John Coghlan

John Robert Coghlan (born 19 September 1946) is an English musician. He is best known as the original drummer of the rock band Status Quo.

The son of a Glasgow-born father and a London-born half-French mother, Coghlan grew up in Dulwich and was educated at Kingsdale Comprehensive School. He left school at 15 to begin an apprenticeship as a mechanic. He attended drumming tuition under Lloyd Ryan, who also taught Phil Collins the drum rudiments.

Coghlan joined Status Quo, then called the Paladins (later the Spectres), in early 1962 after a meeting with bassist Alan Lancaster, guitarist Francis Rossi and keyboard player Jess Jaworski. "The three of them were playing away through a single Vox AC30 amplifier," he recalled. "But it sounded amazing and that was the start of it all."

In August 1967, they officially became "the Status Quo". Their break through as the Status Quo came in 1968 with the song "Pictures of Matchstick Men". The song went to number seven in the UK, and number 12 in the US.

Coghlan played on the first fourteen Quo albums, including their first and most successful live album, Live! in 1977.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.