One of the last surviving figures from the golden age of Memphis’ Sun Records, drummer J.M. "Jimmy" Van Eaton, has died. Van Eaton — who came to Sun as a teenager in the mid-1950s and made his reputation playing behind Jerry Lee Lewis and Billy Lee Riley — passed away Friday night at his home in Alabama.
Van Eaton, who had been dealing health issues over the last year, was 86. His death was confirmed by his family.
The very pulse of Sun Records, Van Eaton’s distinctive bluesy backbeat and frenetic fills helped define the sound and feel of Sam Phillips’ label, and his playing would power numerous all-time classics like Lewis’ "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," Riley’s “Red Hot,” Bill Justis’ "Raunchy” and “Lonely Weekends” by Charlie Rich.
Born in Memphis in 1937, James Mack Van Eaton first discovered music attending gospel revues at the old Ellis Auditorium with his parents and listening to the Grand Ole Opry and big band music on the radio. He initially began playing trumpet in school band, but soon found his way to drums. ”It was an instrument that intrigued me,” recalled Van Eaton in a 2015 interview.
Van Eaton played in a Dixieland jazz combo before launching his first rock 'n' roll band, The Echoes. The group would record a demo at Phillips’ Memphis Record Service, and Sun engineer Jack Clement and guitarist Roland Janes heard the tracks. They recommended the young Van Eaton to rising singer Billy Lee Riley, who would score a hit with “Flying Saucers Rock ‘n' Roll,” and was in the process of putting together his backing band, The Little Green Men.
Playing with Riley, and later backing the piano-pumping supernova Jerry Lee Lewis, Van Eaton became part of a core of musicians who served as a kind of house band for Sun through the end of the 1950s. Van Eaton would appear on records by Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Warren Smith, Carl Mann and Charlie Feathers, among many others.
Though he never received the credit of other pioneering rock 'n' roll trapsmen like Earl Palmer, Van Eaton’s style — which combined a swing-era shuffle with a backbeat— helped define the Sun aesthetic. In their definitive history of Sun, “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” critics Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins hailed Van Eaton for his “perfectly timed rim shots and his subtle control of tempo [which] imparted spontaneity to a session; his lack of rigidity helped to keep the other musicians loose.”
Van Eaton’s skills were especially crucial to Lewis’ work. As Sam Phillips told The Commercial Appeal in 2000, “The hardest man to play with in the world was Jerry Lee. I told every musician to stay out of this man’s way,” said Phillips. “The one exception was JM Van Eaton.” Even the usually unsparing Lewis praised Van Eaton’s inventiveness, calling him “the creative rock ‘n’ roll drummer.”
During the era, Van Eaton would tour with Riley, as well as Conway Twitty and Roy Orbison, among others. Despite the success he experienced early on at Sun, Van Eaton drifted away from the music business in the 1960s, while still just in his early 20s, though he remained in Memphis.
By the 1970s, he’d resumed performing, often with his fellow Sun band alum, guitarist Janes, as interest in rockabilly music reignited followed the passing of former Sun star Elvis Presley. Van Eaton married wife Deborah in 1982, and the following year began working in the municipal bond business with Duncan Williams, where he stayed for the next four decades.
The public’s appreciation for the Sun era continued to grow during the 1980s and kept Van Eaton in demand for various gigs and sessions. At end of the decade, Van Eaton would be part of team that played the music for and advised on the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic, “Great Balls of Fire,” which was partly shot in Memphis (in a sad coincidence, the musician who played Van Eaton in the film, rock ‘n’ roll wild man Mojo Nixon, died last week at the age of 66).
In addition to performing as part of various Sun Records revues over the years, Van Eaton also released a solo album in 1998, “The Beat Goes On,” which showcased his drumming, as well as a selection of original songs and him singing.
After years of traveling to Muscle Shoals to play and perform, in 2020 Van Eaton left his longtime Saulsbury, Tennessee, farm and moved to Alabama, where he was a revered presence, doing session work at Wishbone Studios and working with old Memphis pals like guitarist/songwriter Travis Wammack.
A longtime member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, Van Eaton was enshrined in the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2022. During his acceptance speech, Van Eaton came to the podium armed with a pair of drumsticks. After offering his remarks, Van Eaton got behind drumkit to play his history — delivering still vibrant versions of his hits with Lewis, Riley and others — in what would be his final performance in the Bluff City.
