It has been a while since I wrote an article, but I thought this would be something fun. The name Club Date was actually used for the first time in the 1948 WFL catalog and was actually written as the DeLuxe Club Date. There was no such thing as club date shells or classic shells in those days. WFL/Ludwig just made shells, wrapped them and badged them. In the case of DUCO drums or just painted drums, painted them and badged them. In the sea of drum shells awaiting the drill process, a shell did not become part of a Club Date set until it was drilled for the lugs. The same goes for any of the separate lug drums. Snare drums could also be drilled for six or eight lugs. The Club Date was marketed as a slightly cheaper line as the single lugs in the center of the drum cut down on the cost of putting a classic lug on either side of the drum. Using six lugs on a snare drum VS eight also cut down cost. Any of the finishes offered in the catalog could be had as well as a variety of painted finishes.
The early DeLuxe Club Date sets had a 14x24,9x13,12x15 and a 6.5x14 snare drum. By the mid 1950’s, the bass drum was now a 14x22 with 13” tom and 12x15 floor tom. The snare drum was also changed from the 6.5x14 to a 5.5x14 at this time. By 1960, the now badged Ludwig drums dropped the DeLuxe part of the name in the catalog in favor of just calling the sets “Club Date”. The sizes were still the same and the sets were offered with a hoop mounted clamp to hold the tom and a straight mount for the cymbal mounted directly on top of the bass drum. Floor toms used the spring-loaded style legs created in the late 40’s on all WFL floor toms. The big change for the Club Date came around the 1964 catalog when Ludwig changed the sizes of the set to be 14x20,8x12,14x14 and six lug Pioneer snare drum. It’s hard to know if this was coincidence or just perfect planning, but the smaller sized Club Date sets were perfectly timed with the big Beatle craze that happened after the Beatles played Ed Sullivan in Feb 1964. After that famous performance, Ludwig found themselves with big backlogs of orders and ramped up production to run three shifts, 7 days a week to keep up with the demands. The Club Date was the perfect set for a young budding drummer and the sets looked cool as they could be had in any of the popular finishes, including Ringo’s famous Oyster Black finish.
Because of the demand for sets and snare drums in the early 60’s, Ludwig introduced the Acrolite snare drum in 1963. This drum with its aluminum shell and eight classic lugs was a great sounding drum for the beginner drummer. At some point in the mid 60’s, Ludwig realized that putting an Acrolite with a Club Date set made perfect sense as they were able to put less stress on the wood shop and did not need to make a snare that matched the set as an Acrolite would match everything. The same is true with the Supraphonic snare drum being put with all the classic sets. This means that Pioneer snares and Jazz festival snares are less common after about 1966 or so. There have also been some Club Date sets in the later 60’s that used classic brackets for floor tom legs instead of the spring-loaded legs. Later Club date sets also used a classic bracket to hold the cymbal VS the older mount that had the top part of a cymbal stand protrude out of the shell at an angle. At some point in the early 70’s, Ludwig discontinued the Club Date series as the last offering for them is in the 1971 Ludwig catalog. Ludwig had also been producing the Standard series, which premiered in 1968 as a low-cost alternative. I can only imagine by 1971-72, the Asian market selling low end beginner sets made it cost prohibitive for Ludwig to continue to offer their lower end lines as both the Club Date and Standard series were discontinued by 1973.
The Club Date has really become popular in recent years as many have discovered that the sets are all made with Ludwig’s top of the line shell and could be found in any of the finishes Ludwig offered at various times. There are many that also say that the center mounted lug allows the shell to ring more as there is less contact to the shell. The small sizes also make them great for a lot of the gigs these days as many places have scaled back music or hired bands to play at lower volumes. Club Date sets can also be tuned up high or down low and sound great in a variety of tunings. The bass drums can also sound big and full yet can also be cranked up to more of a bop setting. Ludwig has actually released a few different versions of the famous Club date sets in recent years and from my understanding, one can custom order a new set to be configured like a Club Date. A great way to hear some examples is from videos posted by Carter McLean. Carter is a Ludwig endorser that plays a wide variety of styles and has many videos posted to youTube and Instagram. He has made some great videos using vintage 60’s Club date drums and they sound fantastic. He even uses the six lug Pioneer in a few of his videos they also sound great tuned high and low.
I actually have a pretty rare Club date set that I have had for a while now. I was browsing a drum forum one day when a person posted a B/O badged Club Date set they had in Mod Orange. Oddly enough, the set was only about 15 minutes from my house! I had seen several Mod Orange Club Date sets over the years but those were all keystone badged sets. I had never (and still have not) seen another B/O badged Club Date set in Mod Orange. The set is evenly faded all around and the 8x12 is the only stamped drum with a Jan 5th, 1971, date stamp inside. Oddly enough the bass drum and floor tom posses’ serial numbers in the 765XXX range while the stamped 8x12 possess an 846XXX number. It makes you wonder if the floor tom and bass drum were actually either built earlier or just left over shells in stock that got paired with the 12 in 1971? The set was also unfortunately drilled out for the double tom mount at some point in its life but the person I got it from was very clever about the fix he did. Since the mount was added right where the original rail was, he made a plate using a photocopy scan of the finish and just put a rail back on with this plate covering the holes. It actually looks pretty good, and most people don’t even notice it until I point it out. The set also came with a regular old 70’s Acrolite and since the snares were messed up on it, I just cast it aside in favor of other snares that I had readily available. A couple of years ago, I decided to make that Acrolite good again and boy was I surprised at the sound! Ludwig made millions of those things, but they really do sound great. I have had/have a lot of great vintage Ludwig sets over the years, but this little guy is one of my favorites. It just looks and sounds so cool. I sure would have loved to have seen this guy straight off the factory bench!