John Barbata was born in Passaic, New Jersey, but his family moved to Nutley when
he was one-year old. John refined his reputation as a world class drummer in the 1960s
and 1970s. He had his first Number One hit on the West Coast, “La Tinia,” with the
Sentinals bancl in 1962. A few years later, John moved to Hollywood and joined the
Turtles in 1966. He traveled to London in 1967 , and while in London, met the Beatles,
and spoke to John Lennon: “I said to him, “if it weren’t for you guys, we wouldn’t be
here,” Barbata recalled. Lennon replied, “What do you mean? Everything we got we
stole from Chuck Berry.”
John’s band memberships have included: The Sentinals, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson
Starship, The Turtles, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. He has also collaborated with
Dave Mason, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Booker T. Jones, Linda Ronstadt, the Everly
Brothers, and Joni Mitchell. He has played on 20 hit singles and over 100 studio-albums.
Some of his hits included “Happy Together,” “She’d Rather be with Me,” and “Elenore,”
to name a few.
John Barbata has lived an extraordinary life from the age of three when he metAlbert
Einstein, by chance, when his parents helped Einstein with his boat, to being coached in
high school football by John Madden, to rneeting the Beatles and traveling and playing
with some of the top names in American rnusic. John remembers playing in Kingsland
Park as a child, and his father owned a gas station in Nutley. A notable endeavor was his
published memolr, “The Legendary Life of a Rock Star Drummer” published in 2005.