Spencer Dryden

Spencer Charles Dryden (April 7, 1938 – January 11, 2005) was an American musician best known as the drummer for Jefferson Airplane and New Riders of the Purple Sage. He also played with Dinosaurs, and the Ashes (later known as the Peanut Butter Conspiracy). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as a member of Jefferson Airplane. Life and career Early life Spencer Charles Dryden was born in 1938 in New York City to Alice Chapple and George Dryden Wheeler Jr. Alice Chapple was a ballet dancer with Anna Pavlova's dance company, and a member of the Radio City Ballet Company; Wheeler Dryden was an English-born actor who became an American citizen. He later worked as a director, and was also a half-brother of Charlie Chaplin. When Spencer Dryden was growing up, he carefully concealed his relationship to his world-famous half-uncle, not wanting to be judged on his name. While Dryden was an infant, the family moved to Los Angeles and his father went to work as an assistant director for Chaplin. His parents divorced in 1943. Dryden later fondly recalled playing at his famous uncle's Hollywood studio as a child when visiting his father. In the 1950s, Dryden became friends with Lloyd Miller, also born in 1938, who lived down the street on Royal Boulevard in Rossmoyne in Glendale. They both liked jazz. Miller said the two boys should start a band and encouraged Dryden to play drums. Since Dryden didn't have a drum set, Miller fashioned an instrument by thumb-tacking an old inner tube over a wooden barrel with no ends. Miller would pump his player piano, play cornet or clarinet and Dryden would bang out beats on the drum.