Jamaica’s Drummer

Remembering “Tin Legs” 
Jamaica’s Drummer - Lloyd Augustus Adams 
By Rich Lowe, June 2025
 
Lloyd Augustus Adams: 1946-2024

Loyd Adams, 2024 (Photo courtesy of Astarza Anneke Adams).

​Sadly, Lloyd Adams passed away in July 2024, but his musical legacy is strong. He is the drummer from Jamaica that played on Augustus Pablo’s “King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown,” Eric Donaldson’s “Cherry Oh Baby,” Errol Dunkley’s “Black Cinderella,” Delroy Wilson’s, “Riding For A Fall,” and many-many hallmark Jamaican songs enjoyed throughout the world.
     Drummer Winston Grennan taught Adams how to play, and Adams recorded hundreds of commercially released songs. He was active in sessions for Duke Reid and Randy’s recording studios in the 1960s. He was a member of The Upsetters, Now Generation, Inner Circle, and in America with The Fabulous Titans. Lloyd also enjoyed singing; at live shows, he would sing “Waiting In Vain” and Carl Malcolm’s “No Jestering.” 
     Although he was small in structure, earning the nickname of Thin Legs or Tin Legs, he had power and a distinctive style on the drum set. As a drummer himself, Ron Rhoades was honored when Lloyd joined up with his band The Fabulous Titans in 1979, revealing his reverence with his first action, “Lloyd was the first drummer that I got out from behind the drums to play another instrument. He was the first guy I ever did that for, and since. He had that ‘pan style’ where the drum [sounds out loudly], Rainng ding ding ding! It’s the snare style on those old Jamaican records where the intro sounds like he’s playing on a tin pan [a steel drum], as opposed to playing the intro on a snare drum fill and dropping into the song. It was more like playing on a pot like a cooking pot, a cooking pan, or a saucepan. Really bright. Really crisp. He would hit the rim and the head at the same time with the stick, and it created that sound” (Ron Rhoades interview, 18 April 2025).
          Lloyd had a quiet, mild-mannered nature. Rhoades commented on his demeanor, “We were doing a lot of traveling. Lloyd, he would just be in his room at the hotel. He would never go out with us and hang out with us. When you see backstage photos of the band through the years, he’s not in them. We respected him so much, and we were honored that he was playing with us. If he wanted to sit in his room and read, then that was fine with us” (Rhoades, interview). Rhoades continued, describing Adams’s punctuality, “Timely – He was there every time!  Every time. I can’t think of one time that we ever had to wait for Lloyd. He was always there.” Adams was also a snappy dresser. Miranda, his daughter's mother, remembers first meeting Lloyd, “I was walking down Charles Street at the corner of West Street, and he had on this nice yellow outfit—a beautiful yellow outfit - yellow shirt, yellow pants, and nice shoes. I said, ‘Damn! He looks good!”
     Lloyd had an adventurous spirit. He traveled throughout the US, to Miami, Florida, and Oakland, California, played with Hux Brown at gigs in Chicago, and eventually landed in Texas. After leaving Jamaica, he led a life of nonstop exploration of America. One aspect of his life is that when he left Jamaica, it was not believed that he ever returned. For decades, few knew where Adams was living in the US. He occasionally connected with instrumentalists from Jamaica who were on US tours, but a direct line of communication was nonexistent. This absence of information created a mystery - Where was Lloyd “Tin Legs” Adams?  It was a true mystery of how one of the greatest drummers from Jamaica could disappear without a trace. His daughter Astarza commented with some first-hand history revealed by Lloyd about his time in Jamaica that may explain: “All the band members were sitting around, and who they were performing for said, ‘Why are you guys not practicing?’ He said, ‘How can somebody practice a talent that they are born with?’ And he got up and left. He was a loner. He would let you know, ‘Don’t question me.’”
     Writer David Katz played an interesting role as a detective in the search. He used many contacts to find Lloyd Adams and then linked his daughter Astarza, her mother, and family up with Adams in his last years. This was a big deal for his family, and they made Mr. Katz’s efforts known. The family was joyous about their time with their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather! Katz commented, “Tracking down Mr. Adams was a massive task.”
     The musical heart of Jamaica’s music resides in the drum and bass.  When considering drummers playing on a kit, such as Sly Dunbar, Hugh Malcolm, Carlton Barrett, Horsemouth Wallace, Lloyd Knibb, Paul Douglas, Winston Grennan, and Santa Davis, just about every player is celebrated by reggae music lovers for the music they created over the decades. As these musicians played for studio recordings, the lesser-known drummer Lloyd Adams also played in sessions busily. Adams is a drummer that people should become more familiar with as Jamaican music continues its march through time. 

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