Howard Wyeth

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American drummer and pianist (1944–1996)

title: "Howard Wyeth" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1944-births", "1996-deaths", "american-jazz-pianists", "american-rock-drummers", "american-rock-pianists", "american-male-jazz-pianists", "musicians-from-jersey-city,-new-jersey", "drummers-from-new-york-city", "stride-pianists", "syracuse-university-alumni", "wyeth-family", "20th-century-american-drummers", "american-male-drummers", "20th-century-american-pianists", "jazz-musicians-from-new-york-(state)", "drummers-from-new-jersey", "20th-century-american-male-pianists"] description: "American drummer and pianist (1944–1996)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Wyeth" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American drummer and pianist (1944–1996) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]

Field	Value
name	Howard Pyle Wyeth
image	Howie Wyeth-Chadds Ford Getaway.jpg
alt	black album cover with a shoulder high portrait of the subject wearing a hat
caption	Wyeth's album of ragtime and stride
birth_date
death_date
death_place	Manhattan, New York, United States
origin	Jersey City, New Jersey, United States
instrument	Drums, piano
genre	Rock, stride, ragtime, jazz, blues, zydeco
::

Howard Pyle Wyeth (April 22, 1944 – March 27, 1996), also known as Howie Wyeth, was an American drummer and pianist. Wyeth is remembered for work with the saxophonist James Moody, the rockabilly singer Robert Gordon, the electric guitarist Link Wray, the rhythm and blues singer Don Covay, and the folk singer Christine Lavin. Best known as a drummer for Bob Dylan, he was a member of the Wyeth family of American artists.

Family

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/NC_Wyeth_ca1903-1904.jpg" caption="[[N. C. Wyeth]] (1882-1945), Wyeth's grandfather" alt="full length portrait of N.C. with his palette in his studio"] ::

Wyeth was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. His mother Caroline Pyle, Howard Pyle’s niece, was interested in the Wyeth family, flirted with some of them, and married Nathaniel C. Wyeth. He had four brothers, John, David, N. Convers, and Andrew, and one sister, Melinda who died very young. A fifth brother (the oldest), Newell died with his grandfather in 1945 when their car stalled on a railroad crossing near their home and they were struck by a milk train. Wyeth married once, to Rona Morrow, and later divorced. Catherine Wheeler was his partner for seventeen years, from his mid-thirties on.

The Wyeths are a family of visual artists and, earlier, illustrators who lived and worked together in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Including the Hurds and the McCoys, at least eleven artists are among the family and in-laws. Wyeth was the namesake of his great-uncle Howard Pyle (1853–1911), the artist and illustrator for Harper's Weekly and the author of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood and four volumes of children's stories about King Arthur. His grandfather N. C. Wyeth was a student of Howard Pyle and a prominent illustrator of children's books for Charles Scribner's Sons. His grandmother Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle was an illustrator of children for The Saturday Evening Post who married Walter Pyle, Howard's younger brother. He was the nephew of the painters Andrew Wyeth, Henriette Wyeth and Carolyn Wyeth.

Early years

Wyeth was the son of music lovers—his father enjoyed playing ragtime. He learned drums by age 4 and soon on a piano could repeat songs he had heard. He attended the Wilmington Friends School where his music teacher helped him decide to be a musician. Fats Waller was Wyeth's greatest influence, leading him to learn stride piano and music theory. He studied percussion with Alan Abel of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and received a bachelor's in music at Syracuse University in 1966.

Wyeth played at various times in the bands the Dogs and the Worms after moving to New York City in 1969. In 1972 on a solo album by John Herald co-produced by Bob Neuwirth for Paramount, Wyeth played with Amos Garret, Steven Soles, Ned Albright and Rob Stoner.{{cite web | author= Herald, John | title= John Herald Albums and CDs | date= n.d. | url= http://johnherald.com/albums.shtml | accessdate= 2007-02-21

''Desire''

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/World_Of_John_Hammond-Hurricane.jpg" caption="''The World of John Hammond'', [[Chicago]] 1975]]" alt="Subject playing for TV in a four-piece band including Rivera, Dylan and Stoner"] ::

|filename=Hurricane (song)-Desire-1976.ogg |title= "Hurricane" from Bob Dylan's Desire, 1976. Luther Rix on congas. |description= 30 second sample (reduced quality) |format=Ogg}}

The songs were co-written with Jacques Levy, and the personnel were Dylan (vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano), Vinnie Bell (bouzouki), Scarlet Rivera (violin), Dom Cortese (accordion), Stoner (bass, background vocals), Wyeth (drums), Luther Rix (congas), and Emmylou Harris, Ronee Blakley and Soles (background vocals). In September 1975, a few months before the album release in January, Dylan, with Rivera on violin, Stoner on bass and Wyeth on drums (who played left-handed) performed Hurricane, Oh, Sister and Simple Twist of Fate for the PBS tribute to John Hammond recorded at the WTTW television studios in Chicago.{{cite newsgroup | title = The World of John Hammond TV special 9/10/75 | author = Howells, John | date = May 15, 1991 | newsgroup = rec.music.dylan |message-id= 991May15.204054.3549@riacs.edu | url = https://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.dylan/msg/d89c0d9223f17a3e | accessdate = 2007-02-19

The group found themselves with a Billboard No. 1 pop album, the last Dylan effort to reach that mark for thirty years until 2006 when he released Modern Times.{{cite magazine | author= Hasty, Katie | title= Dylan Earns First No. 1 Album Since 1976 | magazine= Billboard | date= September 6, 2006 | url= http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/57322/dylan-earns-first-no-1-album-since-1976 | accessdate= 2007-02-18 | author= Marsh, Dave | title= Album Reviews: Desire | magazine= Rolling Stone | year= 2004 | url= https://www.rollingstone.com/artists/bobdylan/albums/album/233227/review/6067796/desire | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070429111243/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/bobdylan/albums/album/233227/review/6067796/desire | url-status= dead | archive-date= April 29, 2007 | accessdate= 2007-02-20 | author= Recording Industry Association of America | title= Press Room | website= Recording Industry Association of America | date= May 26, 1999 | url= https://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/press1999/052699.asp | accessdate= 2007-02-20 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20061015201628/http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/press1999/052699.asp |archivedate = 2006-10-15}}

The project is remembered for its "loose and swirling" sound and the songs "Hurricane", "Isis", "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)", "Oh, Sister", "Black Diamond Bay" and "Sara".{{cite web |author1=Collected review excerpts |author2=Super Seventies RockSite! | title= Bob Dylan - Desire | url= http://www.superseventies.com/spdylanbob3.html | date= 1996–2007 | accessdate= 2007-02-18

Rolling Thunder Revue

Dylan, Levy and Neuwirth conceived the Rolling Thunder Revue in New York in 1975. The revue toured the United States during the end of 1975 and first half of 1976, and at two of those shows recorded the live album Hard Rain released in 1976. They are the musical performers in the Hard Rain documentary by TVTV shown on NBC in 1976, and in the film Renaldo and Clara released in 1978. About one hundred people traveled including supporting personnel.{{cite web | author= Kokay, Les via Olof Björner | title= Songs of the Underground: a collector's guide to the Rolling Thunder Revue 1975-1976 | year= 2000 | url= http://www.bjorner.com/Underground.htm | accessdate= 2007-02-18 | title = Live 1975: Liner Notes | author = Sony BMG Music Entertainment | year = 2007 | url = http://www.bobdylan.com/moderntimes/linernotes/live1975.html | accessdate = 2007-02-19 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061111012013/http://bobdylan.com/moderntimes/linernotes/live1975.html | archive-date = 2006-11-11 | url-status = dead | title = Hard Rain: Liner Notes | author = Sony BMG Music Entertainment | year = 2007 | url = http://www.bobdylan.com/linernotes/hardrain.html | accessdate = 2007-02-19 | archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20070204140929/http://bobdylan.com/linernotes/hardrain.html | archivedate = 2007-02-04

Joni Mitchell, who flew in to sing for one show, nearly left, but when she told Wyeth goodbye, he was hurt, "And I suddenly realized, more than anybody Wyeth's reaction was so heartfelt, his expression of it was so open. Like it's just his soul is so beautiful. And I stayed."{{cite book | author= Sloman, Larry | title= On The Road with Bob Dylan | publisher= Three Rivers Press | isbn= 1-4000-4596-7 | year= 2002

Isaac Hayes, Richie Havens, Carlos Santana, Ringo Starr, Stephen Stills and Stevie Wonder joined the band, who named themselves Guam, for a show in Houston. With bad acoustics and the Astrodome only half full it was a "monumental flop." According to Wyeth the newcomers brought their own bands, "They weren't doing it the way we'd been doing it. We lost the whole togetherness thing."{{cite web | title = Warehouse Eyes - Hard Rain | author = James, Peter | date = 2003–2006 | url = http://warehouseeyes.netfirms.com/hardrain.html | accessdate = 2007-02-19

In pouring rain, the Hard Rain recordings for television and most of the live album were made outdoors at Colorado State University's Hughes Stadium in 1976 at Fort Collins, Colorado. The show was "triumphant" and well received, one reviewer calling "Idiot Wind" the "most passionate and emotional live performance" Dylan had ever made. Stoner said, "everybody is playing and singing for their lives, and that is the spirit that you hear on that record." Due to low ticket sales, the Rolling Thunder Revue ended two days later in Salt Lake, Wyeth's final concert with Dylan and this band.{{cite web | title = Still On The Road: 1976 Rolling Thunder Revue II | author = Björner, Olof | year = 2006 | url = http://www.bjorner.com/DSN03275%201976%20Rolling%20Thunder%20Revue%20II.htm | accessdate = 2007-02-19

Later years

McGuinn loved the tour and turned to the studio with Mansfield, Ronson, Stoner and Wyeth to record Cardiff Rose. Burke, Burnett, McGuinn, Ronson, Soles and Wyeth are among the cast of thirty five musicians{{cite web | author= Jan Hoiberg, Webmaster | title= Kinky Friedman: Lasso from El Paso | date= n.d. | url= http://theband.hiof.no/albums/lasso_from_el_paso.html | accessdate= 2007-02-21 |author=Chapo, Andy |title=Howie Wyeth - The Desire LP and the Rolling Thunder Revue |date=November 21, 1999 |url=http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Performance/2780/rollthdr.html |accessdate=2007-02-21 |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20240524140058/https://www.webcitation.org/5kn56CFsI?url=http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Performance/2780/rollthdr.html |archivedate=May 24, 2024 |url-status=dead | author= Official Blues Traveler Web Site | title= Blues Traveler - 1990 | date= n.d. | url= http://www.bluestraveler.com/albumLyrics.php?aid=1 | accessdate= 2007-02-21 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20061028065348/http://www.bluestraveler.com/albumLyrics.php?aid=1 |archivedate = 2006-10-28}} Later he led his own groups on piano, playing ragtime, blues and early jazz. |filename=Howie Wyeth-Ain't She Sweet.ogg |title= "Ain't She Sweet" from a medley on Howie Wyeth's "Chadds Ford Getaway", 2003 |description=30 second sample (reduced quality) |format=Ogg}}

Chadds Ford Getaway was Wyeth's one solo recording of ragtime and stride piano. It was remastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound and released as a two-CD set in 2003 by Stand Clear Music. Among the fifteen medleys are lesser-known works alongside "Ain't Misbehavin'", made famous by Fats Waller, and Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag".

Mansfield and Wyeth played on Chris Harford's Elektra album Be Headed in 1992 with a host of others. After Wyeth's death, Harford released a piano instrumental Ode to Howie Wyeth. | author= chrisharford.com | title= Band of Changes | year= 2000 | url= http://www.chrisharford.com/music/music_boc.html | accessdate= 2007-02-20 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070203033341/http://www.chrisharford.com/music/music_boc.html | archive-date= 2007-02-03 | url-status= dead | author= After Dark | title= CD Reviews | date= n.d. | url= http://www.chrisharford.com/music/music_cd_reviews.html | accessdate= 2007-02-20 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070203033438/http://www.chrisharford.com/music/music_cd_reviews.html | archive-date= 2007-02-03 | url-status= dead

Also that year, Wyeth played drums on Fishermen's Stew's 7" single release of "Small Life, Hollow Roads, and Fairy Tales" b/w "Fine" released on Berlin's Twang! Records in 1993.

Death

Wyeth died of cardiac arrest at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan on March 27, 1996. He was 51.

Notes

References

Chapo, Andy. (November 21, 1999). "Howie Wyeth: A Musical Life - 1944-1996".
"Perspective: N.C. Wyeth [1822-1945] {{!}} Western Art & Architecture".
(15 November 1998). "'Pictures Great,' His Publisher Told Him".
(29 March 1996). "Howard Wyeth, 51, A Rock Drummer".
(23 November 1986). "Sketching the Wyeth Dynasty".

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