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John Barbata, the drummer for the Turtles, Jefferson Airplane, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who walked away from rock music at the height of his career, has died. He was 79.<\/p>\n
His death was announced in a social media post by Jefferson Airplane<\/a> on Monday. A cause of death was not given and a list of survivors was not immediately available.<\/p>\n Mr. Barbata joined the Turtles after leaving his high school band and enjoyed success almost immediately, drumming on the band\u2019s best-known track, \u201cHappy Together,\u201d released in 1967.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard that the Turtles were looking for a drummer, they called me down to the studio to try me out on some session work, the first song we recorded was \u2018Happy Together,\u2019\u201d Mr. Barbata wrote on his now defunct website, archived by web.archive.org.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe got it in one take,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The song spent three weeks at No. 1 and became a pop classic. It\u2019s been performed by acts as varied as Mel Torm\u00e9<\/a>, Weezer<\/a>, Miley Cyrus<\/a> and the punk band Simple Plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Barbata came to the Turtles after leaving his high school band, The Sentinals, in San Luis Obispo, Calif. for Los Angeles to pursue a career in music.<\/p>\n In an interview<\/a>, the self-taught drummer spoke of the quick catapult to fame \u201cHappy Together\u201d had given the band and recalled performing on television programs like \u201cThe Ed Sullivan Show\u201d and witnessing the passion of 1960s teen fans up close.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe Turtles was the first and last group I was in where the kids were still screaming and going crazy,\u201d Mr. Barbata said in his memoir, \u201cJohny Barbata: The Legendary Life of a Rock Star Drummer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He described one scene at a show in Alabama where he and his bandmates had to blaze their way through a crowd of girls pulling at their hair and ripping buttons and whatever else they could off their bodies to keep as souvenirs.<\/p>\n He would leave the band in 1970 to join Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, playing on the folk rock band\u2019s live album and tour \u201c4 Way Street\u201d in 1971, which sold five million copies that year. He later played on several of the band members\u2019 solo works.<\/p>\n David Geffen, who had just started his first record label, invited Mr. Barbata to join a new group called the Eagles, but he declined, saying he couldn\u2019t leave C.S.N.Y., according to a profile on him in the book \u201cGreat Rock Drummers of the Sixties\u201d by Bob Cianci.<\/p>\n The last bands that he joined were Jefferson Airplane, which he joined in 1972, and its later offshoot, Jefferson Starship. His drums appeared on Jefferson Airplane\u2019s final studio album \u201cLong John Silver.\u201d<\/a> He also worked as a session drummer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n John Barbata, born on April 1, 1945 in New Jersey, said he had worked on more than 100 albums and had a hand in 20 hit singles by the end of his musical career, though he was not always credited.<\/p>\n After surviving a serious car accident in Northern California in 1978, he was dropped by Jefferson Starship. At age 33, he decided to leave rock music and become a born-again Christian.<\/p>\n He dabbled in Christian music and eventually settled on a ranch in rural Oklahoma with his wife and daughter, and made and sold redwood coffee tables, according to \u201cGreat Rock Drummers of the Sixties.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was very fortunate,\u201d Mr. Barbata said. \u201cI had a great career. Most drummers only go around once. I went around three times and played with the best musicians in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n