1976, he appeared on Brother to Brother’s stellar LP Let Your Mind Be Free. Standout cuts included the anthemic title track, the laid back “Visions,” and the epic, spaced out jam “Phattenin'.” The group’s multi-instrumentalist leader Billy Jones co-wrote the funk bomb “Leavin’ Me” with Sylvia Robinson.

Also in 1976, the Rimshots released their full length album Down To Earth, which was packed with funky cuts. The superb disco-funk anthem “Do What You Feel” was a Kool & the Gang-flavored masterpiece, co-written and produced by Morris with Moments members Al Goodman and Harry Ray.

Other highlights included the epic self-empowerment jams “I Wanna Be Myself” (co-written and produced by Randle and Keith) and the LP’s title track “Being Down To Earth” (co-written and produced by Morris, Goodman and Ray). One of the album’s singles was the phenomenal disco-funk jam “Super Disco,” which hit #7 on Billboard’s Disco Singles chart and #49 R&B. It was written and produced solely by Tommy Keith.

“Do What You Feel” was also featured on the original soundtrack to Patty, a low-budget exploitation film released in 1976 and based on the infamous 1974 kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army. (Side note: in Brad Schreiber’s award-winning 2016 book Revolution's End, he presented compelling evidence that, in the words of Salon.com founder David Talbot, “the SLA was a creation of the police state to infiltrate, subvert, and destroy the growing radical movements of the period.”)

The Rimshots played on the entire Patty soundtrack, but the other two tracks that appeared on it under their name were the laid back, jazzy masterpiece “Revelation” and the funky cinematic jam “Takin’ It.” Both also appeared on international pressings of Down To Earth.

Happy 70th Birthday to the great Clarence Oliver.

Further info:

“Local band bringing Motown back,” Pocono Record, August 6, 2007.

“Clarence Oliver,” Virginia Interscholastic Association Hall of Fame, July 28, 2020.

#soul #funk #disco #AllPlatinumRecords #Rimshots #ClarenceOliver