John Lingan’s superb Backbeats: A History of Rock and Roll in Fifteen Drummers is full of such moments. Moments of transmission—often via vinyl, occasionally in performance—when the creative spark zips and snaps across the pre-artistic darkness and some young drummer somewhere realizes that he’s going to have to change his life. Dave Lombardo, pre-Slayer, listening in awe to Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor pummeling through a relentless double-kick-drum pattern on the title track of Motörhead’s Overkill. Jody Stephens, pre–Big Star, in the 17th row at a Led Zeppelin show in Memphis: John Bonham was “like a rocket, everyone else was just holding on.” Tony Thompson, pre-Chic, watching the Mahavishnu Orchestra: “I saw Billy Cobham for the first time—and saw God … It’s still embedded in my soul seeing him play like that.”