I played this DW kit when it was new with some old dear friends in a 1990 concert in Jackson Mississippi at Hal & Mal’s night club. - George Lawrence
Several years ago, I was browsing eBay and ran across a beautiful set of DW drums that piqued my interest. It was an early production kit with a 22-inch bass drum, 10-, 12-, 14-and 16-inch toms, and a matching snare drum. It was in excellent condition and featured a natural gloss lacquer over nicely figured Keller maple shells. Being a product of the 1980s, all the toms had RIMS suspension mounts.
I found the eBay “Buy It Now” price to be quite reasonable, so I pulled the trigger. As it turns out, the seller was George Lawrence. I was familiar with George, due to his affiliation with George’s Drum Shop and Famous Drums, but I did not know him at the time. Through our eBay correspondence, he mentioned that this had been his personal kit and it had been used for a number of recordings and live performances.
Some time later, I finally had a chance to meet George at the Memphis Drum Shop. During one of our conversations, I mentioned that I was the one who had purchased the kit which led to an interesting discussion about the history and significance of these particular drums.
Since I have had the kit, it has become one of my favorites. There is definitely a special mojo associated with these drums; they look great and sound fantastic. Other than replacing the heads, the only change I have made was to remove the RIMS mounts from the 14- and 16-inch toms and replace them with period correct RIMS floor tom cradles.
While I have not gigged with these, I have used them on several recordings and they have become my go to drums for the studio.
Editor’s note: I first saw this DW set in November 1989 at the PASIC -Percussive Arts Society International Convention - in Nashville. I had travelled there from my hometown, Jackson Mississippi., and later moved to Nashville in ‘93. Gary Chaffee played it in his PASIC clinic. Of all the clinic drum sets, I thought it was the best sounding one. I asked the sound engineer if he agreed and he did. I tried to track down the kit after the convention. No luck. My family found it and gave it to me as a birthday present with a picture of the kit painted on the birthday cake in icing. It became my main performing and recording drum set for many years. I moved to Nashville in ‘93. I used this kit extensively in Nashville and at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in the nineties when I was recording albums there with the Swampers. When I moved to Ohio in 2001 I started using it as my teaching studio kit at my George’s Drum Shop. Around 2007 I lent the set to my daughter Jennifer to practice on for a year or two. When I started closing the shop during the recession around 2008-2009 I decided to sell the kit along with my hoarder’s collection of other kits. That’s how it found its way to John.
This has to be one of the earliest DW kits, because they sold the first one to Tommy Lee in march of 1989 and this one was sent to the November ‘89 PASIC. The early DWs were made with Keller Shells which is what had been used to make Camco Drums. DW bought all the Camco hardware and tooling in 1977, so they were continuing the Camco lineage. I had a Camco kit and thought they sounded almost identical. Great low end and very defined mid range and high end frequencies. The sound changed when DW started making their own shells in the nineties. Almost all low end. Many drummers said they sounded “tubby”. All the toms on this kit were originally stand mounted. I installed the DW bass drum tom mount in the early 2000s. The snare drum went out of round at some point. I had Steve Klink at Fork’s Drum Shop in Nashville fix that with clamps and steam. The drums have kept their glossy finish because they were always either in road case trunks or vinyl cases. This drum set has been following/stalking me. :-) I had forgotten that I sold it to John who lived in Memphis. I was surprised when I met him in Memphis Drum Shop, where I teach, and he reminded me. I’m going to visit his great collection soon and play what is one of my favorite drum sets I owned and played.