Ludwig Blue Sparkle

by Guitar Bassman

Ludwig Bass Drum

I promised some drum coverage, and the first thing I’d like to cover is the first drum kit I ever played, this being a 1960’s Ludwig Blue Sparkle kit. Me and my friend Bill found this kit in a box in the basement of my mother’s house. We had no idea what Ludwig drums even were at the time, or how cool this kit was. The kit belonged to my step-dad, as did the 2 1960’s Zildjian Crash cymbals, and 1 ride cymbal we found.

This kit sounded amazing…incredibly punchy, yet defined, it was a small kit though, better suited to an accomplished jazz player, rather than 2 dudes who were just learning how to “play” (bash) drums. Unknowingly, we set it up completely wrong. Upon seeing it, my step-dad said “nice try” and then proceeded to show us how to set it up correctly.

We took turns for years after high school playing the kit, pretty much beating it into submission. We replaced the drum heads, I don’t even know how many times…The last time we used the kit came after my friend Bill, (being a big 6 ft 4 guy) completely broke all the cymbals after one intense jam session. My step-dad made him buy all new ones and we were banished from the Blue Sparkle kit.

I have seen it and played it more recently, and it still does sound amazing. I’ve also looked up similar kits and found that they’ve been going for quite a bit on eBay. I’m currently playing an old huge Tama kit that my friend Bill lent me. It has a 24 inch bass drum, 18 inch floor tom and a 16 inch rack tom. To put it bluntly, I look pretty small behind it, as I’m only 5 ft 10…but it sounds pretty good. I’ll try to get some pics of that up here soon along with the Fender Mustang.

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