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I guess Ringo forgot to bring his drums?..... or was it Mal's fault?

For a few weeks from mid Jan to early Feb 1963, the drumhead was blank

Liverpool signwriter, Tex O'Hara, was enlisted to design a Beatles drum logo and in early 1963, the script version was seen.

The drop-T logo came about almost by accident. In April 1963 Ringo and Brian Epstein entered Drum City to find a replacement for Starr's Premier kit..... " I had a phone call from the shop to say that someone called Brian Epstein was there with a drummer. Here was this drummer, Ringo, Schmingo, whatever his name was. At that time I certainly hadn't heard of the Beatles. Every band was going to be big in those days!" .....Ivor Arbiter

Epstein didn't want to pay for the drums, but Arbiter refused to let him have them for nothing. They negotiated, and eventually Arbiter agreed to trade the drums in return for his battered old Premier kit.

Arbiter told Epstein he wanted Ludwig's name to appear on the bass drum head, as he'd recently begun a distribution deal with the company. Epstein agreed, but asked for The Beatles' name on it too.

On the spot Arbiter designed the famous drop-T logo, hastily sketched onto a scrap of paper. The capital B and dropped T were to emphasise the word 'beat'. Drum City was paid £5 for arranging the artwork, which was painted onto the drum head by Eddie Stokes, a local sign writer.

On Sunday 12 May 1963 Ringo took delivery of his new Ludwig kit. The drums, along with new Paiste cymbals, were driven up by Drum City's Gerry Evans, who delivered them to the Alpha Television Studios in Birmingham, where The Beatles were appearing on Thank Your Lucky Stars.

The kit had a 20 inch bass drum, 12x8 tom-tom, 14x14 floor tom, and a non-standard Ludwig Jazz Festival wooden snare.

" I took his old Premier drum kit from him and brought it back to the store. We renovated it in our workshop, and then sold it. I ripped off the bit of material from the bass drum head where he'd handwritten the Beatles' name and threw it away. It was a terrible drum kit. It wasn't old: he'd only had it six months or a year. But it was a brown finish, one of the worst finishes that Premier ever did... I don't know why he got it in the first place, really. No wonder he wanted to change it. Anyway, we cleaned it up and sold it off the same week - and very, very cheaply. It would most likely be a collector's item if we still had it today." ...... Gerry Evans
By the end of 1963 the Ludwig sticker on the bass head was flaking away from all the carrying from show to show. It was taken back to Drum City, where Stokes repainted the Ludwig logo, slightly larger than before.

This original drum head was last seen in public at The Beatles' run of appearances at Paris' Olympia Theatre, which ended on 4 February 1964. Ringo Starr is rumored to still own the original drum head, along with the Ludwig kit.

In January 1964, while The Beatles were preparing for their first US trip, Ivor Arbiter was asked to prepare a second bass drum head. Once again Eddie Stokes painted the logo, this time onto a 20" Remo Weather King skin.

Drum City was an authorised dealer of Remo heads, whose distinctive logo was a small crown situated at the top of the head near the rim.

For the second head, Stokes painted The Beatles' logo much larger, spanning the entire skin from edge to edge. A wider typeface was also used.
The Beatles began recording and filming A Hard Day's Night almost immediately after returning from America. It was decided that a brand new bass drum head would be needed for their film début.

Once again a Remo Weather Master was chosen, onto which a logo was hand-painted by Eddie Stokes. This time the group's name was narrower than on the Ed Sullivan head. The Ludwig logo, too, was different: the L extended below the subsequent letters.

This third head was used throughout filming, and was used during The Beatles' appearance at the New Musical Express Annual Poll Winners' All-Star Concert on 26 April 1964.
On the morning of 31 May 1964, prior to a live appearance at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, Ringo Starr took delivery of a new Ludwig kit, which included his first 22" bass drum. A new head was therefore required, and Eddie Stokes once again painted the group's logo onto a Remo Weather King.

This time around, Stokes' lettering was similar to that on the original head. The Ludwig logo was also painted on.

The drums and head were used exclusively for all The Beatles' appearances from 31 May 1964 through to 1 August 1965, when they appeared on the Blackpool Night Out television show. Aside from the studio scene in Help!, Starr never again went back to his two 20" kits.

In August 1965 The Beatles returned to New York for the start of their US tour. Ringo Starr unveiled his fourth and final black pearl Ludwig drum kit, along with a fifth head - a 22" Remo Weather Master.

This time a Ludwig sticker was used instead of a painted logo. It was placed at a slight angle, with the letters on the right slightly higher than those on the left. The Beatles' logo featured a fatter typeface than on previous versions.
Sixth.... This logo was used on every live and film appearance up until Magical Mystery Tour in 1967. It was also used during the Sgt Pepper sessions.

The sixth skin was used during the rehearsals for Our World, the worldwide satellite link-up for which The Beatles wrote and performed All You Need Is Love. However, prior to the live transmission, the drum head was replaced by the orange and red skin later seen in the Magical Mystery Tour film.

The logo returned for the Hello, Goodbye promo film, although it hasn't been seen since the footage was shot at the Savile Theatre, London, on 10 November 1967. It disappeared after being stored in an annexe to Abbey Road's studio three in early 1968.

Brian Gibson, studio engineer: "Ringo's drum with the Beatles skin on it was left in there, and I remember thinking how attractive to a collector that particular item would be. Strangely enough - and I plead not guilty on this - we came in one day and someone had neatly trimmed the skin out of the drum frame, So someone somewhere has got the original Beatles skin that came out of Starr's drum kit. After that they used the red-painted skin with 'Love' in yellow, rather than bother to get another Beatles skin, because they obviously weren't going to be appearing on stage any more."
Seventh..... The final drop-T logo was seen in public very briefly, at the beginning of the Let It Be film, being carried by Mal Evans. The head - again, a 22" Remo Weather Master, with Ludwig sticker - was intended for Ringo Starr's maple-finish Hollywood drum kit used during the shoot in January 1969.

This photo is unusual and a bit of a mystery. According to an article by musician Iain Hines, which accompanied the photo in a January 1965 issue of 16 Magazine, this photo was taken the night Paul and Pete were arrested by the Hamburg police for the infamous fire incident. Hines claims this band was hastely thrown together to fill The Beatles' spot.

But what about that drum head? The drums look similar to Ringo's kit but that can't be determined with certainty. Pete has stated that his drums were left behind in Hamburg but these are not his drums.

Pete tells a story of having "Beatles" on his drum head for a short time.
However, he states that it was white letters on a bright orange background. That description doesn't fit the drum here. As a point of note, he also states that some photos of the "Beatles" drum head exist but none seem to have surfaced.

One theory has it that The Beatles' name was written as a joke. This would have been the end of The Beatles' first tenure in Hamburg. Surely, patrons would know this is not The Beatles.

Indianapolis Colts owner is a well-known Beatles fanatic as well as an avid rock memorabilia collector Jim Irsay has spent millions of dollars adding Lennon-owned guitars and other Beatles-used instruments to his impressive collection. Irsay added even more essential artifacts to his collection in December...... Ringo Starr's 1963 Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl three-piece drum kit (used on "Can't Buy Me Love" and dozens more essential recordings; Irsay purchased it for $2.25 million)

The Breakaways ad has always been one of my favorites. There's a really clean Kensington amp on Craigslist in Portland, Or.