My wife and I went to the Music City Drum Show this year held July 18-19 in Nashville, Tennessee at the fairground's exhibition center. We had a wonderful time and bought this very nice 1967 Ludwig Club Date set and matching snare that I want to tell you all about. I decided not to have a booth again this year. I had one and sold drums two years ago but it really is a lot of work to do that. I do like having a booth so that all my drum loving friends can come by and talk about our love for all things drumming. It's also nice to be able to just sit down and not stand and walk almost the whole time like I do when I don't have a booth. I must admit though I like not having to prepare drums for the show, haul them to the show, load in drums, try to sell a few drums so that you have a little something to show for your effort, and then load out almost everything you brought and haul them home.
This year we had a relaxing time staying at a very nice place, eating well, and enjoying the sights and sounds of the Music City while attending a very good drum show. When we walked around inside the show, we noticed the place was nice and cool. It was very hot the day of the show, but the building really felt great inside. There were two big rooms filled with drums and drum related goodies. One room was the quiet room and the other was, I guessed, the unrestrained loud room. The Nashville show has been notorious about the volume, but some steps were taken this year like quiet times every hour to help make it possible to actually talk to someone without shouting in their ear. It was in the quiet room that they held the very loud clinics, so that happened every now and then. Some great drummers provided some awesome clinics this year.
We found this beautiful Oyster Blue mid 1960s Ludwig Club Date set in the quiet room. My friend Freddie Wooten and his lovely wife had a very nice booth with vintage drums and parts for sale. There were not as many vintage drums and parts at the Nashville show compared to some of the other drum shows. There were tons of new and custom-built drums, cymbals, and electric drums there. This lovely set caught our eyes on the first pass around the rooms. It was a one owner set bought new in 1967. It is in excellent condition. The set features the Club Date single central bowtie lugs. The sizes are 22X14, 13X9, with a very cool 14X14 floor tom. The chrome looks great and everything is in good working condition.
The following is information I copied and gives information about these drums: The Club Date outfit featured in the 1960 catalog was slightly different from the Classic kits. The major indication of a Club Date drum was the streamlined self-aligning tension lug casing. Bass drums were either 14" X 20" or 14" X 22", 8" X 12" or 9" X 13" tom toms and 12" X 15" or 14" X 14" floor toms. Club Dates utilized the 3-ply Mahogany poplar shell mold until ’66, and like all classic shells, it underwent the change to maple poplar 3-ply mold in ’66. A unique feature of the Club Dates was the continued use of the "quick release" floor tom brackets. Those brackets would eventually change to the 2nd generation script logo bracket by around ’69/’70. However, the tom tom brackets would undergo the changes as all classic drum brackets did in the 1960’s (see 60s time-line section). Also, Club Date bass drums always had telescoping spurs.
We were also fortunate to find this Oyster Blue 14x5 Pioneer snare drum in such excellent condition. The set looks so great with the matching snare. We enjoyed making the purchases and taking these wonderful drums home to add to our collection. I am planning to play them on some gigs also because they sound so great.