Features

Rearview Mirror: Marshall Tucker Band’s Paul Riddle

Marshall Tucker Band circa 1972

Vintage album covers, a key to the city of Spartanburg, S.C. and Marshall Tucker Band paraphernalia line the walls of “The Drum Pad,” a doublewide trailer converted into a classroom on the Christ Church Episcopal School (CCES) campus in Greenville, S.C. Multiple drum kits are scattered throughout the room.

Paul T. Riddle, the original drummer for the Marshall Tucker Band, has given the place a homey feel—you don’t even realize you’re in a “portable” once inside. The sandy-haired percussive whiz turns on lights and straightens furniture, moving briskly around the studio where he teaches year-round drum lessons to elementary, middle and high school students.

The self-proclaimed “Drummer from Drayton” who grew up in a Spartanburg mill village has found a new groove 25 years after the original Marshall Tucker Band dissolved. In addition to teaching drum lessons, he’s married to CCES Lower School Chaplain “Ms. Valerie,” and manages and produces bands.

He jokingly says that his MTB bandmates took him away from his mother when he was 16 years old in tenth grade at Spartanburg High School. Rhythm guitarist George McCorkle had heard about Riddle’s jazz drumming prowess and wanted him to play with his band. “He was playing all this edgy metal-y stuff that I didn’t know a thing about,” Riddle says. “When I first met him, he was intimidating. He was the oldest guy in the band, too.”

Riddle also notes that bassist Tommy Caldwell was “by far the leader of the band. He influenced me more than any other person on this planet outside my parents. We were joined at the hip.”

In the early ‘80s, Riddle sold his rights to the Marshall Tucker Band name and left the group. “I called Toy [Caldwell, guitarist/vocalist] and said, ‘We need to hang ‘em up.’ It just wasn’t what it was supposed to be anymore.” (To hear the MTB in its prime, check out the recently released Way out West! Live from San Francisco 1973. )