Leroy Drumm

Leroy Drumm
Birth name	Leroy Maxey Drumm
Also known as	Leroy Drumm
Born	(1936-09-26)September 26, 1936
Origin	Algonac, Michigan, U.S.
Died	November 26, 2010(2010-11-26) (aged 74) Waynesboro, Tennessee, U.S.
Genres	Bluegrass, traditional bluegrass, country music
Occupation(s)	Songwriter, sailor, welder
Years active	1960s–2010

Leroy Maxey Drumm (September 26, 1936 – November 26, 2010) was born in Algonac, Michigan is an American and a bluegrass/country music songwriter who served in the United States Navy, in the 3rd Division as a sonar man aboard the USS Soley (DD-707), an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer and deployed to the Mediterranean from July 1956 to February 1957. Upon leaving the navy he worked as a general laborer and welder in and around Detroit, MI. He is widely known for his collaborations with his friend Stacy Richardson of the Hurricane Creek bluegrass band and another guy named Pete Gobel. Leroy wrote the song "Colleen Malone," recorded by Hot Rize on their Take It Home, that won the IBMA’s Song of the Year award in 1991.

Career

Leroy Drumm was a songwriter that some in the bluegrass world only knew by name in the shadows of others. Although he never could play any musical instrument or sing, his collaborations with co-writers Stacy Richardson, Cal Freeman and Pete Goble and others helped turn his poems of heartache, life and memories into songs of today and yesterday. Leroy penned such bluegrass favorites as "Halfway To Tulsa", "Getting Over You", "Slow Train", "God Sent An Angel," "Georgia Girl,' "Julianne," "You Can Keep Your Nine Pound Hammer," "Leavin' You and Mobile Too," "Blue Virginia Blues," "Natural Thing To Do," "Tennessee 1949," "Phone Call Away," "Many Hills of Time," "Poet With Wings," "She’s Walking Through My Memory," "Dixie in My Eye", "Circuit Rider", "Joe’s Last Train,""Woman Dressed In Scarlet," and many others.

Leroy's began writing early in his life but it was not until 1971 in became a reality and since then his songs have been recorded by such notable artists as the Bluegrass Cardinals, The Country Gentlemen, Doyle Lawson, Larry Sparks, Josh Williams, The Eddie Adcock Band, Joe Mullins, Special Consensus, IIIrd Tyme Out, Hot Rize,Audie Blaylock and Lost & Found, Bill Emerson, and many others. In 1974 Leroy had four songs recorded on the Country Gentlemen's album Remembrances & Forecasts, "Willow Creek Dam", "Delta Queen" about the actual river boat the Delta Queen, "Billy McGee The Drummer Boy", and "Circuit Rider". In 1976 he was honored to have the Country Gentlemen use his song "Joe's Last Train" as the title track of their next album and the song "This Land Must Die" was on that same album. In 2006 The Complete Vanguard Recordings was released and the four tracks of Leroy's were used from Remembrances & Forecasts.

One of his last projects with Stacy Richardson was a favor for a World War II veteran named Private James W. Bozeman who went to church with Stacy. Leroy was asked to write a song about the Battle of the Bulge and the account from a combat medics point of view in the 94th Infantry Division. His lyrics composed with Stacy's melody was posted on the 94th Infantry Division's website as a tribute to American heroes who fought and died in World War II.

Personal life

Drumm was married twice in his life, his first wife Carlie Mae Morrison was the mother of his six children, Rodney, Leroy Jr., Dolly, Barbara, Terry and Roger.

He had much heartache throughout his life and it carried on even when it came to his musical or poetic talent. In 1975 his oldest son Rodney Owen Drumm was struck and killed by a drunk driver in a SUV while on his motorcycle in Rose City, MI. Leroy stated that "Losing one of your children is the cruelest weights life places on your heart - bar none". Then in 2010, he lost his first grandson David Owen Dorton due to Leukemia. Leroy died just days later on his son Rodney's birthday 26 Nov. 2010.

With these heartbreaks and heartaches came some of his best ideas for the words he would write. The song "Blue Virginia Blue" for example was inspired by an event that happened to him when he was in the Navy. While stationed in Norfolk, Va. awaiting departure on a Mediterranean Tour in 1956 on the USS Soley DD-707. While there he had met a young women and she asked him to take her to an Elvis Presley show in Richmond. Although he was not an Elvis fan and had barely even heard of him, but she sure was, so he took her. He soon after departed Norfolk in mid July and returned the following February. He hitchhiked and or walked most of the way in the freezing rain from Norfolk to Richmond to her apartment. By the time he got there he was cold and miserable from the weather and he was hoping to find comfort in from the cold. But to his surprise someone an old man was living there and had no idea of who the young women he was looking for was. She had apparently moved away or went back home to Saint Paul, MN, while he was deployed.

He wrote an email to his son in 2008 and stated;

“Song writing or poem writing is an art or craft, one is born with it. One can’t teach it or I don’t think one can learn it. No... one has to be born with it their heart and mind. It isn’t always pleasant to live with but it is forever there. Ideas for songs or poems come from varied sources, but mostly from life itself. Really, anything that inspires a poet’s heart or mind is a source. Life of course is the greatest source. Second to “life” is a broken heart, unlike the gas in a car’s gas tank, a broken heart or life never runs out of gas …… it keeps going and going. A life-time ago, when I was sixteen, I got my first broken heart from love gone wrong and tried to write about it. In fact I still remember the title "Well dear be careful with your heart". The broken heart I felt at sixteen I have been able to fall back on throughout my life and it is included into every broken hearted song I've ever worked on such as ”I Die A Little More Each Day", "Tennessee 1949", "Seen Through The Eyes Of A Dreamer" etc.... Same girl and same broken heart. As I said, it keeps going and going and going.” He walked away from writing many times due to his disgust with some in the industry and each time he would swear he would never return, but he would. Maybe them heartaches that haunted his heart kept calling him back from inside.

Death

Leroy died due to complications of respiratory and heart failure at his home in Waynesboro, Tennessee, on 26 November 2010, the day after Thanksgiving. The end was far from pleasant, but everyone, to include himself, knew that he was ready to go. He had written a song with his friend Stacy years before titled "I'm Ready To Go" and that song fit almost to a tee to how it all ended. Feller and Hill and the Bluegrass Buckaroos recorded the first cut of the song on their "I Firmly Promise You" CD released in March 2015.

Legacy

Bob Mitchell of Radio Bluegrass International and WKWC-FM Owensboro, Kentucky did a one-hour tribute to songwriters Leroy Drumm and Pete Goble. The international segment features bands from Australia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Italy. It was recorded on January 15, 2011 at WFPK-FM 91.9, Louisville KY.

In 2014,the title track of the album “The Day We Learn to Fly” that was written by Leroy and Stacy Richardson and recorded by the band Volume Five was nominated at the 25th Annual IBMA Awards for "Gospel Recorded Performance Of The Year.

Leroy and his son Roger started a publishing company called "Sound of Drumm's Music" in late 2008, 2 years before Leroy's death, in which Leroy wanted Roger to carry his legacy on and publish many of his 500 other works of lyrics yet to be recorded. Roger has since teamed up with a select few of the best in the business of Bluegrass Music to finish these works to create music for the fans of Leroy's music to enjoy for years to come. Once his entire repertoire is completed, he will have over 700 songs in his song catalog.

Awards

Year	Award	Result
1991	IBMA Song of the Year - "Colleen Malone" co-written with Pete Goble Recorded by Hot Rize	Won
2014	IBMA Gospel Recorded Performance Of The Year - "The Day We Learn to Fly" co-written with Stacy Richardson Recorded by Volume Five	Nominated