 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. Today we are talking about Roger's drums and this is a really cool episode because I've got not only one expert, but two experts who are gonna be on the show. We're gonna start off with Mr. Poe Shy who is going to take us through early Rogers. Poe, how are you? Hey Bart, good to be with you today. It's great to be with you too. We actually met at the Chicago drum show in person and I met you and Jeff Burke who's gonna be picking up the later half of Rogers, but we're both Ohio guys. We're not very far apart. So you're based out of Columbus, right? I live in Columbus area and work in Columbus and I've lived in Columbus most of my life except for four years in Northwest Ohio to college. So I'm a Ohio guy. So we got a lot of ground to cover today. So why don't we just get started and I'll let you take us through the beginning of Rogers Drums. Obviously the story for Rogers Drums doesn't start in Ohio as much as I'd like to maybe rewrite history and go there. But the Rogers Company in its A date really people think of Ohio and certainly a lot of time to talk about that, but the Rogers Drum Company got its start in New York State in 1859 and there wasn't a drum to be seen in the Rogers factory at that time. They made drum heads and it was for some time in the 1849 to put that in perspective, Ohio was a state for basically about 45 years by that time. So this was still the frontier at that time. So New York was a little more established and Joseph Rogers actually started the company in Dublin, Ireland and learned the trade of what's called tucking of caskins. We would call it tanning here in the States. And he did the caskins for use for banjos, which were an instrument used by Irish and others as well as drum skins or drum heads. So he concentrated on quality drum heads and he brought his trade and his idea to and his company and family name to the United States. And then later on he brought his children in, the two sons that everybody talks about are Joseph Rogers Jr. And then his grandson Cleveland S. Rogers, he took over the company in 1929. So there's a couple of different places and one, it was known to be founded in New York but New Jersey also plays a big part in it because New Jersey is also a place where they manufactured the drums starting in the mid-30s. The name of the town there was Farmingdale. Now, if you go to Farmingdale, New Jersey, sadly, there's not much to be seen there. There's no signage. There's nothing there to denote that Rogers actually was there in a functioning company. And then Cleveland Rogers, he saw an opportunity to expand the Rogers name and basically diversify. Early on at that point, just to clarify, they were just making heads. They were doing just the tucking early on, right? They hadn't started making drums. Okay, cool. And you have to understand that they were at the very top of their game. They were given a couple of citations, gold medals and world expositions, which were popular back in that century. And when the company passed to Jr., Joe Jr., and then finally to his grandson, Cleveland, Rogers, in 1929, and you may remember from history that was the year of the Great Depression. Yes. So if you think about diversification and survival and those kind of things, by the mid-1930s, Rogers were producing drums in their New Jersey factory. So when we think about drum making, drum making then was probably a little bit like it is now where you have a major manufacturer of hardware and a lot of people using that hardware and then different people sourcing the shells and then doing some assembly. And of course the hallmark of the Rogers drums at that time where they're task in heads. They were thought to be the very best. So the early Rogers drums were part Gretch, they were part Slimlin, they were part Leedy and they had Rogers heads. And it's difficult to find a Rogers kit from the mid-30s. And then you of course have the Warriors where they were basically non-existent. If you find some of those, you're lucky. And they're not as collectible as the drums we'll talk about later. So the very first badge that we find on a Rogers drums by Joseph Rogers Jr. and son was the Union brand. And you may be familiar with those part, they had little scalloped badge, really nice looking badge on the outside. And those were made from 1938 until after World War II when the Eagle badge which is more famous, we'll find this in Covington as well. But then the Eagle badge was brought into play in 1953. So there's a lot of history, there's a major shift. I call Rogers a tale of three different eras. And there'll be people that will argue there's more than that but you'll hear me out on this. The East Coast era is New York and New Jersey. Then of course the great move to Ohio which we all think of with the Rogers drums. And then the last era I'll call the modern era which is the move to Fort in California and then beyond which we'll get into a little bit later in the program. Sure. So can you explain a little bit more about what you mean by they were partially Gretch, partially leady, partially, I think you said slingerland. Explain that a little bit more. Well, let me give you an example. If you take a Rogers drum made during the Cleveland S and that's the grandson Rogers era after mid 30s up until he sold it in 52. If you had a three Rogers, three star snare and you compared it to a Gretch broadcaster the only differences are you can have Rogers headline, of course. And then the actual snare strainer which probably would be a slingerland. Not until much later, if you looked at a lot a Gretch catalog versus a Rogers, not much difference. Really? Okay. So if you actually had one of these Rogers or Rogers drums that was made or talking about then it would be like a three star they're called. It's almost identical to a Gretch broadcaster except for the throat. Gotcha. Okay, cool. And that was super common back then but I had no idea when Rogers was making drums and wasn't and their use of and the heads and all that stuff. So Cleveland Rogers who's the grandson of the originator of Rogers trums reached retirement. Cleveland had no children. And if you do research, you're gonna find a bunch of different dates of when Henry Grossman purchased Rogers drums from Cleveland Rogers. I've read 1952, which is the date I use. I've also read 1953 and if you go to Rogers USA there are webpages that says 1955. Yeah, that's what I see right now. So yeah. Yeah, so 1955 is the date we'll talk about. Maybe we'll talk about it right now. April 5th, 1955 at a Kiwanis club in Covington, Ohio after basically three years of product development and working on the product line, it was announced and it was no secret because Covington was a town of 2,000 people at that time. It was announced that Rogers drums was in production. Well, they'd been in production for a while but the date April 5th, 1955 was an infamy with Rogers drums as being the date that it started but in actuality Henry Grossman in 1952 approached Cleveland Rogers and purchased a Rogers company. So he was acquainted with Joe Thompson and those two, if you look at our Facebook page, Covington drummers, those two are pictured prominently on our page today because Joe Thompson was a Covington, Ohio native. He was like you and I, a buck eye. Yep. And he agreed that he would help Henry Grossman who was a great businessman and I'm probably a marketing genius for his time. Those two together came together and Joe Thompson was part architect. I mean, that literally by he designed the building, his home and workshop, the factory is basically right behind that. So he built the factory, hired all the local people, got it up and running, and then Henry Grossman on the business side. Wow. And so in 1955, they started cranking out what I would call the golden era of Rogers drums. So pre 1955, 54, 53, pre mid fifties was owned by members of the Rogers family, such as Cleveland, which is kind of confusing because that's a city in Ohio, obviously. It is confusing. We'll talk about the Cleveland era of Rogers drums in a minute. That's funny. Okay, so it's going to get more confusing. But all right, so pre 1955, it was owned by family members, but at that mid fifties point, Henry Grossman and Joe Thompson, they open up in Covington, Ohio and are starting to make their own drum shells, right? Well, that's not exactly true either. The first shells were purchased by Jasper, which was a company in Indiana. And you have to understand that Henry Grossman as a businessman was a jobber, or what was in a jobber was somebody that basically purchased all the materials he needed. And that's basically how the drum industry has been, from when they started building drums, someone made the shells and sold them and other people made the hardware. And you'll find that throughout the history of manufacturing and especially drum manufacturing, one which we're talking about. So Henry Grossman owned a company called Duplex as well as Rogers and of course Duplex he ended up selling and Duplex drums after he actually sold Rogers and going ahead of myself. But he was a jobber and what he did under the Joe Thompson era of manufacturing was bring everything in house. Of course he purchased the shells, but the lugs actually were made for time at the Covington factory. Other products were made there, they diversified. Other things were jobbed out around the Dayton, Ohio. A lot of people think that Covington, Ohio is near where you're at in Cincinnati, but Covington, Ohio is basically 15 miles north of Dayton, which that's an area as you know, being from the state of Ohio, a large manufacturing area, especially then, very agricultural, but also a lot of manufacturing and especially with the aviation industry. A lot of people that don't live in Ohio or especially around Dayton don't know about. So it was a natural fit. One interesting fact I would just say about Joe Thompson is if you research the property on what's the Rogers factory was built, it goes back to the American Revolution, his family, his ties to the Miami Valley and Miami County, where Joe and his family lived. Also, which is interesting, a lot of different names of people that worked at the Rogers factory were actually Joe's relatives. You'll see the assembly marks that were pulling the tags, but a number of those people had a lot of family ties there. Well, and it seems like I'm sure, like you said, this is a small town and I think that people there would love having a new industry pop up that would provide jobs. Did a lot of the people in the town start working in the drum industry as soon as they moved in just to get a job? Yes, a lot of people did. I would be remiss in not mentioning Ben Strauss. He was basically gross in the music was the parent company of Rogers Cums. Ben Strauss was also a genius in terms of marketing and was on the marketing side. What this guy's did was they brought in innovations that are still with us today. One example I'll talk about is Waburg and Ajay is a hardware company used likely to be heard of and many are listeners heard of. And prior to 1955, Rogers was purchasing Waburg and Ajay and you'll see it on the catalog all the way up to 58, a number of products that they produced. So the Rogers Hi-Hat stand, the Swilvabagic 4401 and the 4402, when those things came out, they were revolutionary. Just because of the technology and the beauty of them, they could not make them or the Rogers drum pedals, the solid board and the Henshto models, they could not make them fast enough. So the innovations they came out with adjustable by using a drum key unthought of for that time, memory lock, another one of the things we'll talk about later, but these are revolutionary things that we take for granted as drummers now. And somebody my age that goes back a few years, some of these things with the consulates, those kind of things we live with back when we were kids, but when the Swilvabagic was introduced, it was almost breathtaking. Some people look at it like it's just a fad, but other people realize what it was, and you'll see it in the early 60s when the British invasion of a lot of the different groups that used the hardware. Yeah, hardware is extremely innovative. So then with the hardware, Rogers, is that kind of their, they're obviously a well-known brand at that point in the drum world, but is that they're like, hey, we're here and we are forced to reckon with? Like that kind of puts them on the map or are they already on the map at that point? I think that you're talking about a drum company that is up and coming in the 50s. And by the time that it releases the Dinosonic snare hardware, which was unheard of and revolutionary. And I know there'll be some leady guys that'll say, hey, you know, the leady had that in 1938 and this guy wouldn't have lived. And we've heard all those arguments before, but the patent belongs to Joe Thompson. Ben Strauss was instrumental in helping Joe and there's other people. We're lucky enough to have somebody like Cherry Shields who's gonna be 79 years old next year, but he's still very active and who I spend a lot of time with that has a prototype that he believes to be one of the very first out there. Wow. Joe Thompson wasn't an inventor. He may have taken the idea that leady had, but in the end, here is a hard word that is still being reissued to this modern day on the new issue and they sound amazing just like they did back then. So I think their innovation started the minute they opened their doors in 55 because they had these innovative products. But I think they really hit their stride in the early 60s when you see, you have music going mainstream with groups like the Beatles, Limitru and Dave Clark Five and the Kinks and people like that. And you see modern music starting to take over where the gear, it's all about the gear. So I'd say the heyday is from 53 to 76 in my mind. And I think there's a lot of people that probably would agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't know about leady having any involvement in the Dinosonic. Leady is one of those drum brands that live in the history of drums and that's stamped on it, Tom. But if you take a look at Joe Thompson's early Dinosonic prototype that Jerry Shields has and you look at the 1938 leady that I've seen pictures of, they're very similar. So somebody was there and I don't recall the name of the person responsible and there's gonna be people listening to this podcast like dang it, Poe, you should know that name. That's okay. Yeah, yeah, I'm a Roger Scandal, so sue me. But I don't think there's any acrimony in our community, it's just that, like I said, Joe has the patent, he's got the literally, the Dinosonic engraved on his gravestone in Covington. It's what he's known for. Did he have some help? Yeah, there's no doubt. But Joe Thompson was somebody that had a very expansive workshop, that building still exists, it's in poor repair, but he spent hours or point hours working on musical instruments and research and development. Dinosonic is no different. Sure. So the fact that it's been reissued recently as 2017 and has been in production again in the modern era for a couple of years kind of speaks to the technology of that sound, of you know, without choking, giving faster stick response, pinpoint definition. I mean, the projection, the Dinosonic really put Rogers on the back. Got it, and they're still making it. So, very cool. Yeah, and their big thing was, you know, the original light, the Rogers one originally were drawn brass, you know, bread and butter is kind of a famous, but they had issues. And you know, the third round of Rogers came out in the 64 catalog, some of them probably a little earlier than that is the famous Beaver Tailwugs that are being reproduced today. Yeah. And cosmetically, they basically stayed the same until the end of their manufacturing period in the golden era and then on the Fulerton. And now today, they reproduce both a steel version of, or a steel alloy version of the bread and butter. And they also, the drums are being produced in the Beaver Tail. So, and those are springless, you know, so there's an evolution of, you know, the technology, but the aesthetic of the lug still stays the same. Sure, cool. Some of the other different things you'll find and we talked about the Cleveland era or the Covington era is the tension rods being the bow tie, T rods, and then later on the distinctive batwing design of quals and T's. Yeah. So, there's a lot of interesting stock use that kind of date the Rogers drums to a specific time period and what we call the Cleveland era is an interior paper tag that has Cleveland, Ohio written on it with the serial number up above it and then the name of the drum style. And then there's a later Dayton era that has the same tag, only the Dayton, Ohio at the bottom of it. And then later on, we go to the Fulerton tags which there's several variations of that in terms of the actual color and size. Well, let me ask you then. Okay, so we were, before we were on the East Coast, we were New Jersey, basically starting in Dublin, really if you're going way back, then we go into the New York, New Jersey kind of area. Then we're in Covington, Ohio. So what made them move from Covington up to Cleveland? Well, Grossman was a Cleveland guy. Okay. And we're lucky enough to have somebody like Don Friedman who worked for Grossman, who's still alive and still ticking it up in Cleveland that's given us lots of great information between that and Jerry Shields. And then Phil Reed, our friend who lives and Dayton who worked at the Dayton plant. So we have some people that are still with us that, you know, here in Ohio that can give us the information that we need. So if you understand, during the Cleveland era, there is a Grossman, Henry Grossman and Dennis Strauss and Don Friedman and others in that office doing the marketing and the sales and the whole failing aspect of Rogers' drums and then Duplex and then there are other brands. You know, we could get bogged down and talk about Joe Thompson and then the actual toys that he sold and then the different other products that, you know, Joe invented and sold. But Rogers itself was headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, the offices and warehouse. So manufacturing done in Covington and then shipped to Cleveland. And then later after the sale of the business from Grossman family to CBS, you know then you have manufacturing moving to Dayton, Ohio late in the summer of 1966. Now having said that, 1966 didn't mean stopping work at Covington. Approximately 45 production workers remained at Covington and then the office staff of 25. Now later on everything was moved including manufacturing to Dayton, Ohio. That's where people get a little confused and one of the tags say Dayton where some of these drums made in Dayton, probably most of them were made the shells and everything and the wraps and everything assembled at Covington. And there were probably some drums assembled at the Dayton factory when they moved all the leg machines and everything up there for a short period of time from what I'm gonna be able to understand. So CBS came in the picture and bought them and then said, we're gonna keep it in Dayton for I'm sure logistical reasons and all that stuff. Was it a happy purchase with CBS or was there some like bad feelings there or was that all good? I don't think at first from what I will understand I've talked to a number of Rogers employees at Covington and call a lot of them my friends. I think it surprised them. It was a big family, a happy family and people just coming along doing great work and a lot of diversity, a lot of women working in that plant. And a lot of those people knew each other worship together, you know, as we say in Ohio Nader together, which means fellowship that kind of thing, drank together the whole gambit. But I think that CBS which was called Columbia Broadcasting Systems back then later shortened to CBS, the warehousing and the shipping it moves to Dayton in late 66. So by the summer 66, the plant still remained in Covington but the actual shipping operation and their office operation moved to Dayton. Now the big move that everybody talks about is June of 69. And that's where the acrimony you're talking about may have existed because that's when they said we're moving to Fortin, California. There were several employees that left and went to Fortin but not very many. Most of the people were born and raised in Ohio and they weren't going anywhere. There was a burgeoning aviation industry that needed workers, especially a trained workforce like the Covington force would have been. And all those people found under jobs, they were just left with a bad taste in their mouth. I don't know that Henry Grossman knew that CBS was gonna do, I don't know if any promises were made but I don't know that they knew that that was gonna happen. Yeah, that he wouldn't have said, okay, do it. Go ahead and pull the rug out from underneath this town that is pretty much reliant on Rogers at that point. Yeah, so a lot of those people, like I said, went to work in the aviation industry or other, a lot of manufacturing and date in the late 60s. So it was inconvenient but I think all those people did find jobs and they moved on with their life. So you go to Covington, Ohio today, there's a simple sign in front of the police station and municipal building that says, coming to an Ohio, it's the shape of the state of Ohio and it basically says Joe Thompson in the center of the flutiphone, which is a plastic, looks like a small flute and most school kids in Ohio played that when we were in second or third grade, I don't know if you did or not, but there's no mention of Rogers and that is what I'm saying. Wow, okay, so I'm sure it strikes you as odd as well, but it seems like there's so many people who have passion for Rogers and it's not getting as much love as it should from the community in Covington, but obviously you're doing a great job, you're the ambassador of Covington keeping this story alive. Thank you for saying that. Last year, or April, we put on a drum show there that was more successful than my wildest dreams and it was really fun and the community was very helpful and involved and the modern Rogers community, Rogers Drums, sent the mayor a new Dinosotic manufacturer in California and sent it to us and I gave a little speech and after the parade and I don't know, it was, I think the town now realizes its legacy and they're doing some things to kind of shore up the legacy and the history portion of it, which is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one thing I wanna talk about before we switch over to our friend Jeff who's gonna take us through the Fullerton, California days up to now is, so let's talk a little bit about the drum sets that were going on that. I mean, there was a lot of big players, like I just did the biography of Buddy Rich, he had a period with Rogers. Lots of big drummers were using Rogers, so what were the drum sets like then? I mean, obviously we have, it was a jazz era, but they were very popular, not only the Dinosonic, but the kits were beautiful. Well, I think that the kits themselves are like time machines and you see a lot of resurgent vintage kits being played out. Most notably would be Harry Henson that plays for Marty Stewart. He is a Rogers, and of course he's not endorsed by Rogers, but a lot of the kits that he has come from members of our Rogers community and Matt Chamberlain is playing a Rogers kit. But the different types of kits, the celebrity was a setup that included a Dinosonic snare, a 20 or a 22, and then a rack tom of 13 or a 12, and then a four tom. And then of course, the Rogers hardware was a big thing. The stands, all swan leg stands were a big seller, but there was also the Rogers Timbali twins, Roy Cochran and the CC Riders. They made those famous with twin drummers playing the Timbali twins. When Cochran created Stewart, when he came to the Covington plant, he was way ahead of his time. Platinum blonde hair, warm makeup, and people in Covington, they didn't really know what to do with him. Jerry still likes to tell a story out in the beard. That's funny. Louis Dalton and his twin bass set is probably one of the most famous Rogers endorsers loose in my mind. As a young player in 1971, I got my very first double bass set. I used two rack toms instead of one like Louis. But at that time, you had a lot of older guys that were in the jazz swing big band thing, turning over the range to young rock musicians and young rock and jazz players. One of my favorite setups is the Cozy Cole. It goes back in the Rogers lineup from the very beginning. Cozy was somebody that stepped in as an endorser in his Rogers, as soon as they started making them. His setup is probably one of the most famous that with the Dinosonic or Power Tone, 22 inch bass, a Rack Tom 13 and a 16. And then the Cozy Cole, but they sold a lot of what they're selling, actually Cozy actually played or the buddy Rich or the Dave Clark, but they modified the kits to what was selling out in the marketplace. Like the Dave Clark kit, for example, his kit with the Londoner kit, which was they sold a lot of those kits, but Dave's kit, the Rack Tom setup was not exactly like the one that they sold from Rogers. And Roy Burns Starlighter kit, which is a very simple kit. So as someone who is a fan of Rogers but doesn't know yet everything about it, because we're still working on that right now, but the logo and the badge and the logo on the bass drum, that's a good way to date Rogers drums, right? Yes, it is. We started talking about the original badge which would come from, I would call it the Union badge or the Union made drums. And let's go back to, I wanna say, they were introduced to like in the late 40s. That was the first badge put on by the Union brand. And I'd say that was introduced around 1938. And then after World War II, you had the Eagle badge that they were put on drums back in 1948, 1948. So the script badge that we all know and love and that's probably the most famous one is 1953 when they were first introduced. And then later it was changed to the large square badge with a script R over the air hole. It brings us into the modern era, which Jeff will talk about. There's some different variations of the script badge. You know, there's the pirate badge that was produced one year only. And there was a one year that the badges were bigger than others. But for the most part, the script badge is the most enduring and you'll find it on most Rogers models, especially the popular ones that people are restoring and playing today. And that's great. The script logo definitely just, it just grabs you and it looks different. And you just see it and you go, wow, that's cool. That's vintage, that's very sharp. And I love it. So, and I also wanna say to you, unrelated to the badges that the Rogers community is so strong and is so welcoming and inviting to everyone, I think that it's just, it's what drumming and the community is all about. There's a lot of love there and I appreciate you saying that. Bill Ward mentioned that to me when he's taught by him. Of course he, you know, he's not somebody that has a lot of Rogers in his background, but he connected with us in our community and I think it was interesting that he mentioned that and he later reached out to me on Facebook Messenger and said something. And that meant a lot to me as well with your comment. That that's kind of a byproduct of, I think of what comes out of the Covington era really is that family kind of thing and then a lot of camaraderie in the drum community to begin with. And then I think you see a lot of that at the Chicago Show. Absolutely. And without further ado, I want to turn the rest of this program over to my dear friend and a recognized Rogers expert, Mr. Jeff Burke. Welcome to the show, Jeff. How are you? I'm doing absolutely fantastic and I really want to thank everybody and you especially of giving this wonderful opportunity to share our energy and our passion with the Rogers folks. We're here and in Texas at what we call the Rogers drum silo or the Rogers Burke collection. And we just want to have this opportunity to share our passion with everybody as Poe has and thank you for leading it on to me. And I hope I can handle and give whatever information you need. And we just thank you, we're very grateful for that. Thank you very much. Awesome. Well, can you just give us a quick kind of recap on where we were and then just take it on through the CBS Fullerton days? Yes, they were in Covington and they started moving everything to Dayton about that time. And so a lot of the stuff was in the Cleveland warehouse and they were moving from Cleveland and they were still doing construction in Covington. And so when it got to Dayton, which was a total crazy thing because when Jerry Shields went there along with a few other folks, which a lot of people didn't go, what they ran into was manpower, help. Really? So people didn't know anything about anything. No. And there was a lot of back orders and stuff. And basically they, the whole idea with CBS was that they had quick plans to move everything to Fullerton probably anyway. I'm sure it was already in their scope. Knowing that because, you know, Fender Roads was there and everybody, they were already there. Baldwin, a lot of other companies that they owned. AMF, they owned a lot of companies. I don't know exactly the total, what it was, but it was an umbrella underneath all kinds of other music companies that they had. And so when the unfortunate heartbreaking of Joe Thompson happened and he passed away due to everything. He felt like the carpet was completely pulled out from underneath him. Soon after they moved everything from, was boxed up and moved to Fullerton in 69. So basically what all had happened was when the move was made from Covington to Dayton, CBS plans, I'm sure, because the stay in Dayton was very, very limited. It was only a few years. And they were already moving in 66, but imagine basically 67, 68, and then leaving in 69. And then we'll find out later down the road on how much Fender actually moved. Nine times, nine times, this company, nine times and they went from California to Mexico several times, not just once, but twice. So when Joe Thompson passed away in 68, they packed everything up and moved it to Fullerton, California. When they went to Fullerton, California, then Davis went there and had signed a one-year lease on his apartment or his place of stay and to help them set up their production line. Well, the two gentlemen that were sent there, as I understand, they were well-versed in what to do with Rogers at that time. And they were sent there from up north somewhere in the very heavy New York accent. And they were like, are you doing, and what are we doing, hey, are you doing, what are we doing, you know? And here they were, barrels of drums, tension rods, lugs, all kinds of stuff, setting it up. So he set up the line and everything and after one year, Dan Davis came back to Ohio, says I'm not staying. So there was a lot of discrepancies happening at that time, but they were building great drums. And a lot of these great drums, what happened was, there's also drums, as we know, there's a solid gray interior, that were drums that were built in Covington. And then we also know that there's a speckled shell inside that was also built in Dayton. Well, it just so happened that some drums that were solid and gray ended up in Fullerton with Fullerton tax, you know? Actually were speckled, speckled, not Fullerton tax, excuse me, but they were speckled interiors, but they were actually drums coming from Covington area. So then you have some confusion there where it was just hard to tell. So does that make it hard to date the exact, you know, those drums? Well, the dating has been basically over the years, we've been able to dial in these drums, because we just looked basically at, you know, the shell itself and solid gray tells the story, Covington. Got it. And then also Dayton. But you know, things with solid gray going in such a limited time, going from Dayton to Fullerton, it may have still solid gray, you know, and it is what it is. Yes, leftover merchandise, let's say. Absolutely. What they did going from one to the other, CBS did a lot of things under their umbrella now to basically, let's say, make it easy on construction or configuration of the bass drums and what they're gonna put together. So now let's say we have, we had many different configurations on the drums coming out of Covington's, which were so special. We had the celebrity, which is, you know, three swivel mounts, two on the left and then one on the right. And then we had the swing time, which is two swivel mounts, which is one on the left of the top, one on the right for the disappearing cymbalon. And then we had the headliner, which is a cymbal tom mount on the left and then a knobby on the right. And then of course we had the top hat, which is a single arm going right straight down in the middle with two toms connected up, but it's swivel, okay. And there was a few other things that they had. There's some other little configurations. Those are the main stage that we know of. And then there's other things that came up, which basically was special orders, which is a celebrity type setup, which is, again, we call it a buddy rich, which is basically the two tom mounts, two swivel mounts on the left, one swivel on the right where the cymbal disappears. But then again, they put a top out swivel in the middle so that you either put a simple mount there or you can put two toms and use the other two for something else. Or we could call it a cozy coal, you know, where you can mount the snare to the base drum. So what happened was with all these wonderful configurations, what they did, they got rid of them, okay. So there's another thing that they put a top mount in the middle of the base drum, double top mount, okay. So they got rid of all, having to drill things out and all that stuff and having more people doing more. So they're figuring ways to let's cut down on, let's say labor and material, chrome plating, screws, fasteners. Imagine how many fasteners. We were talking to the wonderful Jerry Shields and he goes, Jeff, we ordered 25,000 fasteners in a week. You know? In a week. Wow. Yeah. Would you imagine, okay, hey, how are you doing? Yeah, I came here to apply for a job. Yeah, have a seat. What do you do? Hey, well, I'll just put you on this great job. But they'll go in the faster department. Okay, no problem. They go there. What are you gonna do? You're gonna put all these on those. You're gonna have a nice day, you know? And well, you know, there's one thing though is that the Covington people had a great family. And that's what really missed all the way around. Some folks that understand underneath Joe Thompson and even Grossman, they loved their people. They loved their people. And they have parties and everything. They love their people. All that went away. They went to Dayton. The people got clipped at their knees in Covington when they moved. So when you go from Covington family, Dayton, manpower, then you go to, hey, what are you doing? I'm from Fullerton now, you know? You know, so, you know, you go to that. And then there was other things that cut corners like the Dinosonics, they took the, you know, the, they cut the, you know, basically the bottom frame, you know, there's things that disappeared there, you know, the elastics that kind of bring the frame up, which is something that Ellis Toland and, you know, along with of course, Joe Thompson on top of that. Buddy Rich had a little bit to do with that and about the snare frame not bouncing around so they put the elastics on it. And, you know, there's, so all these things disappeared. The frame became one solid piece without all these attachments on it and to be able to do the elastics. The hoop on the bottom became one single hoop, okay? But that, you know, going into basically 72-ish, you know? So the couple of years that they spent in Fullerton, just trying to dial things in, things started to change and they were starting to cut corners. Not saying cut corners, doing the way so that they, that wouldn't be a good word, cut corners. I think, well, yeah, maybe so, but in a way to kind of like make things a little simpler. Sure, sure. So now they call that drum set up. They don't say, oh, that's a Covington disc that are the other headliner. They say, oh, so it was made in Fullerton, period. Got it. Are those less sought after than the Covington, if for a collector, would those be less desirable? Well, the thing is is that we have, let me put it this way, you know, when you're in Covington, you have three play drums at the beginning and you have five play drums, 63 to 64, okay? So then all in a nutshell, you know, yeah, I mean, you know, the hardcore collectors, the people coming in, they're gonna want these. What do you got? Hey, you ought to see my baseball card. It's swing time. Yeah. Hey, I like that swing time, you know? What do you got? I got a Fullerton. Hey, yeah, that's cool. You know, let me show you my headliner, you know? And so, yeah, yeah, you know, but I have Fullerton setups here and then they tell you they're great drums. I'm sure, yeah. You know, we can't beat that up, you know, but they are great drums. Are they more sought after? And well, you know, we have different communities. Okay, yeah. We have different communities. Some of the hardcore people do like, you know, things coming out of Covington and there's some people that, you know, they just love the Fullerton's because of the solid blacks and those and, you know, and you got, you know, whites and there's some other colors that they came out with that. Some people just like that double Tom setup. You know, they did in that. They just like that double Tom setup and that's cool. And then when we go from there, you know, we had different type of tags on the drums, the tags coming to Fullerton, you know, they came with the square tag just like they did in Dayton or in Covington. Even before then, you know, there was a lot of square tags and, you know, things changed that they went along. They started making in 72, they came out with these elongated tags and they had an A on it or a B on it, you know, as the year was different. And then at the end, they ended up, it's just stapling these tags, but there's no more glue, just, you know, with a staple gun, you know, and then it, yeah, yeah. And then you'd get a, and then I'd go find a Tom and say, oh, that's great. And I looked at her knee and I hear a noise. That's the tag is floating around inside the Tom. Because it fell off. Wow, yeah. Yeah, so that was, that was, you know, it wasn't a problem with the drum. It was the problem of cutting the corner. They were cutting the corner. Can you explain a little bit about what year are we in right now that we're talking about? Okay, we're in, okay. We talked about we're getting into Fullerton in 69 and 70. And when they first moved to Fullerton and those years that they came out, there was, there were some problems with, with the lugs and stuff like that. Because, you know, you go into one place and then you're changing platers. You're changing it. You're okay, you know? So they had, they had some problems with lugs and everything going into there, going into that, you know, workmanship. Let's say a little bit of problem with the, with the rewings, you know, they weren't attaching right or something. Some of like, boy, I, I, I'm coming apart on the inside, you know? And so, you know, we're talking about 60 on 70, you know, going into that, that year. 72 things got a little better, okay? 72 things got a little better. They did cut a little bit of corn. I didn't like the way they put the rectangle badge in there. You know, it was glued on for a little bit. And then at the end, they ended up stapling it. And that, that was a total different deal. Going in, going into that part then, 72, 73, 74. I've got some nice snares from that year. They are just a hoop bottom on them. You know, when you go into, basically with the Dinosonics, when you come out of a Dinosonic out of, out of the early years in Cullington, they had bread and, they had bread and butter. They were real majestic. They had tall hoops on them. Well, they looked like a king's crowd. You know? And they were Dinosonics. So you go, and that's in early like 61, 62, those were gratch shells. Those shells were made by George White, you know, coming in. So then things started to change when George White left, the gratch shells disappeared in 61-ish. So then you go, you go into, you know, I'm really into the Dinosonics. And I have a huge Dinosonic timeline here. And there was other drums that were made too, that were made of brass, naked brass. I mean, that seven lines that, you know, there's only like one or two ever. Yeah. And so, and that's the holiday line. But anyway, so that when you start going into the Dinosonic era, things changed going into 1969 a little bit. They're still really nice. They're beautiful drums. But, you know, then it changed to the hoop in 72 where things in the workmanship started to change a little bit in the drums. Okay? Got it, yeah. Which was a good, it was good. They're good drums. So then when we went into 74, then we went into, we were starting to go into another era. Competing with the folks making Tamas and Yamaha's and Alaska, mostly Tama. Sure. Tama and other companies were imitating Rogers. So they came out with their line of concert times, 1970. They're already in 73, 74. We were having our, you know, our big setups, you know, with the power sevens, the power eights and nines, the studio 10 and all that stuff. So in 75, Rogers came out with a line. They did, it's called Big R. It had a lot of folks didn't like the Big R. They dropped the script and they went into Big R. So when they went into Big R, they wanted to compete with this big label and, you know, and everything because Tamas, the Japanese, you know, market was really, I was killing everybody, but you know, the crazy thing about it is that Rogers came out with a design called memory lock. Well, memory lock design, absolutely amazing. Absolutely the best design you'd ever think of in drums. Why is it the best design in drums? Because Tama, Pearl and everybody imitated. They took their design and all the drums that you see and you will see them now and on their drums and they still make it, the DDW. It's all a similar deal what Rogers did. Rogers desires were top notch. Absolutely. This is one thing that CBS did. They hired good people in R&D department to produce these wonderful, wonderful hardware. This hardware was incredible. So that was one problem with swivel. Swivel had the two screws attached and stuff and some people complained about it and they switched over to other mounts, which gosh, friends don't like friends drill drums and Roger drums, please, you know? So yeah, so they were drilling things and putting things in which totally devaluate the drums. But there were people on the road, what are they gonna do? They're on the road, they can't find this, can't find that. They gotta send the guy down to the corner, you know, big box store and he's gotta get a mount and he's gotta put it on there so the guy can go on stage at night. You gotta do what you gotta do. I know some really great drummers that are playing professionally that have had to do that. They have had to do that. What are they gonna do? You know? And then we know the people that just do it and we go, ah, don't just do it. You know? So they came out with this great lines and going in into that year, they came in with the Pacific blues with the Mojave Reds and, you know, and the gold and then the sunburst going into these years, going into Big R. And of course, when they did that, they still held on to their Dinosonic and they held on to their, they held on to the six and a half and the fives and everything. They did drop the Powertone, which was a very popular drum going into 71 and they changed over to a Super 10. Super 10 is exactly like a Dinosonic but without the frame. And then so much for the eight lug, you know? Which a lot of people loved. So what we're working with is a maple, birch, maple, birch, maple, okay? Five play, okay? So we're dealing on with the five fly drums going into the XP, which is we're going into basically 1980, 81 and they bring in a Johnson Monero comes in and some of the folks in R&D and they start manufacturing these beautiful, beautiful maple drums and beautiful snares as well. Snares are maple. The five by 14 Dinosonics and Super 10s are maple, which they didn't make very many of those but they experimented with a lot of things and they made the naked brass shells and these drums were just amazing and they sound better than anything in the world. They didn't have re-rings on them. They changed that going like, you know, they were still making some maple drums in the other big R going up to 1978, 79. You know, in that area of 77, they were making some maple drums but they dropped the re-rings and then they continued into the, and no re-rings inside but just all a maple drum. These drums are just amazing, absolutely amazing. They have the aluminum, Tom legs on it, which is fine. They have all the memory lock hardware on them and everything and these drums were, they had great endorses. The endorses were just wonderful. David Garibaldi and Ron Tut, Gina Shock, Craig Cramp, you know, oh gosh, Dixie Drex. Yeah, good representation there on the drums which is a big part of selling drums is people seeing who's playing them and then that catches on and yeah, big part. Oh my gosh. I mean, top notch, folks, then what happened was is that Rogers, you could talk about these drums, Rogers, CBS moves him back and forth, Mexico here, there to Monero, Vietnam in the end, you know, back down. You know, it was, it was crazy. What they were doing is devaluating this company, devaluating the company, devaluating the company more and more and more and more. And then finally, oh, in the middle, in the middle of the whole thing they came out with this series. They call it series two, series two. So, and the series two came out right about, you know, 80-ish, 79, 80. As a matter of fact, I collect some of the series two drums because they're very interesting. You know why they're so interesting? They made a plastic and oh yeah, the series two line was actually designed by Dave Donahoe, okay? Dave Donahoe is an extremely brilliant engineer. And he also came up a lot with the Memory Lux series. Cool. And yeah, and he came out with an answer to the imports. It was a little cost. And but it was, it was a little bulky looking. So, and he came out with this, and it was lightweight, okay? And so he came out with this design and he called it the series two. And he left right after that. What they did was they made this series two. They took his design and Rogers made it themselves and they came out with plastic lugs. The only thing on the drum that was steel was the hoops, the tension rods, and the knobby on the throw off. Wow, that's not good. Everything else was plastic. Everything else was plastic. Wow. And they set this thing up at NAMM and it fell apart and they took it and they put it in the back room and that was the end of that. Geez. And so the shell is plastic. Crazy thing about it. Those drums sound pretty good. Really? Yes, me, but you know, they do. They sound good, but you can't tighten the tension rods without cracking the lugs. Yeah, because it's plastic. Without separating to this plastic. So they came out with the series and what happened was is that Azul Wellan came into the, he was a division head, the executive and he was really upset about this. So he came into the meeting and he put on a sticky pad, one of those sticky things. Yeah. And he wrote one million dollars on it, like one million and he stuck it to his head. He walked into the meeting and he said, guys, we have a problem. And he had that million dollar thing on there, which was a series two, which they lost all that money. If they would have just followed what Dave Donahoe had originally planned, they probably wouldn't have had that problem because he came up with all this wonderful ideas like the memory lock and stuff. And then they, and then they wouldn't listen to him. So he left and then they produced this. I think they produced this and they lost some good people over that. And I think what they, the mindset was, was we're tired of drums. We can build a guitar and we don't need a lot, but 25,000 fasteners on the drums or something, that's a little much. We got a lot of people here. We got a lot of people to feed, we got a lot of mouths and we've got a lot of drums and these things take up a lot of space and we got a lot of room and a lot of big boxes to ship. Shipping costs a lot of money. So these beautiful drums that John Semonero designed and up to the end, when he turned the lights off in early 85, everything shut down and it was no more. Then of course, another company came out was called Ion Music and they wanted to fake the stuff and they put in Roger's badge on a drum set and they were trying to do that and Yamaha came out with their wannabe brand or what's it called, the Prospector, which is a close to like a sunlight drum set. You think about that, you think about that, about where they are now and then you think about Covington, family, construction, good people, love the drums, ladies sitting around building drums and talking about what's going on and down. I could see Aunt B, I see Mayberry, you know that's what this town's like. You go from a really quiet town that everybody dedicated to the lives of there to Roger's tool, to something where it's not that everybody's dedicated to life because I'm sure the people they were dedicated to their lives, it's what the people in the brass are dedicated to. They were dedicated more to their guitars than they were dedicated to the wonderful legacy of Roger's drums. And Brooke Mays, Mr. Callan, he gave it a good whirl and he was making some nice drums. He did the best he could to do something for Roger's and just went totally bankrupt. So basically in 1999, Brooke Mays, when they took over their time with Roger's and they made some really beautiful drums and he really gave it a try. I mean the drums were nice and some people kind of confuse Brooke Mays drums with either music, but they're not. It's a nice shell. The lugs are really, really nice. The BVTL lugs, they're really great drums. He even made a double bass pedal and everything was really, really nice. They came out with the snares. They had brass snares and they had steel snares and they had a maple snare that was really nice. It's crispy. I've played those and I have them here in the collection. And some of the raps that they had, they call it the RD-2000 or RD-500, which are light blue and black and natural. There was like a maple color, blonde. And then they had their own line of cymbals with Rogers on it. What was real nice was their, they had a real nice Roger's drum throne and it's similar to the drum thrones now with the bicycle type drum throne. You know, that's really comfortable. It's wide. So, you know, yeah. I mean, it was a good era, but the thing was he went bankrupt. And I don't know exactly, but you're probably in the mid 2000s is when all that happened. And Yamaha got the company from him. And then that's when Yamaha just kind of ran it right straight in the ground. You could just imagine, you know, you're doing a parachute and you're like, the first time you ever done a parachute jump and you're screaming all the way down. Ah! Well, that's basically how Rogers was with them with Yamaha. It was like you, me jumping out and having accidents all the way and screaming at the same time. Ah! That finally hit the bottom. What happened? What went wrong? It was just mismanaged or it was just they were focused on their own stuff and Rogers was kind of an afterthought. Lack of quality. Lack of quality. Got it. Yeah. Just like a quality. And that was the end of Rogers. Everybody was like, it's it. You know, it's all over. It's all over. Last time I saw Rogers drum set and it said prospector on it, $225. I remember one set up at a music store and they had the Rogers logo on it. And the only thing on that drum set that was just was crying over was just Rogers logo just sadly positioned on the bass drum head. Yeah. Yeah. And then again, you go back to family. People talking a great town, Mayberry. You know, and be again. You know, let's go fishing and parties and good time. And then you go to Dayton, Joe Thompson passes away. Then all of a sudden they just scoop everything up and let's go to Florida, you know? Yeah. And then it was a move nine times. Nine times they moved. Nine times they moved in between all that time. And that's what happens from January of 1984, basically to March of 1985. The Fender Rogers Rose Division of CBS Musical was for sale. It became evident that CBS executives at the real estate could yield more than they could ever realistically hope to make and a profit. Geez. So they had all those losses. Yeah. In 1984, there was a for sale sign out front of the building, for sale. Oh my gosh. So in March, CBS March of 1985, and they purchased that. But everything just, you know, it was all over. But Rogers is back though now, correct? So after all of that, the Yamaha, the Brooks Mays music company, and then Yamaha got it. And it just kind of, I guess, fizzled out. But Rogers in 2013, I believe, got sold again. So Rogers is back now, correct? This is a, well, there was an individual that, there were some people that owned the name of Rogers, okay? And then that name was bought again by Joe Chinn, okay? And that again is Reliance Company. Reliance Company owned the Rogers name, which is ironically, they are the same company at one time owned Island Music that made the other big R. Yeah. You know, tried to replicate big R. So they owned the name of Rogers and still do. So then all of a sudden, about three years ago, us folks, there's folks in the other, there's a few Rogers drums. We have one called Rogers Drums USA, which is a marvellous group. And along with some other groups, Covington, and there's Rogers Dinosaur, there's a Rogers Drums, and Rogers Drums Group too, and then there's Rogers Drums Owners Group, and Great Group too. And, you know, there's a few groups here on Facebook. And all of us, it was the biggest scuttle you've ever seen. It was like, all of a sudden like, people running outside to see if there's a UFO. You know? Because all of a sudden, popped up on everybody's feed, the return of the legend, Rogers Drums. And we were like, what? Yeah. What's going on here? Aliens do exist. All of a sudden people were putting it up and it disappeared. So I was, we were all thinking, could you just imagine the person that just put up that thing just for a test? And then they see all the groups light up. What's the world they're thinking? They're like, what is he doing it for? It's your fault. No, it's not my fault. It's your fault. You don't want to put it on. You just want to see. What was amazing is, it was true that this is what was going on. Wonderful Steve Maxwell was helping out, you know, giving some advice on building the, the first snares coming out. The wonderful guy. But that came up and then we had, went to the Chicago drum show because I heard, basically Rogers may be there. And I was like, wow. So I went to the Chicago drum show that year and the snare was there. And Steve Maxwell's booth, I took a video of it. And I actually hugged the snare. I hugged that snare. And we ordered a snare along with another friend, Paul Hollis, Jack McFeeders, guys in the group and we put our money down on one and got the first few numbers that came out. And then I had the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, amazing pleasure. The guys behind Rogers, the new Rogers were there. And I got the opportunity to meet these guys. And I got to say one thing. These guys have an amazing passion for Rogers. That's great. Incredible passion, incredible passion. And they are doing this right, doing this right. I'm telling you, this is just amazing. And we are blessed beyond to have such wonderful guys that are building these drums, that are making these wonderful, beautiful drums the way the bearing edges are made. Yes. A lot of products are made over there. Yes, we do know that. The drums are being built. Not a symbol. They are being assembled, but they also being built here in California. My bill did them all. Yep, of pork pie. He is doing, and he is amazing. Wonderful person. Great, great person to many, many, many, many people. He knows drums. And he's building these drums. And he is assembling these drums. And every attention is given to everything. Yes, there has been some headaches at the beginning due to some hardware, but none. Not, nothing to do with bills. But you know, and some hardware or some this or that or maybe, you know, when you're making things, some of the frames of this or the wires are right. Yes, but you know something? The guys at Big Bang Distribution, Bob Cascha, steps up and makes every single thing right. Everything right. These guys are just as passionate about building Roger's drums as we are playing and enjoying what they're doing and what has been done in the past starting with the Joe Thompson legacy. It seems like it's gone full circle. It is full circle. And the most amazing thing about this, Joe Thompson was family. What's Bill Didemore, family? Family man, yeah. It's amazing for somebody to really get behind something and pay attention to every drum that comes out of that shop. I think anyone listening to this with both you and with Poe can tell that Roger's fans are passionate. And like you said, with Bill, with anyone involved with Roger's, you need to have that passion to match what your community has. So Roger's has a special, special group. And I found that at the Chicago show when we spent some time together and from talking online and talking on the phone a few times before. On the couch. On the couch. So I'm gonna highly recommend, as we just kind of wrapped up the history, I highly recommend that everyone finds Jeff. Jeff Burke, the URKE. You see a picture of myself and my wonderful daughter. Absolutely, yeah. And you're a good guy. I can just tell you that you and Poe are both great guys and have been. Oh, he's wonderful. Absolutely fantastic person. Yeah. And for someone like me who is learning more about Rogers, you guys are just thinking, you're saying, come on in and we'll teach you about it and then you can become a Rogers guy. We're still learning. I've got a lot to learn. I mean, you know, at 60 or going into 61 next year, you know, I wish I was younger, but, you know, hey, I'm young and hard. You know, I might not remember a date or two on something, but I do remember one thing, that Rogers drum started in a good place and it's in a good place now. Yeah. Well, I'm proud to be from Ohio and be a part of the, you know. Hey, that's right. Yeah. So Jeff, man, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to just go through the latter half of Rogers life with us. And thank you. Thanks for being here with us today. We're just very grateful that you asked us to do this. And I know that myself being passionate for this, there are a lot of people that are as well and you hit that right on the nose. I just want to thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. And this is a great show. And folks, I'm glad everybody can tune into this. And we want to thank you on bottom of our heart for what you do for everybody as well. Oh, that's great. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you, Jeff. So before we wrap up completely here, let's hop back in with Poe Shy and learn about the Rogers Homecoming that's happening in Covington, Ohio. You can find information. Mike, outset, Poe's percussion is the event sponsor. And you can find the date of April 25th, 2020. I know that sounds like a long time away from now. It really does, yeah. But it's not. It does, but it's not. We're going to have a planning session coming up here in August in Covington. And last year, we had attendance. And the show went great. We had our VIPs had a jam with a blues band. And it was a very, very enjoyable time. There's going to be details on the Rogers USA, as well as the Rogers drum page, as well as the Rogers drum owner formally posted on all the Rogers groups. The Rogers Onesonic group, all the Facebook groups, including my page, Covington Prumbers. And I just take an eye out for it. That's great. I appreciate it, Poe. Thanks for being here today. Thanks, brother. Talk to you soon. If you like this podcast, find me on social media at Drum History and please share, rate, and leave a review. And let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future. Until next time, keep on learning. This is a Gwynn Sound podcast.