I had a great hang at Benny Barth's house yesterday morning. For those of you that don't know who he is, Benny played in the west coast jazz band called The Mastersounds. They recorded 12 albums back in the 60's. He was endorsed by WFL and then Ludwig. The photo of him on his Ludwigs has alWAYs been a favorite of mine with his famous smile! The man is now 82 and still very sharp. He has some great stories and being a huge Jo Jones fan I will share that story with you.

Benny had a gig in San Francisco at the same time Jo Jones did back sometime in the 1960's. Benny, like Jo, liked to hit the drum shops in the various cities they played. Drum Land owned by Kenny Williams was THE drum shop in SF at the time. Benny offered Jo a ride and Jo, pointing at his shoes said "I've got my Keds, that's the only transportation I need". So they decided to meet there around 1pm. Benny shows up around 12:30pm and Kenny was busy rearranging the pictures of famous drummers on the walls as he had some new ones he was putting up. Jo Jones steps in around 1pm and Kenny hadn't yet finished putting all the pictures back up on the walls as he had been side tracked talking to Benny. So Jo looks up at the walls walking around kind of mumbling to hoim self as he's looking at the pics "uh-huh' ..."hmmmm"..."ok"..... When all of the sudden Jo looks at Kenny and shouts "WHERE THE F*** IS MY PICTURE? I TAUGHT ALL THESE MOTHER F***ERS HOW TO PLAY! WHERE THE F*** IS MY PICTURE KENNY? At which point a very sheepish Kenny had to explain that he had been rearranging the pictures and just hadn't got his up yet. And Jo Jones replied with a simple "oh, OK".

I laughed my ass off at that story because I pictured Jo Jones as the classiest drummer as he was alWAYs so well dressed and then to hear that he talked liked that and had a bit of a hot temper fueled by ego just cracked me up.

Benny has quite a little drum collection too but unfortunately most of his snare drums have been drilled to accommodate a Ludwig p83 strainer. The one that killed me was a 1920's Ludwig & Ludwig Super that looked like it was possible faded rose marine that was drilled for a Ludwig p83. Benny also has a non-engraved Leedy Black Elite drilled for a p83. He gave the original nobby gold strainer to Harry Cangany. Harry tried to talk Benny into at least keeping the original strainer with the drum so if it's ever sold it could be put back on and sold as a drum with 2 extra holes as opposed to being a drum with an incorrect strainer that would be worth far less than just the 2 extra holes. When Benny refused Harry wanted to buy the strainer from him but Benny just gave it to him.

Benny also met George Way back when George was running his own company. He left the factory with two 5.5x14 walnut finish snare shells. The shells were not drilled but had bearing edges and badges attached. He ended up putting tube lugs on one and DW lugs on the other.

Benny looks at his collection as a workable collection and has no problem drilling a drum for a Ludwig p83 to make the drum work for him. For us purists it's a hard concept to wrap our heads around but Benny is a working drummer and needs his drums to be in working order.

His lovely wife Dianne is a very warm person and loves canoeing down the river. She was so disappointed that I wasn't taking any drums home with me :lol:

If anyone is interested in a kit owned by Benny Barth, he is selling two Radio King kits as he can't haul around those big bass drums anymore at his age. #1 is a 28/12/14/16 7x14 and is natural maple. Not sure what they were originally as that's the WAY Benny got them many years ago. #2 is a 26/13/16 7x14 in what looks like silver sparkle but has gingeraled quite heavily but looks cool. I can pass any info onto Benny if you're interested. I don't know prices and I'm not positive on those sizes but they are close.

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With the Mastersounds. That's Buddy Montgomery of Vibes, younger brother to the more famous Wes Montgomery.

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