Ha! As a drummer who has struggled mightily with recreating some of Clyde Stubblefield's recordings this is weirdly specific to me. It's really heartening, weirdly, to see a pro session guy say the same things I say about him, like that he does 16th notes on his right hand with ungodly time and endurance and I don't think I'll ever be able to do what he did.
I'm always willing, as some schmo, to say that kind of thing - I'll never have musicality like Purdie, I'll never have ghost note/hi-hat chops like Stubblefield, they're just too good - but to hear somebody for whom drumming is their career say that is like revealing a secret that most professionals don't want to. Some people are just history-making good, it's not an accident what came of these guys' drumming.
Loads of pros will show you "how to play" such-and-such a beat from Tony Allen or Zig Modeliste. I respect somebody who says they might know how something was done but is honest enough to say it can't be done as well through a lesson or even a career's ambition. There's such a thing as a perfect recording or performance - not a technical perfection but that scratches the right itch in people.
