King of the Groove

How One Dream Transformed into 60 Years of Making Legendary Music

By: John Robinson, Allison Mang, Ralph Benmergui

Narrated by: John JR Robinson

Grammy winner John JR Robinson's bestselling memoir, "King of the Groove - How One Dream Transformed into 60 Years of Making Legendary Music," is captivating listeners with behind-the-scenes stories from his unprecedented six-decade career. This book plays a part in helping others to find new ways to believe in themselves. The memoir, featuring a foreword by the late, Quincy Jones offers listener and listeners an intimate glimpse into Robinson's journey from small-town Creston, Iowa into a legacy of over 500 million records sold, proving that rhythm isn't just what he does—it's who he is. This book is a coaching manual on how to rise above challenge at all costs while maintaining your sense of belief in yourself and your passions. “King of the Groove” isn't just John JR Robinson's memoir—it's your backstage pass through the eyes of the man who remains the drummer that legends trust to keep their music immortal.

©2024 John JR Robinson (P)2025 John JR Robinson

Inspiration

John JR Robinson is a legendary drummer/musician and also a very nice person and a great teacher!!!

Very entertaining.

I am a huge fan of JR. His resume is incredible. His touch, feel, and rhythmic choices are always perfect. The stories in this book are so entertaining. I would suggest to anyone who has been influenced by JR's work to give this book a read or listen at least once with this caveat that may only really apply to those who are into immersive reading as I, myself, am.

The audiobook version which JR himself is listed as narrating (more on that later) has several strange mispronunciations, complete sections, sentences and parts of sentences omitted, along with extra words inserted that constantly interrupt and distract from the otherwise interesting narrative. I'm perplexed as to how the author himself would not correctly pronounce the words in his own manuscript, such as the word "Epitome" (incorrectly pronounced epi-tome instead of the proper e-pit-o-me) or "Stylistically" pronounced “Statistically”. (When an experienced drummer is speaking about how another drummer plays in a certain way, they would never say "he plays so statistically" so I don't know why JR wouldn't have corrected this in the moment if he had seen it written incorrectly on the page) which is just plain weird!

Now, back to the tonality of the narration. Something is artificial-sounding throughout much of the audiobook. The timbre, diction, and inflection don’t always convey the feeling that would otherwise seem to be intended, and it often sounds as if his voice becomes robotic for a couple of words at a time. I get the feeling there were either a lot of short recording sessions in a variety of environments leading to continuity issues or that possibly JR was asked to read a long list of words that were then used to train an AI program to “read” the unedited/non-proofread manuscript. This is merely speculation, of course, However, I've listed to many interviews and podcast that feature JR and he always sounds natural and relaxed. In my observation, this narration doesn't. I feel like anyone purchasing the Audiobook version should be aware of these potential distractions especially if you also have the printed version alongside it.