Joey Kramer

Joseph Michael Kramer (born June 21, 1950) is an American musician best known as the drummer of the hard rock band Aerosmith, which was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Kramer was born in the Bronx, New York City, the son of Doris and Mickey Kramer, a businessman. He is Jewish and had a bar mitzvah.

In the early 1970s, Kramer was a member of The Institution, a seminal New Jersey garage band founded by Philip Rubin, J. Howard Duff, Richie Lester, and Marv Coopersmith. On November 25, 1970, the early Bruce Springsteen band, Steel Mill, opened for The Institution at Newark State College.

Kramer wrote that he idly conceived the name Aerosmith while listening to Harry Nilsson's album Aerial Ballet in 1968, two years before the band was formed. He insists that there is no connection between the name and Sinclair Lewis's novel Arrowsmith. Shortly before joining Aerosmith, Kramer moved to Boston, where he attended Berklee College of Music and worked with Chubby & the Turnpikes (later renamed Tavares) alongside Bernie Worrell.

Kramer's memoir, Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top, was released on June 30, 2009.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.