Inspired by this thread. I can only come up with two lead singer/drummers: Phil Collins and Don Henley.
Levon Helm of the Band
Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine
Davey Jones of the Monkees.
Officially, if not actually.
I thought that Dolenz was the band’s pretend drummer.
He was. But he also sang lead on probably as many songs as Jones.
My point was that I didn’t realize that Jones played drums.
He didn’t.
Possibly the greatest singer who played drums in his/her own act was Karen Carpenter, although the Carpenters used a separate drummer in concerts after they went uranium. (One of whom was, IIRC, the grown-up Cubby O’Brian, of Mickey Mouse Club fame).
Well, if we limit consideration to drummers who were the primary lead singers of their bands… then in addition to Don Henley & Phil CoOllins, there was:
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Gil Moore shared lead vocals with Rik Emmett in Triumph.
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Levon Helm of the Band.
There were many more drummers who sang lead at least occasionally, including: -
Debbie Peterson of the Bangles
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Peter “Hard Luck Woman” Criss of Kiss
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Ringo “Yellow Submarine” Starr of the Beatles
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Roger “I’m In Love With My Car” Taylor of Queen
I believe Andrew Eldritch played the drums in the first Sisters of Mercy album, before he started programming Doktor Avalanche.
Well, Meg White of the White Stripes has sang on a few of their songs…‘Passive Manipulation.’ ‘In The Cold Cold Night,’ and ‘Well, It’s True That We Love One Another.’
Pretty good, too.
Terry Bozzio of Frank Zappa and Missing Persons. (I’m not sure if he sang while in Missing Persions, but I know he sang while with Frank Zappa.)
Um, Mick Fleetwood?
Atreyu?
The Animals?
Peter Criss is the Ashley Simpson of the drumming world. Hell, he’s been dissed in recording magazines for being a shitty drummer. I saw him live once. He sucked great donkey balls.
While they used studio musicians early on (due to the insistance of the record company), the Monkees eventually played all their instruments. After about a year after the show premiered, serious musicians refused to mock the Monkees’s talent – they played pretty well considering.
Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger.
“What I Like About You” by the Romantics is sung by the drummer.
Jürgen “Ventor” Reil of the German heavy metal band Kreator, sang many lead vocals in the early days; including “Riot of Violence”, which remains a staple of their live shows.
:smack: Of course he was.
Please excuse my brain fart.
Technically not what you asked for, but Dave Grohl was Nirvana’s drummer and is Foo Fighters’ lead singer. I think he has done the drums in more than one of Foos’ songs too.
Ben Johnston of Biffy Clyro sings lead pretty often for at least part of their songs.
With the exception of one guitar part contributed by Greg Dulli, the Foos’ first album was all Dave.
Technically, Emitt Rhodes was both drummer and singer, but he also played all the other instruments himself, too.