Pick Withers

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Pick Withers (born April 4, 1948) was the original drummer for the rock band Dire Straits and played on their first four albums, which included hit singles such as "Sultans of Swing," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Skateaway." Before that, in the mid-1970s he was a house drummer at Rockfield Studios. Billed as either Pick or Pique Withers, he played on records by Dave Edmunds, amongst others.

Withers's style with Dire Straits was distinct for being restrained, favoring spare snare drum and hi-hat combinations over heavy beats, speed and pyrotechnic flourishes. Like the guitar playing of the band's famous frontman, Mark Knopfler, Withers's style was blues-based and instantly recognizable as part of the pop music the band perfected beginning around the mid-1970s. Knopfler met Withers in 1973 in London when he joined the blues band Brewer's Droop, for which Withers was already playing at the time. Withers continued to work regularly with Knopfler through the mid-1970s, although he also maintained his Rockfield affiliations, and was briefly a member of folk-rock outfit Magna Carta in 1977. Once Dire Straits gained a recording contract, however, Withers turned to drumming for that band full-time.

In 1982, after Dire Straits completed the album Love over Gold, Withers left the band to spend more time with his family and to pursue jazz music. He reportedly told an interviewer that he had succumbed to a growing feeling that there was nothing left in the music for him, that he was in danger of "becoming a rock drummer."

His replacement in Dire Straits was the dynamic Terry Williams, also a Dave Edmunds sideman.

He also played on the Bob Dylan album Slow Train Coming.