Mick Underwood has enjoyed one of the longer careers as a rock drummer in England, from the early '60s to the beginning of the 21st century and still counting. He has worked in most of the major rock genres and styles of the previous four decades, including classic British rock & roll of the pre-Beatles era, freakbeat, heavy metal, progressive rock, arena rock, straight-ahead rock & roll, and blues-rock. Born in 1945 in Middlesex, he showed a fascination with percussion as a boy -- in his own words, he was always hitting things, and in response, for his 14th birthday he was given the gift of an old snare drum. This happened at the end of the 1950s, as British rock & roll was finally becoming a self-sustaining phenomenon, and Underwood recognized that he might well be part of it, if he could get good enough. His aspirations received a further boost a few months later when he was given a used bass drum by a girlfriend, and he later took lessons from Jim Marshall (later much better known as the inventor of the Marshall amp), whose other students of the time included future Jimi Hendrix Experience member Mitch Mitchell and future Jeff Beck alumnus Mickey Waller.

Among the earliest outfits that Underwood played with -- around 1960 -- was the Dominators, where he first crossed paths with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. After being dismissed from that band -- reportedly for playing too loud -- he moved on to the Satellites, and then the Crescents (whose ranks included future Hot Chocolate guitarist Harvey Hinsley). At age 16, he made the leap to the big time when he was picked to play in the band put together behind ex-Shadows bassist Jet Harris. He ended up playing with Harris on a tour of England that included Sam Cooke and Little Richard. A chance meeting with Screaming Lord Sutch at the end of the same tour led Underwood -- ever in search of session gigs -- to approach producer Joe Meek, whose house band, the Outlaws, was in need of a drummer. He soon discovered that they also needed a lead guitarist -- in addition to auditioning successfully for the drummer spot, Underwood recommended Blackmore for the other open spot, and soon the two ex-bandmates were working together again. The Outlaws and Joe Meek's stable of artists became the base of Underwood's career for the next three years, during which he and the band got to play with different singers signed by Meek, and toured with various outside artists, most notably Gene Vincent. During this period, he was sometimes billed as "Mike Underwood," a first name he preferred but which he was never able to successfully put before the public or his colleagues.

Underwood remained in Meek's orbit through the late summer of 1965 -- by that time, he and Blackmore had served a stint together backing the bassist/singer Heinz on record and on-stage, as part of his backing band the Wild Boys. They were also teamed together briefly in a band called the Lancasters, produced by Meek's engineer Derek Lawrence, whose instrumental work was closer in nature to mid-'60s freakbeat. But Underwood finally left the Outlaws and Meek's operation to join an R&B-based group called the Herd, who were a phenomenally popular live act at the time, but had yet to break through on record. Underwood arrived in the band before its most well-known alumnus, Peter Frampton, was a member -- he barely lasted a year, and left during 1966, after a series of flop recordings (ironically, he left not too long after Frampton joined and thus missed out on the substantial success that did follow with the group in the guitarist/singer's wake). He left the entire music business for the year after that, working at a regular job -- in the London financial center known as the City, of all things -- to see if he could handle it.

Underwood resumed his career in 1967, starting with an extended gig playing in the band backing James Royal (of Call My Name fame). From there, he moved on to a stint as Johnny Cash's drummer for a U.K. tour. During the middle of 1968, following the Cash tour, he missed an opportunity to join another U.K. band for a tour of northern Europe -- Underwood chanced to meet Gene Vincent's former tour manager, Peter Grant, whom he'd known from his time playing with the Outlaws as Vincent's backing band; Grant had lately moved into the orbit of the Yardbirds, a group that had seen better days a couple of years earlier, and had recently lost three of their four members; at that particular moment, Grant was trying to recruit replacement musicians to play alongside guitarist Jimmy Page for a series of shows in Scandinavia as "the New Yardbirds," and offered the drummer's spot to Underwood. He was forced to decline, however, in favor of a seemingly more promising rival offer to join Episode Six, a pop/rock band with a psychedelic edge that had been getting a lot of exposure on the radio and seemed to be coming up about as fast as the Yardbirds' commercial fortunes were declining. He thus missed a chance to become part of a band that was soon transformed into Led Zeppelin.

Underwood spent two years with Episode Six, during which the band saw its audience slip away amid a changing music scene that suddenly didn't leave a lot of room for the group's pop-oriented sound. He did a good turn for one of his bandmates, however, when rival band Deep Purple -- which featured his old friend Ritchie Blackmore -- lost their lead singer; it was Underwood who recommended Episode Six's lead singer, Ian Gillan, to Blackmore. Deep Purple ended up grabbing not only Gillan, but also the group's bassist, Roger Glover. Liverpool bassist John Gustafson, who'd previously played with the Big Three and the Merseybeats, joined Episode Six as Glover's replacement during the latter's waning days, but not long after, he and Underwood and new keyboardist Peter Robinson exited to organize a new band, called Quatermass. The progressive rock trio (which took its name from a character from the BBC science fiction programs and feature films authored by Nigel Kneale) recorded an album and received enthusiastic reviews, but the group didn't last, mostly owing to its shaky financing.

After a stay with Paul Rodgers in a short-lived band called Peace, Underwood organized a new band -- christened Sammy -- in the early '70s, but a series of promising gigs led to a dead end, mostly owing to the relatively lightweight sound that evolved out of the group's work. He left Sammy behind and was mostly busy as a session musician in the years that followed; he was reportedly offered the chance to join Hot Chocolate by his old Crescents bandmate Harvey Hinsley but turned that down. Underwood next got involved with a new rock & roll band called Strapps -- they recorded their debut album at Ian Gillan's studio, with Roger Glover producing, which brought him back into the orbit of his old Episode Six bandmates. Strapps earned a support spot on the classic Deep Purple's final U.S. tour, and from that gig the band was asked on to a world tour by the Ian Gillan Band. They actually outshone the Gillan band at the concerts -- most ticket-buyers had come expecting a hard rock sound akin to Deep Purple, and were unprepared for the more prog rock-influenced music that Gillan's own band generated; they got the hard rock sound from Strapps. And out of that engagement, in turn, Underwood ended up as the drummer in Ian Gillan's next band, Gillan.

He spent three years with the group and, in addition to several tours, worked on five albums, releasing a single of his own, Earthquake at the Savoy b/w Redwatch, in 1980. Underwood worked with Gillan during the 1980s, and in the late '90s also cut one album with Quatermass 2, which also featured vocalist Bart Foley, guitarist Gary Davis, and ex-Deep Purple bassist Nick Simper. Underwood, along with bassist/vocalist Johnny Heywood and veteran guitarist Cosmo, also formed the blues-based trio Raw Glory, which released an album, City Life, in 2007. Critics writing about his style have compared Underwood to his contemporary Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones, for his deceptively simple, straightforward, uncomplicated beat, and to Jim McCarty of the Yardbirds for his subtle embellishments -- and given his near-miss as a member of "the New Yardbirds" and his reputation for loud playing early in his career, comparisons with John Bonham will inevitably come to mind as well. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi