Career
Dunbar was born in Liverpool, England. He auditioned for The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Hendrix had difficulty deciding between Dunbar and Mitch Mitchell - the latter won Hendrix's coin flip.
In December 1964, Stu James and Nick Crouch formed Stu James & the Mojos, with Aynsley Dunbar, Lewis Collins (later an actor in the Professionals), this line-up continued till 1966. Dunbar then joined John Mayall's Bluesbreakers replacing Hughie Flint. Early 1966 he was replaced by Mick Fleetwood.
After a short stint in The Jeff Beck Group Dunbar founded the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, which issued a number of albums. Dunbar co-wrote "Warning", recorded by Black Sabbath on their first album. The Dunbar version was recorded in 1967 for his solo release The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation.
Subsequently, Dunbar founded a short-lived progressive rock band called Blue Whale, which debuted with a tour of Scandinavia in January 1970. Following the recent collapse of the original lineup of King Crimson, Dunbar unsuccessfully tried to recruit Robert Fripp as Blue Whale's guitarist. Fripp, in turn, unsuccessfully tried to recruit Dunbar as King Crimson's new drummer. Blue Whale recorded one album, which featured Paul Williams (vocals), Ivan Zagni (guitar), Roger Sutton (guitar), Tommy Eyre (from Retaliation, keys) and Peter Friedberg (bass).
Dunbar was later the drummer for Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, featuring on albums such as Waka/Jawaka, and The Grand Wazoo, as well as the film 200 Motels. In 1974 he played on the soundtrack for "Dirty Duck", a Chuck Swenson adult animated movie. In the mid 1970s, Dunbar played drums for former Grin leader, Nils Lofgren, before joining Journey for their first four albums; ultimately, their collaboration was not successful, and Neil Schon, the creator of Journey, fired Dunbar due to performance problems while on the road. According to Schon, Dunbar was no longer reliable and he had to be replaced. He joined Jefferson Starship for three albums. In 1985, Dunbar joined Whitesnake, and drummed on their 1987 album, Whitesnake. He also spent some time working with Eric Burdon, Michael Schenker and The Animals.
More recently, in 2005, he drummed on Jake E. Lee's solo Retraced album.
He has been the drummer for the World Classic Rockers since 2003.
In 2008, Dunbar recorded an album of material for Direct Music with Mickey Thomas of Starship, and musicians such as Jake E. Lee, former guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne. The complete recordings of Dunbar's drumming with Frank Zappa at Carnegie Hall in October 1971 were released exactly 40 years later in a four-CD set.
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