Jimmy Fox

James Kent Fox (born August 24, 1947) is an American musician best known as the drummer of the James Gang, as well as the band's founder and its namesake. He is the only member of the group to appear in every incarnation of the band. He joined a mostly instrumental Cleveland rock and R&B band called Tom King and the Starfires while in high school and also remained as a member of its successor band, the Outsiders.

Fox took advantage of the opportunity to study drums in school when he was in the fourth grade. Beginning with a pair of sticks and a practice pad, he also had the chance to take instruction from a junior high band director each week. As he recalled in an interview, he began taking music theory classes at the Cleveland Music School Settlement when he was approximately seven or eight years old.

"They were valuable to me because over and above what I actually learned there. I was already aspiring to be a drummer," Fox says. "But my father was dead set against it, preferring that I choose a 'musical' instrument." The elder Fox had good reason to be cautious—he had been a professional violinist and vocalist with Paul Whiteman's orchestra, working with the bandleader in Los Angeles and also on the road in the 1920s.

With the help of his instructor at the Settlement, he was eventually able to change his father's mind and his dad helped him find further education resources to develop his playing skills.

"My dad checked out the local teaching scene and found a private drum teacher who was involved in both classical music and popular music, as well as the basics of jazz," he says. "This was very beneficial to me because it allowed me to receive a rounded education on not only drums, but all percussion instruments, including mallets (marimba, xylophone, etc.) and tympani."

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.