John Seiter is an American musician. He is best known for his work as a drummer

Drummer

A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...

, but has also recorded as a keyboardist

Keyboardist

A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...

 and vocalist.

Seiter's first official credit came on a 1958 recording of Peter and the Wolf

Peter and the Wolf

Peter and the Wolf , Op. 67, is a composition written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936 in the USSR. It is a children's story , spoken by a narrator accompanied by the orchestra....

 for United Artists

United Artists

United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

, the brainchild of actor and director Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner

Robert "Rob" Reiner is an American actor, director, producer, writer, and political activist.As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence as Archie and Edith Bunker's son-in-law, Michael "Meathead" Stivic, on All in the Family. That role earned him two Emmy Awards during the 1970s...

. Seiter first rose to prominence, however, as a member of the pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 group Spanky and Our Gang

Spanky and Our Gang

Spanky and Our Gang was an American 1960s folk-rock band led by Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane. The band derives its name from Hal Roach's popular Our Gang comedies of the 1930s...

. He joined the band in 1967, shortly after they achieved their first charting hit, "Sunday Will Never Be the Same", and stayed for three studio albums and a live concert recording. The band collapsed after the 1968 death of Malcolm Hale, and Seiter accepted a position as drummer for The Turtles

The Turtles

The Turtles are an American rock group led by vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. The band became notable for several Top 40 hits beginning with its cover version of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" in 1965...

, replacing John Barbata

John Barbata

John Barbata is an American drummer, born in Passaic, New Jersey, active especially in pop and pop/rock bands in the 1960s and 1970s, both as a band member and as a session drummer.-Biography:...

. The Turtles recorded one final studio album, Turtle Soup

Turtle Soup

Turtle Soup is the last original studio album by The Turtles. It was released in 1969 on the White Whale Records label. The album was produced by Ray Davies of The Kinks – the first time he produced another artist's record. A 1993 Repertoire Records CD-issue included 8 bonus tracks.Turtle Soup...

, then disbanded as well. Seiter next joined Rosebud

Rosebud (band)

Rosebud was the name of an American popular music group which released a single, eponymous album in 1971.Its members were Judy Henske, Jerry Yester, Craig Doerge, John Seiter, and David Vaught. The album was a follow-up to the Henske-Yester collaboration, Farewell Aldebaran...

 for their eponymous debut, but shortly after the album's release the band collapsed in the wake of the divorce of members Judy Henske

Judy Henske

Judy Henske is an American singer and songwriter, once known as "the Queen of the Beatniks".-Life and recording career:...

 and Jerry Yester

Jerry Yester

Jerry Yester is an American folk rock musician, record producer, and arranger.Growing up in Burbank, California, Yester formed a duo with brother Jim Yester, the Yester Brothers, and starting playing folk clubs in Los Angeles in 1960...

. Seiter subsequently remained active in the music scene, recording with such varied performers as Aztec Two Step, Jane Getz

Jane Getz

Jane Getz is an American jazz pianist and session musician.Getz learned classical piano as a child and began playing jazz at the age of nine. She lived in California early in life but when she was sixteen moved to New York City...

, Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

, and The Conception Corporation

The Conception Corporation

The Conception Corporation was an American comedy ensemble consisting of Murphy Dunne, Howard R. Cohen, Ira Miller, and Jeff Begun. They recorded three albums between 1970 and 1973. Cohen died in 1998...

. His younger brother Jimmi Seiter

Jimmi Seiter

Jimmi Seiter has worked as a musician, tour manager, artist manager, music producer, sound designer, stage producer and architect....

 is also a noted percussionist.

External links

• [ Seiter's entry] at Allmusic