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Master drummer Leon Mobley to perform at Boston Calling

Colette Greenstein
Colette Greenstein has been a contributing arts & entertainment writer for the Banner since 2009. VIEW BIO
Master drummer Leon Mobley to perform at Boston Calling
Roxbury-bred drummer Leon Mobley credits the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts for helping to hone his musical talents. (Photo: Photo courtesy Leon Mobley)

“If you asked my mom she would tell you that I played [drums] in her womb,” says Leon Mobley of his lifelong love and passion for music in a recent phone interview with the Banner from his home in Oahu, Hawaii.

Mobley, who has been a member of Ben Harper’s band, The Innocent Criminals since 1993, will be in Boston on Saturday performing with Harper and the other members at Boston Calling. The band reunited earlier this year after having disbanded in 2008. In March, they reunited for four concerts The Fillmore in San Francisco and recently performed in Australia this past April at the Byron Bay Bluesfest Festival.

Mobley, who grew up in Roxbury’s Fort Hill area was always surrounded by music. He recounted how when his mother was pregnant with him, she and his father would go out to listen music at Lawson’s Jazz Club on Newbury Street. And, on their journey home, “I’d be going crazy in her stomach,” says Mobley. She would say, “He’s still going, he’s still going.”

Displaying musical talent by the age of four, Mobley recalled that his mother had to buy him a drum set.

“I played on everything. I banged on table tops, jars, everything. In school, tablets and pencils, anything I could bang on. And, I still do to this day,” says the drummer and percussionist.

If You Go

What: Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals at Boston Calling

Where: City Hall Plaza

When: 7:55 p.m. Saturday, May 23

Tickets: For tickets and more information, go to www.spring.bostoncalling.com.

Named after his uncle Leon Johnson, who now goes by the name of Olon Gobare, Johnson was a performer on Broadway who sang and danced with Liza Minnelli and made clothes for Aretha Franklin, according to Mobley recalls. His uncle was an alumna of The Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts, where Mobley began studying at the age of six years old.

His mother and Lewis were very good friends. So much so that Lewis was godmother to his brother and him. They practically lived at Lewis’ house, says Mobley. Considered a star pupil of Lewis’, the young boy performed with Duke Ellington at six and seven. At the age of 10 he landed a role on the PBS children’s series Zoom.

Under the Lewis’ tutelage, Mobley developed his professionalism, his passion and his work ethic.

“The diligence — the commitment to the work— I definitely learned from being at the Elma Lewis School for the Fine Arts,” says Mobley.

While attending the Lewis School in 1967, he began playing African drums with Nigerian master drummer, recording artist, and social activist Babatunde Olatunji. Mobley studied with him for ten years before his pursuit and love of the drum led him to study West African drumming and dance with Senegalese master drummer Ibrahima Camara, Boston’s first African dance and drum teacher.

Mobley’s passion only intensified and he studied and honed his craft while performing in Senegal, Gambia, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, and throughout the West Indies. In 1987 and in 1992, Mobley traveled to Japan where he taught and performed West African drumming and dancing.

Since then, the drummer and teacher has performed and recorded with a Who’s Who of musicians including: Santana, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Macy Gray, The Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson, Peter Wolf, Madonna, The Fugees, and many others.

Mobley, a college grad who majored in music and minored in education, has conducted workshops at the Berklee College of Music. He’s also served as musical director at Paige Academy, a private school in Roxbury, where he taught music there as well as third and fourth grade math for many years.

“It was a great fit for me at Paige Academy. There’s a great amount of dance, theater, music that the students do as well as educational programming. It’s a great institution,” Mobley says.

In addition to being a member of the Innocent Criminals, Mobley also tours with Damian Marley as a percussionist/drummer and performs with his own band, Leon Mobley and Da Lion. He also is a Signature Series artist with the company Remo, who has manufactured and marketed a Mobley custom-designed djembe since 1983.

Considered a master drummer by his peers in the music industry and around the world, the power of the drum continues to call him.

“The power of the drum is the language,” he says. “No matter what culture you go to you will find a drum, but you won’t find other instruments like a lute or flutes. You don’t find those in every culture but a drum you find everywhere. The communication, the language of the drum, the power of the drum speaks to everyone, no matter where you come from.”

Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals perform at Boston Calling on Saturday, May 23 at City Hall Plaza beginning at 7:55 p.m. For tickets and more information, go to www.spring.bostoncalling.com.