Tony Barrell can’t play the drums, but he’s in awe of those who can. ‘A band without a drummer is like a rocking chair that somebody has cruelly bolted to the floor,’ he writes in Born to Drum’s introduction. ‘While it may appear to rock, it actually doesn’t.’ Those who thrill to the sounds of anyone from Black Sabbath to the Buddy Rich Big Band would agree, but Barrell also aims to reach readers to whom names like these mean nothing with an inquiry more psychological than musical, namely: who would be a drummer?

In his first two chapters, entitled ‘Into...