Drummer Helps the Ill Find Rhythms of Life

Rock drummer Eddie Tuduri positioned himself in waist-deep water for the last good wave of the afternoon, the one he would bodysurf back to shore before preparing for a blues gig that night. He launched into the approaching swell same as he had done countless times before, but the surge overwhelmed him.

The wave jammed his head into the bottom like a dart, snapping his neck at the sixth vertebra. He tumbled into the shallows like a heap of kelp, gasping in desperation. A freckle-faced boy with a body board looked down at him and walked away. Rescuers plucked Tuduri’s limp body from the Carpinteria beach, hoisted him into an ambulance and took him to St. Francis Hospital, where doctors assessed the damage: broken neck, irreparably bruised spinal cord, paralysis in his arms and legs. In an attempt to salvage some of his central nervous system, surgeons shaved off a slice of his hip, fused it onto his neck and sealed it with a titanium plate.

A psychiatrist prepared him for life in a wheelchair. The drummer, who for 40 years made a living playing an instrument powered by four limbs moving in synchronicity while sharing the stage with some of the biggest stars in pop music, was crippled. Yet on that Sept. 6 afternoon two years ago, when Tuduri nearly lost his life, he gained another.

His long road to recovery took him to a place of deeper understanding about human spirituality and the regenerative power of music. Now, he uses those insights to help people suffering from afflictions more debilitating than his. He dispenses his brand of “rhythm therapy” up and down the coastal region, which includes Ventura County, like an elixir.

Tuduri is no longer restricted to a wheelchair, but he will never be completely healed. He carries a cane, shuffles his left foot and can no longer lay down perfect counter rhythms and long-stroke rolls any more. He doesn’t tour with stars, such as the Eagles and Dwight Yoakam, as he once did. These days, you can catch his performances at the Casablanca Alzheimer’s Care home near Ojai, or the YMCA in Pasadena, or the Rehabilitation Institute at Santa Barbara, where he works with victims of strokes, accidents and horrible diseases. Fate intervened to help get him booked at those venues, and he is fine with that.

“My life since the accident has been charmed. It’s a blessing. How would I have met all these wonderful people had it not been for the miracle of my broken neck?” Tuduri said.

When he awoke in the hospital following his surgery, Tuduri could wiggle one toe. His spine, crushed like a banana, sputtered staccato nerve signals to his limbs. Everyone avoided talking about his prospects for walking, much less playing drums. But after one week, he began to feel his extremities again. When he could muster a feeble grip in one hand, he asked for a pair of drumsticks and a practice pad.

He began tapping on cups, bed rails, tables, dishes, anything he could reach, same as he had done at age 10 in Derby, Conn., when his constant pounding on textbooks during “American Bandstand” prompted his parents to buy him a snare drum and dispatch him to a soundproof basement.

At the Rehabilitation Institute, the tap-tap-tapping was infectious. A lab technician joined in, and once the pair got in sync, a woman driven to a wheelchair by tumors that tormented her spine played a third part. Another roommate, a diabetic suffering from pancreatic cancer, used his only functional arm to thump a cowbell laid on his chest. The Rehab Rhythm Rockers had doctors and nurses bopping and wheelchair-bound patients “butt dancing.” Patients battling miserable maladies swapped sullen faces for smiles and song.

“It’s fun and has a recreational component, and the therapy part is working on strengthening goals, like dexterity, sitting and balance, upper-arm strength, concentration,” said Libby Whaley, director of therapeutic recreation at the institute. “And it works on social skills, emotional well-being, feeling positive.”

As Tuduri grew stronger, the drum circle expanded. In two weeks, he took a few halting steps on parallel bars. His friends at music companies sent maracas, congas, shakers, a drum set, or as he said, “anything you could slap, beat, crack or snap.” His hands became more nimble with the repetition of the drumsticks.

Tuduri was released from the hospital after one month, but he continues to lead the twice-weekly therapy sessions he started. Last year, CNN covered a percussion festival, featuring some of the world’s top drummers, which Tuduri organized to benefit the institute.

A Dream Realized, a Vow Made

Life is rhythm. A baby’s heartbeat, shoes walking on concrete, animals migrating, wiper blades on a windshield, tides and waves, like the one that smashed Tuduri’s neck. The ocean’s undulating and unending blue flatness is the supreme leveler. Tuduri accepts that, understands it. By the shore, he says he feels the same mysterious rhythm of the orbiting planets and moon, which in turn powers the sea. It is a force that drew him to the water that fateful day two years ago.

“Rhythm is innate in all of us. It transcends normal logic and all barriers. It’s all around us, like a universal language. It’s basic and primitive, and it’s there from the womb, from the moment we’re born, we are living in rhythm,” Tuduri said.

Days by the coast have left Tuduri perma-tanned. His hair is ‘70s long and feathered like David Cassidy’s, only grayer now that he is 52. His voice is tinged by the drawl of rocker culture, but is disarmingly upbeat. There is no bravado from a man who knows he probably should be dead. He looks deep into your eyes when he speaks, peering over the top of red glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose and from beneath bushy gray eyebrows. His left thumb, which occasionally quakes, bears a red star, so worn by the chafing of a drumstick it looks like a prison tattoo.

Tuduri was raised in a musical home. His father played piano, violin, banjo and drums. At 12 years old, he was playing weddings; at 14 he recorded his first record; and at 16 he toured with the one-hit-wonder Cannibal and the Headhunters, which rode “Land of 1,000 Dances” to the top of the charts. The event was organized by Murray the K, the New York City disc jockey who helped introduce the Beatles to America and put rock music on the FM radio dial. Star-struck, Tuduri quit school to work by day and play clubs in New England and New York City at night.

“I had just been on tour. I was signing autographs and there were girls everywhere. It was amazing. Then I came home and had to empty the garbage,” Tuduri said. “My mom was heartbroken when I dropped out of high school, but when all you’re interested in is a paradiddle, what good is geometry?”

In 1968, his band left the nightclub scene of the Midwest to pursue greater fame in Los Angeles. They stole tires, food and sneaked showers in vacant hotel rooms along the way. The law caught up with some band members in L.A., and the rest went home, but Tuduri stayed. He settled into a Sherman Oaks neighborhood inhabited by some of rock music’s biggest names of the day.

Bobby Whitlock, who played piano and sang on the original Derek & the Dominoes recording of “Layla” in 1970, asked Tuduri to tour with him in Europe. That led to a succession of studio sessions that put his tightly metered grooves on 40 gold records. For the next 10 years, his career rocked.

He was the boy who would gimme-the-beat for Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away.” He toured with the Beach Boys when Billy Joel was the opening act. Rick Nelson asked him to play for his Stone Canyon Band. J.D. Souther, songwriter to the Eagles, Bonnie Raitt and Linda Ronstadt, invited Tuduri to play for him when he toured with the Eagles during the “Hotel California” days.

Though his career was on the fast track, Tuduri knew something was missing. On tour in Canada, he had a 3 a.m. epiphany watching Sally Struthers on TV plead for aid for starving children. “I realized drugs and all that stuff is really decadent, and I thought of all the money that was spent and wasted on all that. It became very clear to me what I was doing was abusive and selfish,” he said. He set his glass of scotch on the table, picked up the phone and made a pledge. It was a small act of compassion, and it signaled Tuduri’s heart was changing.

He cleaned up his act, started rock concert benefits to help disadvantaged children in Canada and launched “Musicians for UNICEF” when he returned to the United States in 1985. He organized 15 benefit concerts featuring hundreds of artists. On a trip to Nashville, he linked up with Jim Messina, half of the Loggins and Messina duet. Messina was living in Montecito and invited Tuduri to join his West Coast band.

“I went to the beach at Summerland and stuck my toe in the water. Suddenly, it all became clear to me. Man this is nice. I had sworn I’d never live in L.A. again, but this wasn’t L.A. This was paradise.”

‘I Didn’t Die, I Was Sent Back’

You don’t feel anything when your neck breaks. At least Tuduri didn’t. Just a loud snap that rings in the skull like a bell. Physical sensation ceases. Spiritual awareness takes over. It was the most beautiful and profound moment of his life.

From beneath the water, Tuduri could see clouds and blue sky over Carpinteria. His arm passed by his face the way a snowflake floats in a glass Christmas shake-up ball, but he could not feel it. He just watched. Not from inside his body, but from outside, from a place where someone, or something, drew beside him under the water.

“I felt no pain, nothing. All I felt was this incredible energy to my right that was like an unconditional love, an energy that was beckoning to me to come with it. It was such an enticing presence. Now, I was not a religious guy, but this was totally ethereal and the most incredible, unbelievable experience I’ve ever had,” Tuduri said.

“I wanted to go. I tried to open my mouth to let the water in, and I felt like I was lifted to the surface and swallowed air. I didn’t die. I was sent back. I knew there had to be a reason,” he said.

That purpose became evident during the long hours of rehabilitation Tuduri endured after the accident. He learned how agonizing it can be to regain basic functions, like walking, going to the bathroom, sitting up. He experienced the dread of having a career ripped away. He appreciated how precious diversions are that pierce the malaise besetting the infirm. And he discovered the rhythm that flows through him can flow to others and help them get better.

Tuduri is not a therapist, and he did not invent rhythm therapy. Shamans in ancient cultures have for millennia used mesmerizing volleys of percussion pounded on logs, rocks and animal skins for medicinal rituals. Music as therapy came to the industrialized world after World War II to help pull soldiers out of shell shock. Scientists debate whether music may be a back door to the mind, reaching people in a way language or the written word cannot. Today, it is increasingly used in hospices, nursing homes and rehabilitation clinics to help people cope with everything from childbirth to strokes. But Tuduri cares little for the scientific debate, and is interested only in results.

‘He Has a Very Special Gift’

After his Rhythm Rehab Rockers established the drum sessions at the Rehabilitation Institute at Santa Barbara, other care centers in Southern California took an interest. He has been to summer camp at Cal State Northridge to help children who use wheelchairs. He plays drums with children afflicted with autism and Down syndrome at the Y-Spirit center in Pasadena every other week. At Jodi House in Santa Barbara, Tuduri teaches percussion to victims of traumatic brain injuries.

“Eddie understands them. He has a very special gift,” said Marilyn Berman, spokeswoman for Casablanca Alzheimer’s Care home.

Eddie “the drum man” is the highlight of the week for 30 elderly patients at the Casablanca home near Ojai. Nestled among oak-studded hills and horse corrals, it is a place where caregivers try to ease the inexorable slide into dementia for victims of Alzheimer’s disease. Seated in a circle on the patio, the group is quiet, sullen. Some gaze blankly. Many don’t remember what they had for lunch, how old they are, or who their children are. But when Tuduri arrives, carrying a box of percussion instruments, they applaud and smile. A silver-haired woman leans forward in her wheelchair in anticipation and starts rhythmically tapping on her knee. It’s jam time.

He passes out wooden blocks, egg-shaped shakers and maracas, sits in the middle and wedges a big ashiko drum between his knees. “All right, everybody, let’s see if we can play quarter notes today,” Tuduri says. He claps out four beats, and the group, with varying degrees of precision, soon belts out a meter Tuduri can follow.

Boom-batta-boom-batta-boom-boom-boom, the ashiko pounds in a resonating concussion that powers through flesh as if directly injecting rhythm into the veins. Folks in the drum circle whack blocks with sticks and shake shakers, one-two-three-four, and Tuduri works the drum skin.

Boom-batta-boom-batta-batta-boom-boom. Nurses clap and sway in time. Eve Endlish, a patient unable to resist, starts sashaying around the group and swirling her pink skirt. Butt dancers wiggle their wheelchairs. Infected by rhythm, Ernie Gould, a onetime college football player who played in the first Sugar Bowl, jumps to his feet and gets down with a funky groove. No longer isolated or confused, they are alert and living in the moment.

Boom-batta-boom-boom “Stop!” Tuduri shouts, and the ensemble falls silent, then applauds.

“Hey, you guys are great, but that’s all we have time for today. You were wonderful. Give yourselves a hand,” Tuduri tells them.

“No, you give yourself a hand,” retorts Mary Johnson, who worked a mean egg-shaker. “What would we do without you?” The drum man packs up, and after a round of goodbye hugs, departs, tired but fulfilled.

“After he leaves, it’s so upbeat here,” said Debbie Coltrin, administrator at Casablanca. “They are just totally stimulated by the drums. It gives them a form of expression and an avenue to unleash frustration, and it helps them interact with each other. I think it’s really beneficial.”

It is people like Eve Endlish and Ernie Gould, and his roommates in the drum circle from his rehab days, that inspire Eddie today. He thinks about them often when he goes for walks along the beach at the end of Ash Street in Carpinteria, where the accident that changed his life occurred.

“I go back to the ocean a lot,” he said, sitting on the shore, his mind floating on the waves. “I go underwater and look up. I guess I’m looking for that energy again. It’s like going home for me. I know it’s where I’m going to go again some day. Until then, all I want to do is help people. Where are you going to get that kind of satisfaction? I just want to have fun, keep playing drums and help people. This is giving me a whole new adventure, a new strength.”