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Lot Essay
Ringo Starr acquired this Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl Jazz Festival snare drum with his second Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl Downbeat drum kit in February 1964. Ahead of the Beatles’ first visit to America, where they were booked to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, it was decided that Starr would travel without his first Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl Downbeat drum kit and instead take delivery of a second kit on arrival in New York, as it was envisaged that a secondary kit would be required for filming A Hard Day’s Night as soon as the Beatles returned to England. Starr brought only his 1963 Jazz Festival snare drum, his cymbals, and a new Beatles drop-T logo bass drum head (see lot 7) for installation on the new drum kit. The order was placed with Ludwig Drum Co. in Chicago by Drum City music store in London for delivery to the famous Manny’s Music Store in Manhattan. Manny’s delivered the 1964 Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl Downbeat kit to CBS Studio 50 in time for the morning dress rehearsal for the Beatles’ hotly anticipated debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday 9 February 1964. Instead of using the new snare that came with the new kit, Starr opted to continue using his favoured 1963 Jazz Festival snare from the first Ludwig kit, which was uniquely half an inch deeper than the standard 5 x 14 in. Jazz Festival snare. The 1963 Jazz Festival snare would remain Starr’s preferred snare throughout his career with the Beatles and would be used with all five of his Beatles-era Ludwig kits. While it’s possible that the present snare may have been used by Starr in the studio, there is no known photo evidence to confirm this. There is, however, substantial evidence that Paul McCartney used this snare drum for his solo and post-Beatles work.
According to Beatles drum historian Gary Astridge, McCartney used a combination of components from Starr’s first and second Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl Downbeat kits when he recorded his first solo album McCartney from late December 1969 to early 1970. McCartney used the rack tom and bass drum from Starr’s first Ludwig kit (see lot 5) with the floor tom and snare from the second kit. Playing all the instruments himself, McCartney recorded the majority of the album at his London home, with occasional secret sessions at either Morgan Studios or EMI. I got a four-track Studer recording machine, like the Beatles used for Sgt. Pepper, put it in the corner of the living-room at my house in London and tried a very simple technique of just plugging directly into the back, not going through a mixing desk, explained McCartney in 2002. It’s a cool way to record because it’s pure. If, say, I was doing a drum track, I’d play the drums, record it with one microphone, listen to it back, move the mike a little if there wasn’t enough hi-hat or cymbal, and then re-record. Then I’d add bass by plugging the mike into track two and overdubbing while listening to track one through headphones. I’d do that with all with four tracks. It was very hands-on, primitive way of working.
The hybrid kit can be seen in photographs taken by Linda McCartney during recording sessions at McCartney’s home studio in Cavendish Avenue, St. John’s Wood, in late December 1969. As part of a promotional shoot for the album, Linda also photographed Paul playing the drums in the snowy garden of their St. John’s Wood home in early 1970. Remnants of the white tape seen on the drum skin in the promo shot are still visible on the snare today. The photo was later used as part of the artwork for the inner sleeve of the McCartney Archive Collection, released in 2011. McCartney later took the hybrid kit up to his rustic “Rude Studio” at his farm in Scotland, where it was used by both Paul and drummer Denny Seiwell during early rehearsals with the newly formed Wings in July 1971, before the band recorded their debut album Wild Life at Abbey Road. Several photographs by Linda McCartney show the kit both in and outside the studio. The snare was later returned to Ringo and remained in storage for decades until 2013 when all five Beatles kits were organized and documented ahead of Starr’s major exhibition at the Grammy Museum. The present snare was then auctioned by Starr in 2015 to benefit The Lotus Foundation.
REFERENCES
P. McCartney and M. Lewisohn, Wingspan: Paul McCartney's Band on the Run, New York, 2002.
A. Babiuk, Beatles Gear: The Ultimate Edition, Milwaukee, 2015.
According to Beatles drum historian Gary Astridge, McCartney used a combination of components from Starr’s first and second Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl Downbeat kits when he recorded his first solo album McCartney from late December 1969 to early 1970. McCartney used the rack tom and bass drum from Starr’s first Ludwig kit (see lot 5) with the floor tom and snare from the second kit. Playing all the instruments himself, McCartney recorded the majority of the album at his London home, with occasional secret sessions at either Morgan Studios or EMI. I got a four-track Studer recording machine, like the Beatles used for Sgt. Pepper, put it in the corner of the living-room at my house in London and tried a very simple technique of just plugging directly into the back, not going through a mixing desk, explained McCartney in 2002. It’s a cool way to record because it’s pure. If, say, I was doing a drum track, I’d play the drums, record it with one microphone, listen to it back, move the mike a little if there wasn’t enough hi-hat or cymbal, and then re-record. Then I’d add bass by plugging the mike into track two and overdubbing while listening to track one through headphones. I’d do that with all with four tracks. It was very hands-on, primitive way of working.
The hybrid kit can be seen in photographs taken by Linda McCartney during recording sessions at McCartney’s home studio in Cavendish Avenue, St. John’s Wood, in late December 1969. As part of a promotional shoot for the album, Linda also photographed Paul playing the drums in the snowy garden of their St. John’s Wood home in early 1970. Remnants of the white tape seen on the drum skin in the promo shot are still visible on the snare today. The photo was later used as part of the artwork for the inner sleeve of the McCartney Archive Collection, released in 2011. McCartney later took the hybrid kit up to his rustic “Rude Studio” at his farm in Scotland, where it was used by both Paul and drummer Denny Seiwell during early rehearsals with the newly formed Wings in July 1971, before the band recorded their debut album Wild Life at Abbey Road. Several photographs by Linda McCartney show the kit both in and outside the studio. The snare was later returned to Ringo and remained in storage for decades until 2013 when all five Beatles kits were organized and documented ahead of Starr’s major exhibition at the Grammy Museum. The present snare was then auctioned by Starr in 2015 to benefit The Lotus Foundation.
REFERENCES
P. McCartney and M. Lewisohn, Wingspan: Paul McCartney's Band on the Run, New York, 2002.
A. Babiuk, Beatles Gear: The Ultimate Edition, Milwaukee, 2015.