...and a one, and a two, and a one, two, three, four...
American musical dynasties come in all shapes and sizes. It's funny to look back and see all the household names we know and love and how they're peppered throughout some of our most historic musical moments and reflect on how far we've come, and how tried-and-true our favorite tried-and-true names really are.
Ludwig is a great example of this frame of view in motion. A hundred years up, a hundred years down and the name is still proudly one of the most trusted names in drums.
'Till There Was You
Ludwig Drums Brand History
It's been a while since the Ludwig name first arrived on the scene – a hundred years is quite a few years, believe it or not. The brand originally started in 1909 with German immigrant brothers William F. and Theobald Ludwig with early innovations in timpani and bass drum pedal technology. Twenty years on, the Ludwig & Ludwig Drum Company made even further leaps ahead in modernizing drum designs with their Black Beauty snare drums. These brass-built snares proved influential enough to still be sold today alongside their many other designs introduced throughout the twentieth century.
Ludwig prospered in the post-war era after moving their operation to Chicago and weathering wartime metal shortages. The first post-war Ludwig catalog published featured a bright star who hinted at a new direction for percussion in popular music, Buddy Rich. The jazz legend proudly brandished a Ludwig kit, embodying the energy and spirit his newfangled big band and bebop genres injected into popular culture, and representing how Ludwig was a name to count on for such pop styles.
Modern pop music proved a stage Ludwig drums were well suited for. The prestige of the American drum brand proliferated across the pond and earned a fan in one young English drummer. This drummer's fandom made itself known on The Ed Sullivan Show as Ringo Starr welcomed the Ludwig name on his bass drum alongside his band's iconic logo. For Starr, the Ludwig name was a badge of honor and status to be worn proudly on his premier American television appearance. Ludwig's star truly rocketed from there among young drummers with Starr's playing being all but an official endorsement. The Ludwig name became further ingrained in rock music through prominent appearances in front of John Bonham throughout Led Zeppelin's career, namely in their premier concert film.
The Song Remains the Same
Ludwig Drums and Percussion Models
Today, the Ludwig name is among the most trusted in drums with one hundred years of experience to their name as of 2009. The Ludwig company moved production from Chicago to Monroe, North Carolina in the early 1980s, where they remain to this day.
The current Ludwig catalog carries many of the foundational models that became favorites of pop music's favorite drummers. New, exciting developments in drum design and tech proliferate throughout the Ludwig lineup while retaining many of the core musical tenets that made the name so coveted and prestigious in the first place. Throughout the Ludwig library, we get the full Ludwig story from its earliest days with their Classic Maple to their Legacy drums, hearkening to Ludwig's modern "square one" in their '40s and '50s big band days with Rich.
With today's collection, Ludwig honors their work with John Bonham through their transparent, colorful, rock-forward Vistalite drum line, a '70s creation famously favored by the drummer. Ludwig has since expanded out to more modern drumming tastes through work with drummer, writer, and personality Questlove. The Roots drummer's longtime love for the classic brand manifested in his own Breakbeat series kits designed to do what the original Ludwig brothers did all those years ago: Modernize. If Questlove's position as the drummer of "The First Band of Hip-Hop" wasn't enough to solidify Ludwig's place as a legendary name in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century's musical forms, maybe their appearance as the snare and kick in the infinitely prolific and influential "Funky Drummer" breakbeat is.
The Beat Goes On
Generations on and Ludwig continues to meet players where their at with an ear to the ground on the cutting edge of modern music. Ludwig proves to be one of America's timeless musical names, providing the backbeat to generations of legendary music.
...and a five, six, seven, eight...
