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Ringo's Percussion & Accessories
It was always thought that this Ludwig drum kit was delivered by mistake and used until the NEW Ludwig kit arrived from Manny's Music Store, just in time for the Sunday morning rehearsal.
The truth is that Carroll Musical Instrument Rental located less than a mile away from the theater, supplied rental instruments to the Ed Sullivan Show on a regular basis. The Ludwig white marine pearl kit seen in these photos was a rental.
Drum sizes:
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5" x 14: snare
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9" x 13" tom
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16"x16" floor tom
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14"x20" bass
Look closely at the photos and you'll see the front and back hoops and you will see small areas of missing black paint. You can also see a missing section of inlay near the top of the front hoop.
Many ask what happened to this particular drum kit. Unfortunately, it has been lost to history.
On September 5, 1964 the Ludwig Drum Company presented Ringo with a gold-plated Supersensitive snare drum as a thank you for choosing to play Ludwig drums. Here's a bottom view of the snare drum as it looks today. Ringo claims that he never played this drum. In fact, he has said that the first and last time that he saw this snare drum was when he gave it to Mal Evans right after he received it. You can see that some of the snare wires are missing in addition to strips of masking tape on the outer portion of the bottom head as well as inside the shell. The two photos below also show wear and missing parts. There is also a strip of medical gauze tape on the inside of the head in the center of the drum. Ringo has no knowledge of using this drum.
This drum was on display that New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan from July 7, 2010 (Ringo's 70th birthday) through December 2010. Press reports during this time, stated that this snare drum was used during the Beatles 1964 US tour. This information is NOT true. NOTE: This was the first time that any of Ringo's drums have ever been on display. This beauty later reappeared for public viewing at the Grammy Museum in LA for the Ringo: Peace & Love exhibit, which took place from April, 2013 through April 2014.
I have documented Ringo's 1967 oversized Ludwig Silver Sparkle kit and it is in great shape., It's a custom-made kit, the drum shell sizes are:
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6.5" x 20" snare
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11" x 16" tom
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18" x 20" floor tom
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14" x 28" bass
The snare drum has two dial-up mufflers and Two-Tone Wire-Gut (calf intestine) snares, which were identified in a Ludwig 1960 catalog. Two-Tone snares were used on Ludwig parade/field snare drums. (Thanks to Paul Nieft Jr. for this piece of information). The snare stand was modified by having one of the three snare basket arms lengthened to hold the extremely wide drum. This drum kit was sold on December 4, 2015, at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills for $115,200.
Photo:
Gary Astridge
Photo:
Gary Astridge
During the filming of the Hello Goodbye promo film, Ringo used his 1964 Ludwig oyster black pearl Super Classic drum kit and two others. One was a Star Micro Bop drum kit in white marine pearl aka "Midget Drum Kit" which was made in Japan. The other was a custom ordered oversized 1967 Ludwig silver sparkle kit.
Photo:
Gary Astridge
A combination of snare wires and cat gut was the solution on this 20" diameter snare drum.
Photo: Scott Robert Ritchie
Imagine standing alongside Ringo as he plays his custom order 1967 Ludwig silver sparkle drum kit for the last time, as he talks about his memories of it. This was November 9, 2015.
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