Slingerland Drum Company - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

History

The Slingerland Drum Company is a historic drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

company that is linked to the rich history of jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

drumming. The company was founded by Henry Heanon "H.H." Slingerland (1875–1946) in 1912. Slingerland had won a correspondence school of music in a card game aboard one of the gaming boats that once cruised Lake Michigan. He then opened a music school in Chicago, and soon turned to manufacturing instruments as well. The company started out importing ukulele

Ukulele

The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....

s from Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, but set up its own production because it could not meet demand. Soon, they produced their own banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

s and ukuleles and eventually, also guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

s (including electric guitar

Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

s from 1936 or earlier). Production of drums was started in 1927 in answer to the entry of the Ludwig & Ludwig

Ludwig-Musser

Ludwig-Musser is a drum and percussion instrument manufacturer that is part of the Conn-Selmer division of Steinway Musical Instruments.The first product made by the Ludwig brothers, William and Theobaldner , was a bass drum pedal capable of playing faster beats than was typical of products of the...

drum company into the banjo market

Market

A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...

. The first Slingerland drum kit

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

s came out in 1928.

A resourceful and energetic businessman, H.H. established an extensive dealer network throughout the U.S., the then-territory of Hawaii (in the early 1930s) and China. After H.H.'s death from a stroke, the company was run by his wife, Nona, and one of their children, Henry Jr. (known as "Budd.") The company's manufacturing plant was later moved from Chicago proper to the outer suburbs. H.H.'s other interest, a large dairy farm bought from the McCormick family on the Rock River in northwestern Illinois, was taken over by his eldest child, Marion, and her husband Richard B. McLaughlin.

The company remained in the Slingerland family until 1970. In the 1970s and 1980s, Slingerland changed ownership multiple times until it was acquired from Gretsch

Gretsch

The Gretsch Company was founded in 1883 by Friedrich Gretsch, a twenty-seven year old German immigrant recently arrived in the US. Friedrich Gretsch manufactured banjos, tambourines, and drums, until his death in 1895. His son, Fred, moved operations to Brooklyn, New York in 1916...

by the Gibson

Gibson Guitar Corporation

The Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...

musical instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

s company in 1994. Slingerland still exists and offers a variety of drum sets, including Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich signature sets. They now operate from Conway, Arkansas

Conway, Arkansas

Conway is the county seat of Faulkner County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 58,908 at the 2010 census, making Conway the seventh most populous city in Arkansas. It is a principal city of the Little Rock–North Little Rock–Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area which had...

, and also produce a series of drum kits there.

Radio King

Slingerland's most famous product line is the Radio King series of drums. These drums were introduced in 1935, and remained Slingerland's flagship snare drums and drum sets until 1957, when the Radio King model briefly disappeared from the product line. Between 1960 and 1962, Radio Kings were reintroduced and remain the premier product for the Slingerland Drum Company. Older Radio Kings are obsessively collected by vintage drum enthusiasts. Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...

and Buddy Rich

Buddy Rich

Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...

were both Radio King endorsers.

The original Radio King snare drum is distinguished by its construction: rather than several plies of mahogany

Mahogany

The name mahogany is used when referring to numerous varieties of dark-colored hardwood. It is a native American word originally used for the wood of the species Swietenia mahagoni, known as West Indian or Cuban mahogany....

, like most snare drums of the era, a Radio King drum is created from a single piece of steam-bent maple

Maple

Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...

with solid maple reinforcement rings, which assist in keeping the drum round under the pressure of the metal hardware attached to it, along with the wear and tear drums are regularly exposed to. Single-ply wood drums are known for their resonance and bright tone.

Radio King bass drums and tom-toms were made from mahogany

Mahogany

, with maple

Maple

reinforcement hoops. These drums are known for their "thuddy" sound; very warm, with quick decay.

The popularity of the old Slingerland Radio King snare drum is evidenced by myriad professional drummers that still use the snare in 2010, despite endorsing other brands.

Rolling Bomber

An interesting departure from the standard Slingerland product line occurred during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, when wood was used to manufacture drum parts that had traditionally been made of brass

Brass

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...

, chrome

Chrome plating

Chrome plating, often referred to simply as chrome, is a technique of electroplating a thin layer of chromium onto a metal object. The chromed layer can be decorative, provide corrosion resistance, ease cleaning procedures, or increase surface hardness.-Process:A component to be chrome plated will...

, nickel

Nickel

Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...

, and steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

. This was due to high demand for metals needed for the war effort

War effort

In politics and military planning, a war effort refers to a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force...

. These drums were named the "Rolling Bomber" series, and are highly collectible.

Rock and Roll

The Rock and Roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

era of the 1960s and 1970s were good times for many American drum companies, including Slingerland. Slingerland's main competitor, the Ludwig Drum Company

Ludwig-Musser

, had the advantage of being endorsed by Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr

Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

, but Slingerland, too, produced high-quality drums in this era and had robust sales, battling Ludwig for first place.

Recent

After introducing the Magnum series in the late 1970s, Slingerland lost its footing, and the company folded. In the late '90s, the Slingerland name was revived by Gibson.They are a much smaller company, with a much smaller market share than they had in the glory days, when the Slingerland name was strong and widely recognized.

Around the year 2003 Gibson made a final push to get the brand back into stores, requiring guitar dealers to take one set of Slingerlands with their yearly order. This effort failed as the drums were not inline with what the market desired. Manufacturing of the drums has been ceased, and Slingerland drums are no longer available. It is highly unlikely they will be in the future.

Marching Drums

Slingerland marching drums were produced as early as the 1920s. By the 1970s, the Slingerland line of marching equipment had become very popular in marching bands, colleges, and drum corps. During the late 1970s, Slingerland introduced its TDR marching snare drum, with a novel strainer and synthetic-gut snare that produced a distincive sound. Another late-'70s innovation was the Slingerland cutaway multi-tenors that were carried in trios, quad, or quint arrangements. The cutaway design was first used in 1977 by the Santa Clara Vanguard under drum caption head Fred Sanford and the Oakland Crusaders under Tom Float. Famous drum corps such as the 27th Lancers of Revere, Massachusetts, the Bridgemen of Bayonne N.J., the Pittsburgh Royal Crusaders; and the General Butler Vagabonds all used Slingerland equipment in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the early 1980s, Slingerland was gaining significant market share, but the company was sold, and corporate finances fell apart. By the late 1980s, Slingerland had fallen behind technologically, and Ludwig, and especially Pearl, began to pick up its market share.

Manufacturing

For most of the company's pre-1970s history, Slingerland's manufacturing processes were not standardized in the way that modern large-scale manufacturing companies' are. Exceptions to nearly every strict product taxonomy

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

existed. This is due in large part to the fact that parts would often be left over from year to year and would be used by workers even though some of those parts had been officially discontinued from the line. To say unequivocally that "All Radio Kings manufactured between 19xx and 19xx have X finishes and Y lugs" is an invitation to be proven wrong by the existence of an odd hybrid drum.

Endorsers

For many years, Slingerland drums were associated with such jazz drumming greats as Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...

and Buddy Rich

Buddy Rich

Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...

, who both had Slingerland drums named after them; another notable Jazz drummer from the newer generation was Weather Report

Weather Report

Weather Report was an American jazz-rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul and the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter...

's Peter Erskine

Peter Erskine

Peter Erskine is an American jazz drummer and composer. He has enjoyed a long and successful career as a session drummer, recording and touring with many famous jazz and rock artists, including Steely Dan and Weather Report...

. Among the prominent rock drummers who endorsed Slingerland, Antonio "Fito" de la Parra with Canned Heat

Canned Heat

Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...

, Bev Bevan

Bev Bevan

Bev Bevan is an English rock musician, who was the drummer and one of the original members of The Move and Electric Light Orchestra...

of ELO

ELO

- Music :* Electric Light Orchestra, a British rock music group** The Electric Light Orchestra , the group's debut album** ELO 2, the group's second album* ELO Part II, an offshoot band of Electric Light Orchestra- Sports and games :...

, Bobby Columby of Blood Sweat and Tears, Danny Seraphine

Danny Seraphine

Daniel Peter "Danny" Seraphine is an American drummer, record producer, theatrical producer and film producer, best known for being the original drummer and founding member of the rock group Chicago, a tenure which lasted from February 1967 to May 1990.-Early life:Danny Seraphine was born in...

of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Joey Stefko of Meat Loaf

Meat Loaf

Michael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...

, Phil Ehart of Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, Alice Cooper's original drummer, Neal Smith

Neal Smith

Neal Smith was the drummer for the rock group Alice Cooper from 1967 to 1974. He performed on the group's early albums Pretties For You and Easy Action, the breakout album Love It to Death and the subsequent successful albums Killer, School's Out, and Billion Dollar Babies...

, and Elton John's drummer, Nigel Olsson

Nigel Olsson

Nigel Olsson is an English rock drummer, who is best known for his work with Elton John. Olsson helped establish the Elton John sound as one of the first members of John's band, on drums, percussion and backing vocals. When not working with Elton, Olsson has taken up the role of a session musician...

. Tre Cool

Tre Cool

Frank Edwin Wright III, a.k.a. Tré Cool, is an American drummer, best known as the drummer for the punk rock band Green Day. He replaced the group's former drummer John Kiffmeyer in 1990...

of Green Day

Green Day

Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...

and Ray Mehlbaum

Ray Mehlbaum

Ray Mehlbaum is an American rock drummer and currently the drummer for Killing Bees.-Early life:Born in Los Angeles California, Mehlbaum was given his first drum set at age 9 as a gift from his uncle.He studied with Carmine Appice, Ed Shaughnessy, and Carl Tassi-Career:Mehlbaum has recorded and or...

of Automatic 7

Automatic 7

-Beggar's Life:-At Funeral Speed:-Musical style:Automatic 7's style has been compared to Social Distortion, Jawbreaker and Face to Face. John Hulett cites Jawbreaker as Automatic 7's greatest influence, and says that the band are Jawbreaker fans....

endorsed Slingerland drums in the late 1990s. Neil Peart

Neil Peart

Neil Ellwood Peart , OC, is a Canadian musician and author. He is the drummer for the rock band Rush.Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, Ontario . During adolescence, he floated from regional band to regional band in pursuit of a career as a full-time drummer...

used them without an endorsement from 1974 to 1979. Rick Brainer of Code of Ethics

Code of Ethics (band)

Code of Ethics was a primarily 90's band that wrote and performed many genres including New Wave and pop.-History:Code of Ethics formed in the early '90s with Barry Blaze and Eric Switzer. The duo released Visual Paradox as a self-published project, which was later picked up by indie label R.E.X....

and currently with Tommy Steele, AJ Nester of Foreign Policy still uses Slingerland drums to this day.

External links

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