 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I am your host Bart van der Zee and today we are joined by Rob Cook. Rob, how are you? Go ahead, couldn't hear from you. So this is a great episode. We're gonna be talking about the origins of the hi-hat, which is Kind of a widely debated topic because a lot of people take claim to being the first person to use the hi-hat Mm-hmm. Yep There's and as a spoiler alert, we're probably not going to be able to in the next half hour pin it down to a certain person at a certain time but we can certainly Bring up most of the the stories. I think that are that are credible and there's one name in particular that will be Throwing into the hat that I think deserves some mention So yeah, there there has been a lot of question about the origin of the hi-hat That's great. Well, I think it's good just to put all the information out there. So people know about it But I think it would probably be a good idea before we Get into the stories of the actual hi-hat would be maybe you'd like to tell people a little bit about What happened before the hi-hat sort of the low boy and the Charleston symbols? And just give people a little description of that because I think some people don't know that it started as a little, you know 8-inch 12-inch symbol off the off the ground Exactly you can learn a lot from looking at really old catalogs and seeing that. Oh my gosh They didn't have such and such then but At any rate and I let me back up just a little bit more and say a few words about the bass drum pedal It's not really I'm sure to simply refer to Ludwig as the inventor of the bass drum pedal But if you go back and really try to pin it down It's almost as hard as trying to pin down the origin of the hi-hat and and what it really boils down to is the that it was born out of a need and there was probably some guy that that literally Tied or taped a drumstick to his knee and and hit the drum with it or maybe to his shoe or something because they were hitting it with a beater and then they had a need for hitting it with something else and Boy were there a lot of really weird pedals in the very early days They were there were these contraptions these overhead things some even had a little stirrup you put your foot in a stirrup and Push your foot down and you pulled the beater into the head by doing that and in retrospect You know some of them are pretty comical and ridiculous, but you know that that's where it all started And then there there was some really goofy big wooden pedals really cumbersome and so on what what Ludwig claimed Ludwig really never claimed to have invented the pedal, but because William F. Ludwig senior needed a Pedal to fit some specific needs and there the pedals out there weren't quite doing it he did invent a Pedal that they could pretty much claim us the first successful Portable and musical pedal. He needed something first of all that would go fast It's fast enough to play these these circus gigs and the old pedals weren't weren't doing it He also needed something portable so it could be folded up and put in the top coat pocket as the drummer dumps on a street car with his Kick drum and snare drum on the way to the gig. That's way the chief explained it to me. Well enough Ludwig this is the second But There were lots of other pedals out there and who developed the very first one and the first successful one and so on That's all open for debate They battle predated The whole symbol situation and as you mentioned the the low sock pedal was one of the first Predating that was the old snowshoe type where it was just too big pieces of wood with a couple pieces of leather Your foot went in the piece of leather on the top piece and there were the symbols mounted in between the two pieces of wood And you literally lifted your foot up and down and lifted that top piece of wood with the the symbol attached up and down and it didn't take too long for that to develop into the what most people refer to as the low sock and Now it's kind of like a miniature hi-hat There's a spring attachment. You've got your foot on the pedal and as you push on the pedal You're pulling the symbols together and they're they're different incarnations of that and And they started showing up in different parts of the country at pretty much the same time and It might have been from traveling musicians Certainly the cat was kind of out of the bag by the time that Clarence Wahlberg of Wahlberg and Ajay added it to his catalog very early on and they I think what 23 something like that and by the time people are seeing it in the catalog then they're all over the place and they Wahlberg and Ajay attended to distribute their hardware Not so much directly as to other companies. They they made OEM versions specifically for certain companies, but they were they were pretty much in all the catalogs by the early 20s Gratch, Lady Ludwig, etc so now what we're looking at is Examining when the low boy became the hi-hat and We're talking basically about extending the symbols. So you're still playing them with Pushing down on your foot to to draw the two symbols together But instead of the symbols being down at your by your ankles, they're up, you know by your waist And one of the the first it's often attributed to Joe Jones and he wasn't very far off, but I would put the skip rector for a name up a couple of links on the chain And and that's a name that practically never gets brought into this discussion, but It seems that there were a bunch of people that almost simultaneously Experimented with the low boy and started coming up with their own way of raising the top part up high and one was certainly Papa Joe Jones and It was his claim that He was inspired by McKinney's cotton pickers in 1926 and he liked the concept and and he made his own Version of the low boy and raised it up. So there's that story, but we're looking post 1926 The skip reutherford version the prototype He was using by 1924 and in the upright version of it And he proceeded to use it from 24 to 29 in the incarnation that I have a Diagram of now and these diagrams can be seen in an article that I wrote for a drum magazine That is linked to the rebate site on the home page. I just scroll down click on the drum magazine cover There are links to a number of articles and and there's one on the origins of the hi-hat that that goes through the reutherford story and includes these diagrams But it's really kind of interesting how it came to light and kind of a funny story and kind of a tragic story What happened was I Received back in 1994 a big packet from my friend Mike Morris and Mike Morris at the time was international promotions manager Kind of a marketing position with a zildjian also for 10 years Mike was the West Coast artists relations guy. So he was kind of the West Coast version of the John de Christopher and he didn't use your role. So he was Working with a lot of top drummers and accumulating a lot of stories and it's just all around great guy And all of a sudden I had known him since the late 70s He worked at Marshall music in Lansing the Michigan before he ever, you know, got into the music industry per se but but anyhow, I get this big packet from Mike and I opened it up and There's page after page after page of text and drawings and notes and everything from this skip reutherford and I mean it was his whole life story the guy went back to how he got interested in percussion in the first Place and a lot of drummers when you get to talk to him very long. It's not long before you hear what really Inspired them. I can't count the number of people that I've talked to to say it was the Beatles on it Sullivan and that night they knew in it and it slipped on a switch and so on Really methodic senior. It was a parade in Chicago for skip reutherford it was a shrine band at the Pasadena Rose Parade and and he knew from that parade on he was going to be a drummer and He had an uncle that encouraged him and even gave him the money to go out and all we could afford was a pair of symbols But he ended up using those symbols for the next 60 years, I mean too high school and how I'd been a 50 year career And that but but anyhow all of this stuff was in this packet and all these pages and it was it had been I called Mike first. I said what's what's the deal and he said well We don't know I he said this we got this packet. It was addressed to Armand and you know, Armand's a busy guy's got a symbol company to run and It wasn't clear why he got this packet of papers But it goes through this guy's whole life story and has all these drawings and it points out that he made these prototypes in in 1922 1923 he had a working operational hi-hat wasn't called that but there's working prototype going by 24 and use that for you know five years Before I went on to other other versions anyhow It's Phil's and they they just didn't know what to do with this phase Armin certainly didn't know what this was all about and he didn't know what to think I mean, what do you do with something like that? Do you respond to the guy if you respond to him? And say no, you weren't the first then you're just creating an adversarial Situation and if if you threatening with litigation, you know, it's a little early for that and it wasn't clear You've been what he wanted if he wanted verification or authentication or royalties Maybe for all the hi-hat symbols so best not to say anything and just Passed the buck so they put it on another guy's desk and it went from desk to desk in the zilchin offices for over six months And and finally about the second or third time it came to like desk. He punted and he he sent it to me and When I called him for an explanation he said we just didn't know what to do with it We don't know what this guy wants. We don't know what his claim is We don't know how to verify it. We're not even interested in verifying it Have fun So I thought well, I'm gonna talk to skip. This is great because they had his phone number there and I wanted to talk to Mike first and and so on but I thought well, I'm gonna talk to skip and This is great because he he talks about still having these symbols still having these prototype stands and so on so I called him and I asked for skip this this older lady answers and I She said he's gone She said they cooked him And what do you say? I mean, yeah, I I said I beg your pardon and yeah, she said they cooked him It's and then it She calmed down a little bit. She was still pretty hot and and kind of mad, but I had no idea what was going on Yeah She she proceeded to tell this story, but Relatives coaxed him into moving and this was they were in California And it was a 400 mile Move to Oregon with his daughter and the U-Haul and it had no air conditioning So they got him in this big old truck with no air conditioning and he's an elderly man It was over a hundred degrees out. He should never have been in the truck and He died if he did so he'd exhaustion basically so so he was gone and I Thought oh man out and all that stuff. So I kind of Raised that subject. I you know, I said well, yeah, I introduced myself explained why I was calling. I said it Evidently, you know, he's still He left all of these symbols and prototypes of the hardware that he had worked on over the years and so on and She said oh, yeah, I tossed all that So in the six months between when he he worked on this This whole packet and set it off and when I was talking to her She had trashed everything. She had sent. I mean she didn't save a thing Of all those prototypes and the symbols themselves the paperwork and everything it all it all got tossed So I still have those diagrams somewhere the originals that he sent And they're the the visuals of them the most important ones are reproduced in that that article but We're fortunate that he was he wasn't motivated to to write all that down He he may not have been If his heart would have lasted maybe not quite as long and gone a couple years sooner or something but he had some health problems about was it 1988 and and Left his drums and symbols in the van that he'd never trucked used to take him to the last gig and never even Unloaded them again after that So I I don't know what she did with those But he had time on his hands because it was no longer gigging everything so that kind of explains why he was Motivated to sit and think about what he had done and when and and documented all and I don't really think he had any Particular motivation. He just he just wanted to share his story with the folks at Zell Jen had But it's understandable that in their position when you get that kind of claim What do you do? Yeah? Wow? but oh my god, anyhow, he Is names certainly should be in the discussion because Joe Jones out himself claims to have Saying it claims to have created his version of the the higher-ups in 1926 so by that time skip had already been using his for a couple of years and and not in a huge touring Situation, but he did have a pretty respectable career He claims to have played up or left every kind of stage and a lot of dance bands from 15 to 19 pieces Two years with the current Philharmonic and it was a you know, not a stellar Career, but but it was notable. He was out there being seen by a lot of people and I'm sure his hardware was being seen by by people and Like I say the more people that see it The more people are inspired to it. They can't buy one just like it create their own and so on. Yeah, so Maybe Papa Joe Jones simply came up with the idea independently, which is quite quite plausible and had a plumber friend and It was an obvious Idea to a lot of people at the time man. This this is a great little instrument But if I could only hit the symbols up here, but If he did come up with it on his own someone else had come up with it, I think a couple of years earlier now Papa Joe Jones was born in 1911 and there is a biography out that I don't have my hands on yet. It was Done after he died as a series of interviews and and so on I think and that's still available on Amazon and as more More personal information, but basically He was playing drums at a very young age And he was a tap dancer and he was he was performing with Carnival shows as a child and so on but but still He didn't really join the Count Basie band until 1934 when he was 23 So there are people or some accounts credit in Papa Joe Jones as a very young boy being with the Basie band and then inventing the hi-hat back then but Even by his own account he's saying he created it in 1926 and then So he would have already had about eight years experience with it by the time he joined the account Basie in 1934 well you people would dispute it he mastered it before most other people I mean, so obviously there's a lot of like Debate but you mentioned before about having a plumber friend So is there any more information about that or do you think that could just be like the most plausible thing of hey I've got a plumber friend. Can you do some fitting take this? Blowboy your low sock symbol and just make it higher. I mean, is there any Record of that story being true at all. I Don't think so It may be it's mentioned in some of those Articles about him or the the interview book, but I actually I picked that up from my the the podcast with jazz so That that may well be the case But I haven't seen that him quoted on that Now skip was kind of doing his own plumbing there and I suppose anybody Could you know go to the hardware and start tinkering? Yeah, but But yeah, somebody's skilled with working with pipes. It's like it's a logical Jump to ask your buddy to do it Yeah And now so to talk about what the hi-hat actually looked like at that point in time because I'm sure it wasn't like Nothing is exactly what we have today like basically if you see the old Ludwig pedal that was the one that you could put in a coat pocket That doesn't really look like a you know a DW 5000 that we have today. It obviously looks similar I mean, it's the same type of thing, but the It's just a little bit different so I'm looking at the diagram that you have of what would be what skip invented and To kind of explain it a little bit There's almost Two and you can help me out here. There's there's like a lower set of symbols that clamp together down by your feet and then it says certain things were added at different times, but then there's a higher Symbol that you'd play with your hand. So maybe explain what we would be looking at for skips skips invention Yeah, the first diagram is actually actually goes all the way back to 1922 and he basically has Created a low boy. I mean, it's a I don't know how else to describe that it's a low bite the symbols that are brought together when you push down on the pedal Are at ankle height? But what he has done is with that low boy, which other people were were already starting to use at that time And I think his first idea was to simply go up with the the pipe that supported the Stationary symbol and go up to waist height make a 90 and then add a little symbol holder. So basically he had his low boy That was being played traditionally and he had a little ride crash symbol up on top And then so that that's diagram one and but it kind of led him to the concept of Well, hey, wouldn't it be great if these two symbols that are being pulled together with my pedal could be happening up here Where I have this little symbol mounted at waist height So so that's the germ of the idea and then the next two versions that he did and the next two diagrams Have the pair of symbols being drawn together up at the top of the post and The only difference between the two devices one Basically has a Cable that's used to draw those the symbols together with the the pedal below and the other one is kind of a direct pull instead of the Cable coming down straight down and the pipe the vertical pipe running parallel with it The the vertical linkages inside the vertical pipe So very similar devices and both go back to you know the 1924 Era well, it's it's interesting because I think even today When you are Watching someone who's brand new set up their drum set everything's pretty straightforward until you get to the hi-hat so Even today like with the way it is With the clutch and the rod it's it is probably one of the more complex pieces of the drum set As far as setting them up. So this technology being back in 1922 to 24 28 I mean it seems very technologically advanced for its time with the springs and Obviously that was kind of piggybacking off of the bass drum pedal which evolved as you said earlier on in the show, but it's pretty advanced stuff Can you imagine with what what kind of licks they would have come out with if they had had our our technology? Yeah, considering the remarkable stuff. They did with those really primitive hats Yeah, but you're right tonight. I didn't know as I've ever paused to think about that But yeah, that's the one thing when you sit down You've just put your kit together and things have been kicked around on the way to the gig and everything and you're you're getting that Everything just in the right position and you do a couple of chicks on the hi-hat and you think my god that Something doesn't feel quite right. I realize that the the clutch is a little bit loose You don't want it tight and choking things off Yeah, but all these little things that are a little bit different Maybe the guy that that borrowed them for the gig the week before it has that really reefed down there Or maybe it's so loose the cymbals about to fall off But if it's not it just the right number of turns and doesn't feel right to you You're you're you're a little bit out of sorts until you get that nailed. Yeah, it's all off. Now Let me ask you this too. So so going back to the low boy What would the function of that be would it be a timekeeping? Sort of thing where you're just kind of clapping along with your foot or What would they be doing with that in just kind of everyday playing would it be on you know Two and four you're gonna play with your left foot or how would that actually be used in the music? I think so and I think as a regular Accent I'm probably not the best person to answer it because I'm kind of conjecturing but I'm the sock symbol those little accents and those little choke things and a little quick splashes Seemed to be coming in at about that time. So and and there's always people pushing the envelope so to Add that And extend on it embellish it, you know looking for more sounds Basically to to compliment the music but the the existence of those little sock symbols Let real quickly to yeah, but the foot control of same and and and from there Got it. Okay. Now one other thing that I've heard and I'm sure it was in an earlier episode or I might have read it somewhere is that Someone was playing and they dropped a stick and it hit the sock symbol and they said oh man This sounds good to hit with a stick versus just using your feet. Is that anything you've ever heard? I can't remember where I saw or heard that but Seems hard to prove yeah, and I think Real early on there was there was a handheld pair. I mean it was Sabian did a reissue of those a couple years ago, and it is basically a pair of real small symbols a A Handheld spring thing. I mean you just close your grasp and you draw the symbols together So with a stick in the other hand, you could do some really cool things with with that Yeah, so I I and that was real early on I may have even predated the The low boy kind of a hand sock thing so I think people were hitting them with sticks, you know from from the earliest days got it Yeah, you give us Pretty much any kind of a symbol or anything and I think a drummer will we'll hit it So it's it's all this natural progression And I just think it's what you said about drummers touring around and playing and seeing other people do stuff It's just how things spread and this era seemed like if it didn't exist You had to make it yourself because not that long before this people were playing snare drums sitting on With no stand they were playing on a chair. Yeah, so and that that a very first Diagram that we were talking about that has the low boy with a mix a vertical extension to put a symbol up on top of the low boy Retroford skip retroford had taken that lower section to a guy at the Los Angeles drum shop in 1924 And and showed it to him and the guy Roy Duncan told him that well, yeah I've been making those I have some very similar and I've been selling them as with my name on them So so starting already in 1924 There were other people. I wasn't just Clarence Wahlberg doing the low boy it turns out Roy Duncan had been selling them and You know for everyone that he sold and went out it was probably seen by God knows how many other drummers and And it just started spreading so it was kind of a race to see who was gonna Make a professional version of it that could be made in quantity and sold at wholesale Yeah, no, there's that's a again a very common theme I just minutes ago released the Remo episode Where Remo versus Evans and it's this just constant like Multiple people doing the same thing at the same time It's just who gets to be the biggest and best and first to market and and honestly we we have the the We're fortunate enough to be able to be in a time now where we can look back and just see how history is written And it's really you know, who's the biggest and sells the most it seems like Gains the most attention Now and I have another question for you something I don't really understand That I see all the time is and if I can I'll try and explain it is really early kind of trap Era drum sets with the bass drum and there's the bass drum pedal And it's got like a little symbol hanging next to the like on the actual bass drum And then the beater has kind of a thing that hits that as well. What's the story with that? I really don't know anything about that the early symbol with striker It's something else that seems to appear And in most all of the earliest catalogs at about the same time If you go to the early days of lady and the earliest liquid catalogs and so on when they first started actually cataloging drum outfits or kits or combinations Instead of just individual drums and so on they would be a bass drum. There would be a snare drum Maybe some Wood blocks, you know temple blocks and so on but as far as playing the cymbal Like you say the cymbal would be mounted on a clamp that would attach to the bass drum hoop and As you came down at the beater to the head that little striker would hit the cymbal Hmm. So Yeah, you were you were pretty much obviously limited to hitting the cymbal every time you hit the bass drum, but it meant more sound and Yeah and it caught on in that boy, there's a lot of those out there that it was Pretty standard chair for most all of the companies for quite a number of years Interesting. Yeah, I've always wondered about that. So you're basically every time you hit the bass drum you're getting a cymbal. Yeah Yep, exactly. And I think Ludwig had a special pedal But with your foot you could you could move the footboard sideways or trigger a lever or something to activate That striker so you could turn it on and off basically you could have either just bass drum or you could have bass drum and Cymbal I don't think there was a setting for cymbal only got it, but That That was a pretty short-term thing. I think that was in like one catalog or catalog for a couple of years or something So it was worth a try. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure now with the actual like Symbols themselves to talk about that a little bit would they have just taken Two thin crashes and just modify those to be on a sock symbol or Was zilgin or whoever the the maker let's just call it zilgin at this point were they creating Specific sock symbol symbols if that makes sense where they have just been a smaller kind of thinner symbol that was you get to in a You get a pair of them and then you put them together kind of like we have today or was it? anything special Matt it first but certainly later for for quite a while in the early days of Well, the first drum catalogs that were out you could only buy symbols in pairs And I'm talking about before the sock symbols even started showing up because symbols were always played by the symbol player And you you bought a pair and they were your options were about, you know, four or five diameters and they're and they weren't different weights or anything You simply bought a pair of symbols and so that's what they were probably working with and and skip Rutherford do it again When he didn't have the money to buy it at a drum set or a bass drum and a snare drum et cetera, but you did get the money to get a pair of symbols and those became multi-use they were 15 inch K's and Those became his hi-hats later, but I imagine a lot of those early Homemade contraptions that drummers were using they were using stock marching symbols and probably pretty darn heavy. Yeah It wasn't gonna be until Geez I'd have to look up the dates, but it was still a few years away from symbols being Available individually and also being crafted for a specific application Probably among the first were the socks the sock symbols because they were gonna know that little handheld device and and they were Small enough that they were easy to put on that the lightweight First versions of the the sock pedal and so on got it. Yeah now let me ask you this So I'm assuming that the term sock symbol is called that because it's down by your feet sock You know feet Where does hi hat come from? I have my my guests and I think I've read somewhere is that the old symbols had a big bigger bell that would look like a Hat and it was raised up higher. So it was a high hat. Am I slightly correct? I don't know. I I don't know where the word hat enters into the whole thing Okay, I would have thought low boy and then the high boy and and I'm from there But that one I don't have an insight. Okay. Well, that's funny. I mean, I guess it's just it's these things that just happen over the you know I would I wonder if anyone actually really knows this, you know now that you mentioned that it's a funny story. I once we once had Who's the singer from the love boat show? Now I'm blanking out on his name once Anyhow, he was at the casino where I was doing a video work and he He kept taking his position and on the stage right in front of the drum set and in a way that when our Front remote controlled camera came in and the ride symbol was constantly right over his head And it looked like he had a great big Chinese hat That's funny. We're we're getting quite a quite a kick out of it in the production office but Yeah, I mean look just plain ridiculous, but if that symbol looked like a big hat Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with how I got it's name. No, it might though Yeah, no, but I know I've read that somewhere where it was like, oh it had a bigger, you know bell and it looked like a hat and but literally all it takes is someone writing that on the internet and Or someone's saying it on a podcast and people hearing it and then repeating it. So we might be altering that but Well, yeah, that's cool because so then just to kind of move it forward with the evolution of the high hat when did it become like Every single drummer is using a high hat like you even see the early Gene Krupa stuff Would that be like 30s and 40s it became sort of a household item Yeah, I would think at least Well back to with Papa Joe really hitting his stride I mean he had already been working on it for eight years before he joined the Count Basie, but Basie certainly would have would have been a huge Exposure point for the high hat because the guy was really good Yeah, people were were imitating him by this point and and hanging on his every stick motion And certainly, yeah, all of a sudden everybody would need one and and they were readily available by that point, too I mean they had already been in the Wahlberg and Ajay catalog for what six or eight years by that point. So Yeah, they were they were readily available and people were seeing them and Yeah, there was no looking back. I mean now it's you can't have a drum set without a hi-hat basically So it's clearly proven to be a massive part of the drum set. It's integral to playing the drums. Yeah. Yeah yep, there's a I think a lot of drummers if Limited in the number of pieces they could take to the desert island Do you need a snare kick and a hat for acting then it goes from there? Yeah, and then maybe a floor Tom Maybe a Tom. Yeah Well, that's awesome. So Rob, I think we should take the last bit of the show here to Obviously talk about the Chicago drum show, which is your your baby and I can say I was talking on the phone before I can say firsthand that Last year was my first time going and it is an experience like no other like it's hard to explain how It's just as if the Facebook groups and Instagram and all of these places where we talked with other drummers just It's real it became real life to get to meet everyone who you talked to online and Just an unbelievable experience So and you're coming up on the 30th year this year. Yep. Yep we added the subtitle of the drummers family reunion because So many people are so gratified to spend two days with a bunch of people who Whose eyes don't glaze over when they start debating whether it was a three-eighths or a seven-sixteenths Washer and such and such a year. Yeah You know, they're awesome a lot of them are from small towns where are even households where You know people don't want to hear about that Where you can go and and intersect and yeah, we have Forum but it has a booth because it's a place for them to all gather Another forum actually a second form that has a booth is the Rogers group And they they even bring in a big overstuffed chair and they could make it a hangout and and so on so You know, it seems like every year I get calls from people asking about the show and what it's like and what to expect and And in talking to them for 10 minutes or so and getting a feel for where they're coming from I can pretty much assure them look In the first half hour, you're gonna feel like you've been coming for 10 or 15 years exactly Especially if you've been in the industry for a little while you're gonna be running the old friends and making making new friends and and Running into people you've you've heard about or of email to and and so on and It's its own best marketing tool as long as I kind of guide it and and set the ground rules and facilitate it Then it just kind of happens. Yeah, it's very well run I mean just for everyone of all ages. It was like, I mean, I just so many of the guests I've had on the show where people were there and It's just you're putting faces to these names and like you said It's it's the people who have collections in their houses who just want to sell some of their gear Or maybe even just have a booth so they can have a place to hang out Up to like Zildjian and newer brands obviously like a and F or like I said, I met Remo there Which turned into an episode. I Think if anyone is involved in the drum world, it's very much worth worth going and it is in Chicago Well, I guess it's in once you give us the Villa Park, okay. Yeah, Villa Park for years we were at the county fairgrounds in St. Charles and it was a little bit more intimate setting but When we got up to, you know, an arena of 20,000 square feet We just had to have a larger place to facilitate shipping Product to the show and so on and the silver lining of the move was they were closer to the airport now. So We're literally a 15-minute cab ride from the airport or you can take public transportation from downtown Chicago To get there also or get to the vicinity of the show Yeah, yeah, Villa Park, Illinois. It's always the weekend between Mother's Day and Memorial Day Which in 2020 falls on my 16th and 17th of May and we try to make it both a Entertainment and educational event. I mean there's still the the Swap-made aspect a lot of people come to pick up specific used instruments or to trade or consign Instruments or hardware or memorabilia, etc and then there's of course the the person the people aspect to the reunion but We we have free clinics and we we try to bring in the notable artists People that are gonna attract more people to the show obviously because of a high profile and the artists Love the hang Many of them are asked to come back over and over again We can't you know, I always have a lot of repeats. We try to get some new names At this point for for 2020 we've confirmed Kofi Baker and like Clark and Greg Potter Nice and We'll end up with probably six maybe seven. There are about six or seven really high profile artists that we're we're talking to Most would love to be there but are unable to confirm until like January That's that's when I need the confirmation because of the print ad schedule and so on and yeah And unfortunately some some people because of the vagaries of their touring schedule and so on Really aren't able to ever confirm until the week before and it it makes it hard to advertise and so on yeah, but anyhow In addition to being really accessible at the show A lot of the clinicians also Do master classes and there's there's an extra charge for that But and we limited to 25 people, but it gives people a chance to get real close to Really high-profile drummers and and take their brain and get some personal instruction man, I mean it is an experience like nothing else and Just the people you bump into walking down the aisles and there's lots of like on YouTube I posted one. There's lots of Steve Maxwell has some there's lots of walkthroughs where you can see and that's what got me like I Have got to go to this thing And many people refer to it as the best drum show in The in America maybe even in the world just because of that That camaraderie and that that community and you could be you could have played the drums for a day I feel like you could be not even a drummer just interested in you know learning or you could have played your entire life And everyone will treat you great and become your friend pretty much instantly. So you put on a good show, Rob Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you. I'm again I'm I consider myself more of a facilitator than than anything else or just try to bring everybody together and Like my crew is fantastic. Some of them I've known since high school so 50 years and others are fairly recent but we come with a crew of about a Dozen twelve to fifteen people that I bring down from Michigan and then a bunch more local people a lot of volunteers and so on But They're all really great people. I think anyone there I I trust implicitly to handle most any problem or question and and I get a lot of confidence on that but I'm really Gratified that over the years. I've been able to bump up what was a no-pay weekend And you know almost being like a regular gig now because it's it's definitely worth it. They're there any any business person will tell you that you know HR is one of their main concerns and and their personnel are their most valuable resource but Even more so at the drum show I really depend on and a really great group of people. It's it's very much a family Well, I plan on Last year I was there. I shared a booth with my friend Vincent from vitalizer drums who sells Speed King pedals that he re does and I plan to be there again this year in some capacity I'll probably share a booth with him again, and I will give you more heads up so I can actually be associated with the print stuff and And I'm just really looking forward to it. So Rob I always love having you on the show and this will not be the last time because you're such a great resource and Everyone refers to you all the time. It's kind of the the king of drum history. So Great to have you here. Glad to be here. Glad to be here. Keep up the great work, man I'm I'm learning something with every episode. That's a really good stuff And and sometimes I make mental notes in it. Well, it was close, but I wish they would have covered such and such So maybe sometime we'll do a tighten up that episode and cover some of the lost chapters. Yes Man, there's been some great stuff I would encourage people to go back and listen to Joe Duomo a couple of times He's one of the guys that really nailed it all the way through the entire iteration of Canco I really liked what Mark Cooper had to say about Slingerland I think Maybe some of the the ladder chapters of Slingerland which some people would barely even consider vintage But she's already 30 years has gone by but anyhow, the you know the HSS era was buzz king and so on could could use mentioning but sure but man I look forward to every episode and then I'm learning a lot. Well, that's great And that means a lot coming from you and I think you're absolutely right what we will do is a an episode where we go ahead and just kind of Update and touch on things because again what I've learned is you can't hit every single thing in every episode I typically get responses from people on Facebook and I just love how everyone though Was very I don't know what to say. I would say polite and very Positive like this is great, but I think you might have missed this so I Welcome that so we'll we'll do that a little bit down the road and get you back on and and kind of fill in some some holes Great great. Well keep up the great work man. Thanks Rob. If I don't talk to you soon I'll see you at the drum show in May. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Bye Rob. We'll see you bar 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 the future Until next time keep on learning This is a Gwyn sound podcast