You Never Forget Your First

With Christmas seemigly in jeopardy at the time of writing, here's the story of a game changing gift from the early 1970s.


A little while ago I was sitting with some distinguished friends in the instrument industry and discussing the somewhat changeable climate for those who depend on manufacturing or selling drums for their living.

I made the following observation;
“We live in a time when there are more drum sets in the world than ever before, and that number is increasing every day”.

The point being that drummers have got more choice in terms of both range of options and availability of product thus making it ever more challenging for manufacturers to keep coming up with new lines that will get some traction in the market.

It wasn’t always the case though. My late father was a good and busy semi pro player all his life. As a teenager he grew out of the first drums (no name snare and bass drum plus one small suspended cymbal) and sought to upgrade. Youngsters of the day were regularly fobbed off by the instrument shop staff with extremely scarce professional equipment on display; interest in a Dominion Ace would be met with “Reserved, awaiting collection” or “in for repair”. The Gig Shop in Birmingham was the most notorious offender, where a quasi-Masonic cabal got first dibs on anything worthwhile that came in to stock.

That left one primary avenue for hopefully finding some drum treasure, the classified ads of the local paper, and eventually after countless tram rides across inner city Birmingham Dad eventually stumbled upon a four piece Ajax set in gold sparkle (‘glitter gold’ as they called it then) and this became his first professional quality drum set. Not until the late 40s did British drum manufacturing really get back up to a speed anywhere close to satisfying the demand for product.


By today’s standards this seems ridiculous, where copious quantities of drums from shiny new to pedigree vintage are just a couple of clicks away. If your budget allows you can start a collection; have a different drum configuration to suit every musical circumstance and more snare drums than there are days in the month. The days when working drummers had one set of drums and that was it are behind us.

Even in my early days as a player good used equipment was relatively scarce and would get snapped up in a moment. I had inherited my dad’s practice kit as a starting point.

This consisted of a Windsor single tension bass drum measuring about 22 x 8, with a matching (grey paint) single headed tom approximately 10 x 7. An Ajax 12 x 10 tom in blue pearl stood in for a floor tom, the snare was a truly vile Olympic Discus which resisted every attempt to make it sound even half way decent and a riveted 20” Ajax ride cymbal was the cherry on the cake. No hi hats, these didn’t arrive until my 9th birthday in the shape of a pair of 14” Zyns.

The arrival of the hi hat cymbals marked a turning point and it was clear that my development as a fledgling player merited something a little more sophisticated and robust if I was to advance significantly further on my quest for worldwide recognition. I had fallen head over heels for a chrome over wood Gretsch ‘Name Band’ outfit in the window of Ringway Music but clearly that was out of reach, and so regular trawls round the music shops of the city, primarily Yardley’s, George Clay, Kay Westworth’s and the afore mentioned Ringway. Dad wasn’t a fan of Jones and Crossland or Woodroffe’s for reasons I never found out. The easy option would have been a brand new Premier or Beverley, good quality and in plentiful supply, but my dad’s generation all aspired to the great American brands with Ludwig at the top of the tree with Rogers, Slingerland and Gretsch in equal second place. Anyone who was around then will confirm that Ludwig was the brand everybody wanted to be seen to be playing; Ringo, for the pop drummers, Joe Morello for the jazzers. Not even Buddy Rich’s affiliation with Slingerland from 1968 onwards could assail Ludwig’s stranglehold on the top end of the market.

But as the 70s dawned the stardust began to fade on the Ludwig brand. The reason? Quality control.

All of a sudden the crown was up for grabs and it was Rogers who seemed to have the traction and almost overnight became the brand of choice.

Meanwhile the Cater tradition of scouring the small ads in the Birmingham Mail in search of decent drums had proved fruitless. Up to £120 was only yielding rather so-so pre international Autocrats and the occasional gaudy Rose Morris. Used Ludwigs, Haymans, more recent Premiers and British Rogers were over budget, so my dad played his ace. Without a trade in he was able to get a healthy discount on a silver sparkle Rogers Starlighter and handed down his 1964 oyster blue super classic to me.

That set of drums defined my early days as a player. Most of my early adventures in the world of music were done to the sound of the Ludwigs. My first proper recording session in a proper studio (BBC Maida Vale studio 6, December 1979) which resulted in me winning the Jack Parnell drum award in the BBC National big Band competition. I thought that was it; and that my passage to the upper echelons of the British drum industry was assured; (and so it was, but it didn’t begin to happen for another 27 years). Incidentally, my performance from the ensuing gala concert was left out of the subsequent Radio 2 broadcast, so in the interests of completeness here is my 16 year old self.

https://soundcloud.com/petecaterbigband/back-to-the-barracks

Interestingly my first visit to a television studio was done on my dad’s Rogers. The reason being that the Ludwig was in residence at the NEC Birmingham. I was cutting school to play a 15 act international circus and earning more than my headmaster was. A baptism of fire, but my unshakeable confidence stood me in good stead, albeit with rather too many fills. A subsequent return to the small screen shows the Ludwigs proving their worth. Follow the link and the keen eyed among you will note the addition of a second floor tom. All my big band heroes of that period (start with Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson and Butch Miles then work your way down) featured the second 16 x 16 and I was determined to emulate the drum layout of the players whose playing I also sought to emulate.


https://youtu.be/kRSNM7qBjMg

Finding the additional drum in matching oyster blue was a virtually impossible task. Irrespective of it being far and away the most ubiquitous finish on drums exported to the UK, odd drums and add-ons were all but unheard of. Eventually an orphan floor tom turned up, badly re-wrapped in plain black, so for a while the second floor was mismatched, decades before Bill Stewart did something similar.

Unbelievably after considerable research by my dad some original 1960s oyster blue wrap surfaced. Eddie Ryan, then based at 90 Long Acre, Covent Garden, was the saviour. The shell was stripped of all its fittings and dispatched. Furthermore there was sufficient wrap left over to build me a canister throne so my oyster blue Krupa/Buddy set up was complete.

By this point several of the original mounting blocks (with the thread tapped into the metal itself) had failed and were replaced with the later hook and eye design, in addition to which was the somewhat predictable addition of a second cymbal arm on the bass drum for the inevitable 8 inch splash. Imitate then innovate as they say. Mission half accomplished, so to speak. A barnstorming tour of Germany with the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra followed, as well as a return to Golders Green Hippodrome marking a second successive victory in the BBC National Big Band Competition. The broadcast was recorded on my eighteenth birthday and the drum feature can be heard here.

https://youtu.be/XN92aNCn72E


Note the slightly unusual snare sound. I achieved this by using a split bottom head for several weeks without realising!

As I’ve said elsewhere the career prospects for an aspiring 18 year old straight ahead jazz/big band drummer were practically non-existent in the big-haired, shoulder-padded early 80’s. Truthfully there are more opportunities to play that kind of music at a professional level now than there were then. Call it the Rat Pack/Buble effect for the want of a better expression. In spite of which my very small degree of notoriety brought me to the attention of Sabian cymbals and the UK distributors of Slingerland, and for the first time I had the much sought after ‘deal’.

Other than a summer spent playing in a Mecca ballroom residency, the Super Classic was being used increasingly infrequently and my remaining time in the MYJO showcased the Slingerland with the Ludwig being relegated to more mundane tasks, which is silly really because the Slingerland wasn’t a patch on it. Incidentally, drum solos of the era were often of a duration that would have left Ken Dodd in awestruck admiration.

Still the wheel turned further still and I had woken up to the needs of being a working professional player, and as all young pros should, the importance of playing according to what the industry requires. I augmented the Ludwig with a couple of Roto Toms briefly but the writing was on the wall and in late 1984 I acquired a used Yamaha 9000GA in natural wood which I wish I still owned, in sizes 10 x 8, 12 x 8, 13 x 9, 16 x 16 and 14 x 22. Thus dawned a whole new era in my playing as I stepped out into the wider professional world leaving the Ludwig at my parents’ house where it resides to this day.

A little while before my affiliation with Premier and thereafter the British Drum Company, I took the super classic out on a Dave Brubeck tribute show and it played as well as ever. It’s a family heirloom brim full of significance and personal history. It was my first proper, grown-up drum set and will stay with me forever, and hopefully get a play one day again soon, because there’s nothing quite like your first is there?