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Little drummer boy Adam Wooten lays down big groove

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Drummer Adam Wooten

Twelve-year-old Adam Wooten plays drums with 3½ Men on Friday night at Blue Moon Waterfront Grille. (Photo: John Partipilo/The Tennessean)

Cover band 3½ Men invited 9-year-old drummer Adam Wooten to sit in one night as a friendly gesture. About three years later, Adam is not just the band’s drummer — he’s stealing the show.

Singer and bass player Matt Cohen remembers a recent show in Nashville where Adam was seated behind a Plexiglas barrier covered with graffiti. He said audience members left their seats to peek behind the wall at the drummer and when they did, “their jaws dropped.”

“People literally didn’t realize it was a 12-year-old playing drums,” said Cohen, 46. “I’ve had the chance to play with a lot of really great drummers over the years, and I can tell you that Adam, and how he lays down that groove, is already one of the best drummers I’ve ever played with.”

Erik Elliott, 34, caught the band recently at Nashville’s Oktoberfest and said Adam immediately caught his attention.

“After running a 5K at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning, the last thing you expect to see is a 12-year-old kid playing drums and singing a CeeLo Green song, and doing it well,” he said.

Adam, son of Grammy-winning bass player Victor Wooten, wonders if his age is the driving force behind much of the attention, and he said that while he “appreciates the credit,” other members work twice as hard as he does.

The band, which also includes The Aaron Neville Quintet guitarist Eric Struthers and former Berlin guitarist Ric Olsen, will play The Fillin’ Station in Kingston Springs tonight after a Friday night show in Nashville. And when members take the stage this evening, they’ll deliver three hours of rock music that in most cases was popular decades before Adam was born.

The preteen hadn’t heard the bulk of the material before he started trying to learn songs such as David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” and The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” for the band, but he said the curve wasn’t too steep. And years later, many of the tunes still feel new to him.

“A lot of it is muscle memory,” he said of playing the expansive song list of nearly 100 titles. “Sometimes Matt brings out new songs at the gig without rehearsing them, and so you just have to rely on your ear when that happens. And when you mess up, you just have to keep going.”

Dougie Ray, general manager and partner at Blue Moon Waterfront Grille, where the band regularly plays, said that 3½ Men has a “good vibe” and sends “feel-good music” throughout the crowd. And if Adam has ever messed up, Ray hasn’t noticed.

Adam “is 12 and he rocks, and that’s something different,” Ray said. “The band puts a good twist on established songs that people know.”

Drummer Adam Wooten

Adam Wooten, Victor Wooten's son, plays drums in a cover band with adult men called 3½ Men. (Photo: Sanford Myers/The Tennessean)

Keeping it fun

Adam, a wide-eyed curly-headed boy with an easy smile, comes by what he calls his “natural ability” honestly.

He hails from one of the music industry’s most lauded gene pools. His father, Victor Wooten, and his uncle Roy “Future Man” Wooten are members of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. His uncle Joe Wooten plays keyboards for The Steve Miller Band, and his other uncle, Regi Wooten, founded The Wooten Brothers band, which has had a weekly gig playing funk, pop and R&B music at 3rd & Lindsley for the past 20 years.

Holly Wooten, Adam’s mother, said all four of her children are musically inclined, but Adam has “always played drums” and even “played the walls of the van.”

“I mean he really played that car,” she said. “But he was always playing something. It didn’t have to be a drum kit. I would always laugh because you can imagine parents saying, ‘Please, stop beating on things.’ But with him, it was more of, ‘Oh, that makes me dance, I like that.’ ”

Music was and continues to be a constant in the Wooten household. Holly Wooten said that there are instruments lying all over her house and that her children, who range in age from 8 years old to 16 years old, are all multi-instrumentalists. They have jam sessions, swap instruments and keep playing.

Adam, who also is in a band called Triptych with his oldest sister, has never had a formal drum lesson. Instead he has received help on the instrument from his dad and his dad’s friends. But mostly, he said, he just learns from watching and listening.

“I hear a lot of drummers and I process them,” he said. “It seems to people that I don’t practice, but I kind of do. When I’m listening to drummers, I’m practicing that in my head, and sometimes at gigs I’ll figure things out and I’m like, ‘Oh, Dad. Listen to this.’ ”

However, he said his dad taught him to love more than drums.

Adam also is a regionally awarded gymnast. He said he picked up a love for gymnastics from watching his dad do black flips, something Victor Wooten does on his birthday every year. Adam said that being successful in gymnastics requires much more work from him than being a solid drummer; he practices the sport 12-13 hours a week.

“It’s a serious sport,” he said. “You have to commit.”

Gymnastics also helps with Adam’s music. He said the sport builds his endurance on drums, and that’s important when a gig could run from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

But most importantly, he said, everything “stays fun.”

“It hasn’t gotten unfun,” he said. “I think that’s why I still do it.”

Reach Cindy Watts at 615-664-2227 or ciwatts@tennessean.com.

If you go

What: Rock cover band 3½ Men

Where: The Fillin’ Station, 385 N. Main St. in Kingston Springs (about 30 minutes west of Nashville)

When: 7 p.m. today

Adam’s advice

Adam Wooten has a few tips for other kids who might want to try gymnastics or playing drums.

For gymnastics, he suggests: Don’t give up, because with a lot of things that you start, you’re not going to be good right away. A lot of times, you just go, “Oh, I’m not good at it. I don’t have any natural ability. I’m just going to stop,” which is not a good way to approach things.

For drums: “Practice drums and play with other people. Find people your age or not your age to play with. You don’t have to be like, ‘Oh, they’re so much better than me. I can’t play with them. I have to keep on practicing.’ Playing with people that are better than you will help you. That’s one of the things that’s helped me a lot. Keep playing. Keep listening to other people’s music and keep supporting other musicians.”

For both: Just keep working hard, and that will take you far.


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