Fred Eltringham | Nashville's quietest heavy hitter

Nashville session drumming is a job with a very specific brief: play the exact right thing, immediately, on the first take, and do not draw attention to yourself.

Fred Eltringham is one of the best in the world at it. He has the ACM Drummer of the Year award to prove it, an equipment list that fits in an estate car, and a habit of turning up to sessions with a broiler pan.

Here is the least showy drummer on this site, and one of the most useful.

Who is Fred Eltringham?

Fred Eltringham is an American drummer based in Nashville.

He came up through the Los Angeles scene — including a long stint with the band The Wallflowers — before moving to Nashville and becoming one of its first-call session and touring players.

The gigs

He has been Sheryl Crow’s touring drummer for many years, and the session list is a fair chunk of modern American roots and country music: Willie Nelson, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde, Brett Eldredge, Carrie Underwood, and a great many more.

In August 2018 he won the ACM Award for Drummer of the Year, at the Ryman Auditorium — which in Nashville is roughly the highest compliment the trade pays.

Drumeo’s voters gave him Country Drummer Of The Year in 2022.

What Fred Eltringham actually does

He plays a small kit. Three toms, a snare, a kick and three cymbals is his standard road setup with Sheryl Crow. That is a deliberate constraint: fewer options, faster decisions.

He plays from the elbow. A widely noted detail, and a revealing one. Rather than swinging the whole arm, he generates the stroke from the elbow down — which gives a controlled, consistent, mid-weight hit that records beautifully and never overpowers a vocal.

He is a texture specialist. This is the thing that makes him distinctive. He turns up to sessions with over a dozen tambourines, chains, pots, and — famously — a broiler pan. Modern country and Americana records are full of odd metallic percussion, and a lot of it is him with kitchenware.

He tunes low and dead. Vintage Ludwigs, muffled, with almost no ring. The drums sit under the song rather than in front of it.

He never overplays. In a genre where the drums are supposed to be felt rather than heard, that is the entire job.

Fred Eltringham’s drum kit

• Drums — Ludwig, and specifically old ones. He gigs 1960s Classic Ludwigs and Ludwig Standards, including a charcoal-wrap Standard kit with Sheryl Crow. Vintage shells are thinner, warmer and drier than modern ones, which is exactly the point.
• Cymbals — Paiste.
• Heads — Aquarian.
• Sticks — Vater.
• The junk. Tambourines by the dozen, chains, pots, a broiler pan. It goes in the car.

Every era, with buy links, is on Fred Eltringham’s Rig Vault page.

Want the sound without the rig?

This is the cheapest great drum sound on the entire site, and it is genuinely just three decisions.

Buy old drums. A 1960s or 1970s three-ply kit — Ludwig, Slingerland, Gretsch — is usually cheaper than a modern mid-range kit and sounds warmer and drier. Our used gear guide covers doing it without getting stung.

Muffle them. Coated heads, low tuning, a tea towel or a strip of moleskin on the snare.

Then raid your kitchen. A tambourine taped to a hi-hat stand, a chain laid across a snare, a metal tray on a floor tom. That is how modern country and Americana records get their texture, and it costs nothing. Our drum head buying guide covers the muffled options, and the Gear Guru will price up a vintage-voiced kit.

Where to start listening

• Sheryl Crow — any live footage from the last decade. The small kit, doing everything.
• Ashley McBryde — Girl Going Nowhere (2018). Modern country drumming, done with taste.
• Brett Eldredge, Miranda Lambert, Willie Nelson. Him being invisible, expertly.
• His Modern Drummer interviews. Genuinely useful on the session drummer’s job.

Final thoughts

There is a whole category of drummer whose skill is knowing what not to play, and Nashville has more of them per square mile than anywhere on earth. Eltringham is at the top of that pile.

He is also a useful corrective for anyone who thinks a bigger kit and a faster right foot is the route to work. A three-tom vintage Ludwig, a low tuning, an elbow stroke and a box of tambourines has kept him working for decades.

See Fred Eltringham’s full rig in the Rig Vault, or read about Cody Ash and Harry Miree — two more of Nashville’s current touring drummers.