Pick Withers

Pick Withers
Withers performing with Dire Straits in 1978
Background information
Birth name	David Withers
Also known as	Pick Withers
Born	4 April 1948 Leicester, England
Genres	Rock, jazz
Occupation(s)	Musician, producer
Instruments	Drums
Years active	1964 - present
Associated acts	Dave Edmunds, Magna Carta, Dire Straits

David "Pick" Withers (born 4 April 1948 in Leicester) is an English rock and jazz drummer. He was the original drummer for the rock band Dire Straits and played on their first four albums, which included hit singles such as "Sultans of Swing," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Private Investigations."^[1]

Withers first played a drum in the Boys Brigade taught by a childhood friend Richard Storer of now knocked-down Argyle Street in Leicester. He became a professional musician at the age of 17, in a band called the Primitives, followed by a band called Spring who had a record contract but little success. They recorded one album on the RCA label. In the mid-1970s he was a house drummer at Rockfield Studios in South Wales. He played on records by Dave Edmunds and Hobo amongst others, including the John Dummer Band, Magna Carta, and the Gary Fletcher Band.^[2]

Pick has also studied at Drumtech drum school in London.

Equipment and technique

Withers's style with Dire Straits is distinct for being restrained, favouring spare snare drum and hi-hat combinations over heavy beats, speed and pyrotechnic flourishes. Like the guitar playing of the band's frontman, Mark Knopfler, Withers's style was blues-based. Pick Withers also plays on Prelude's 1973 album, 'How Long Is Forever." Knopfler met Withers in 1973 in London when he joined the blues band Brewers Droop, for which Withers was already playing. Withers continued to work regularly with Knopfler through the mid-1970s although he maintained his Rockfield affiliations and was briefly a member of folk-rock outfit Magna Carta in 1977. Once Dire Straits gained a recording contract, Withers turned to drumming for that band full-time.

Withers played on the Dire Straits albums Dire Straits (1978), Communiqué (1979), Making Movies (1980) and Love Over Gold (1982).

Withers left the band in the summer of 1982, soon after completing the Love Over Gold sessions, to spend more time with his family and to pursue jazz music. He reportedly told an interviewer that he had succumbed to a growing feeling that there was nothing left in the music for him and that he was in danger of "becoming a rock drummer." His replacement in Dire Straits was Terry Williams, also a Dave Edmunds sideman.

Discography

With Dire Straits

With others

• Slow Train Coming, Bob Dylan
• Giant From The Blue, Gary Fletcher Band

References

1. Wright, Jade (2011-01-07). "Pick Withers: From Dire Straits and Bob Dylan's drummer to putting on his own gigs in Liverpool - Liverpool Arts - Entertainment". Liverpool Daily Post. Retrieved 2011-10-31.
2. "garyfletchermusic.co.uk". garyfletchermusic.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-10-31.