Saxon have announced the death of Nigel Durham, who drummed for them in 1987 and 1988. He was sixty one.
His time in the band was short and it covered a difficult record. Destiny, released in 1988, is the one where the group were being pushed hardest towards an American radio sound, and it has been argued about ever since by people who were not in the room. Durham played on it.
What came later is the part that says more about him. From 2000 to 2010 he drummed in Oliver and Dawson Saxon, the band Graham Oliver and Steve Dawson kept going after the split, which meant playing the same songs in smaller rooms for a decade with no expectation of credit.
The band's tribute, published by BraveWords, calls him a member of the Saxon family and sends their love and thoughts to his wife Lauretta.
Two years in the chair and ten more playing the same catalogue elsewhere is not the kind of career that gets written about while it is happening. It is, though, most of what a working drummer's life in this music actually looks like.