Donald Eugene "Donnie" McCormick

News Obituary Article

MARIETTA: Donnie McCormick, drummer, founded Southern rock band

By HOLLY CRENSHAW

Last October, drummer Donnie McCormick was too sick to attend his 64th birthday tribute at Northside Tavern.

Instead, he stayed home and watched on his computer as members of a dozen rock and blues bands honored the ailing singer and songwriter.

For nearly 40 years, Mr. McCormick sang, clanged and banged his way into Atlanta's musical consciousness --- mostly as a member of his Southern rock band Eric Quincy Tate.

He was a fixture at Northside Tavern, Fuzzy's Place and other local clubs. Peer closely through the purple haze, and you could even spot him onstage at the Great Atlanta Pot Festival in Piedmont Park.

He played in assorted one-off bands and trios, wrote songs and worked on solo projects. Since a 2001 heart attack, though, his health had been shaky.

As he watched fellow musicians salute him, he turned to his family and said, "This is awesome. It's like I'm dead and I get to watch my own funeral."

Donald Eugene McCormick, 64, died Jan. 11 at his Marietta residence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The body was cremated. A memorial service will be held at 10 p.m. Tuesday at Northside Tavern. Mayes Ward-Dobbins Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

By the time he was 15, Mr. McCormick was already drumming in bars in his hometown of Kingsville, Texas. He served in the Navy, settled in Atlanta and built Eric Quincy Tate into a mainstay of Atlanta's Midtown hippie scene in the early 1970s.

He cobbled together the band's name from touchstones in his life: the first name of the Animals' lead singer, the town where he was stationed in the Navy, and a Navy buddy.

Before disbanding in the 1980s, Eric Quincy Tate played with the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers, worked with music legends Jerry Wexler and Phil Walden, helped popularize blues-based Southern rock and recorded six albums.

Singer-songwriter Tony Joe White produced the first Eric Quincy Tate album in 1969.

In a 2008 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, Mr. White said, "They were raw and funky, and there was nothing like them. They had soul. The only thing missing was a hit record."

When Mr. McCormick sang, he channeled the raw passion of his idol Ray Charles --- digging deep into gravelly lows, then soaring into fluttery falsettos.

Besides a regular drum kit, he loved to pound on his signature instrument: a wooden chicken coop. He first banged on one at a jam session at the Allman Brothers' farm, when he grabbed the first thing he could. Over the years, fans would bring him new chicken coops, which he'd adorn with bells, a tambourine and a set of ram's horns.

Offstage, Mr. McCormick was laid-back and creative. He painted, sculpted and made jewelry. He coached his son's Little League team and went on family vacations to the mountains and the beach.

"There was the mystique of Donnie Mac, and then there was this normal person, too," said his wife, Sheryl A. McCormick.

But onstage, he was a demon drummer whose driving work ethic matched his driving beat.

"He always made it to the job and every night, he'd put his heart and soul into the music, whether there were 10 people there or a thousand," said guitarist Tommy Carlisle of Marietta, a founding member of Eric Quincy Tate.

"Donnie was this quiet person, but he'd go onstage and it was like there was a halo over him," his wife said. "He just had that charisma. He wanted to entertain people, and he worked hard to entertain people."

He is also survived by a son, Josh McCormick of Marietta; two daughters, Casey McCormick of Atlanta and Molly Delapaz of Kingsville, Texas; and a brother, Phil McCormick of Houston.

© 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution