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Ric Parnell, who played the fictional band Spinal Tap’s drummer Mick Shrimpton in the classic 1984 heavy metal “mockumentary” “This Is Spinal Tap,” has died at the age of 70, according to a post from the group’s Harry Shearer and Yahoo News. No cause of death was initially reported.

Ric Parnell, our drummer in This is Spinal Tap, passed away today. No one ever rocked harder.

— Harry Shearer (@theharryshearer) May 2, 2022

The group — fronted by actor-musicians Michael McKean (as David St. Hubbins), Christopher Guest (as Nigel Tufnel) and Shearer (as Derek Smalls) — crossed the line between fiction and reality from their inception: the band literally road-tested tested their concept shortly after making the film, opening shows for psychedelic sludge-rockers Iron Butterfly, and no one in the audience was for the wiser.

Spinal Tap’s drummers are a running punchline in the film — all of the group’s previous drummers had died,...

London (AP) — British jazz drummer Jack Parnell, who served as bandleader on "The Muppet Show," has died aged 87, his family said Monday. The family said Parnell died at his home in Southwold, eastern England, on Sunday following a yearlong battle with cancer. Parnell was born in 1923, the son of a showbiz family — his father was a music hall performer and his uncle ran a string of theaters — and began drumming professionally as a teenager. During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force and performed in a band at the headquarters of Bomber Command....