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William Benny Benjamin Jr., known in the studio as Papa Zita, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1925, officially on July 25, though headstone records suggest July 15. He learned drums in the 1940s on big band jazz, absorbing Buddy Rich and the polyrhythmic Latin jazz of Tito Puente. In 1958 he became Motown’s first studio drummer and, with bassist James Jamerson, the rhythmic core of the Funk Brothers. Producers including Berry Gordy reportedly refused to run sessions unless both men were present, because Benjamin reshaped arrangements with fills and syncopation not written on the chart.

His sound came partly from a mixed kit assembled from Ludwig, Slingerland, Rogers and Gretsch components with Zildjian cymbals, chosen for how each piece recorded. The episode contrasts the skipping snare taps and rim clicks of the Temptations’ My Girl with the four-on-the-floor drive of Get Ready. By the late 1960s, long Snake Pit hours and drug and alcohol addiction left him missing or unable to play sessions, and Richard Pistol Allen and Uriel Jones took over much of the work. He died of a stroke in Detroit on April 20, 1969, at 43.

• When the Beatles met Berry Gordy in the UK, they asked about Motown’s drummer rather than its singers.
• He also drove the Four Tops’ I Can’t Help Myself.
• Historians debate his credit on Stevie Wonder’s Uptight (Everything’s Alright), with sources pointing to Pistol Allen.
• He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the sidemen category in 2003.
• Rolling Stone ranked him No. 11 on its 2016 list of the greatest drummers of all time.