- Pick Withers
Infobox musical artist
Name = David "Pick" Withers
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Background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth_name = David Withers
Alias = Pique Withers, Pick Withers
Born = birth date and age|1948|4|4
inLeicester ,England
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Instrument = drums
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Genre = Rock,Jazz
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Associated_acts =Dave Edmunds ,Dire Straits
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Notable_instruments =David "Pick" Withers (born
April 4 ,1948 inLeicester ,England ) was the original drummer for the rock bandDire Straits and played on their first four albums, which included hit singles such as "Sultans of Swing ," "Romeo and Juliet " and "Skateaway ."He 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 atRockfield Studios . He played on records byDave Edmunds , amongst others.Pick has also studied at Drumtech drum school in London.
Withers's style with Dire Straits was distinct for being restrained, favoring spare
snare drum andhi-hat combinations over heavy beats, speed and pyrotechnic flourishes. Like the guitar playing of the band's famous frontman,Mark Knopfler , Withers's style was blues-based. Knopfler met Withers in 1973 in London when he joined the blues bandBrewers Droop , for which Withers was already playing at the time. Withers continued to work regularly with Knopfler through the mid-1970s, although he also maintained his Rockfield affiliations, and was briefly a member of folk-rock outfit Magna Carta in 1977. Once Dire Straits gained a recording contract, however, Withers turned to drumming for that band full-time.In 1982, after Dire Straits completed the album "
Love over Gold ", Withers left the band to spend more time with his family and to pursuejazz music. He reportedly told an interviewer that he had succumbed to a growing feeling that there was nothing left in the music for him, that he was in danger of "becoming a rock drummer."His replacement in Dire Straits was the dynamic Terry Williams, also a Dave Edmunds sideman.
He also played on the
Bob Dylan album "Slow Train Coming ".
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