Will Calhoun

Will Calhoun, Living Colour's drummer, ranked among the standout rock percussionists who surfaced in the late 1980s. Born July 22, 1964, and raised in the Bronx, New York, he earned a degree from Boston's Berklee School of Music in the early 1980s. Soon after, guitarist Vernon Reid asked him to join a hard rock band then taking shape. Once Corey Glover joined on vocals and fellow Berklee graduate Muzz Skillings took the bass chair, Living Colour officially formed in 1984. The quartet landed a contract with Epic in 1988 and released its debut album, Vivid, the same year. Powered by the anthemic hit single "Cult of Personality," the record achieved major commercial success, while Calhoun earned quick acclaim as one of rock's premier drummers, winning honors in both Modern Drummer Magazine's Readers Poll and Rolling Stone Magazine's Critics Poll. Living Colour kept releasing albums into the early 1990s—Time's Up in 1990, Biscuits in 1991, and Stain in 1993—after Doug Wimbish replaced Skillings on bass, before the group disbanded in 1995. Calhoun also became a sought-after session player, recording or performing with B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Harry Belafonte, Pharaoh Sanders, Jack Dejohnette, Marcus Miller, Dr. John, Carly Simon, Herb Alpert, Ron Wood, Wayne Shorter, Run-DMC, and Public Enemy. He appeared on solo projects by his Living Colour bandmates, including Corey Glover's Hymns and Doug Wimbish's Trippy Notes for Bass. With Wimbish he formed Jungle Funk, which issued a self-titled album in 1998, and he put out his own solo recordings: Housework in 1994, Drumwave in 1997, and Live at the Blue Note in 2000, the last credited to the Will Calhoun Quintet. In the late 1990s Calhoun teamed with Wimbish and Glover in Headfake, an alliance that soon prompted a full Living Colour reunion with Reid's return just before 2001. The band toured throughout 2001 and planned a new studio album for release in the near future. Calhoun also served as drummer and producer for an upcoming Mos Def album, assembling a backing group called Black Jack Johnson that included Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell and Bad Brains guitarist Dr. Know, among others.