Although it was never shown on The Beatles' original UK albums, The Beatles' famous 'drop-T' logo was a familiar sight throughout the group's early years.
It adorned Ringo Starr's drum kit from 1963, has since endured as The Beatles' official marque, and was registered as a trademark by Apple Corps in the 1990s. But how did it come about?
Ivor Arbiter was born in Balham, south London, in 1929. He repaired saxophones, worked as a part time drummer, and in the late 1950s opened the specialist music shop Drum City on Shaftesbury Avenue. It was the first drums-only store in London.
The store, modelled on the US idea of an outlet just for drums, became a popular destination for jazz drummers. He also opened Sound City, a guitar shop where The Beatles bought much of their equipment from 1963.
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!
At first they asked for an all-black kit, but Ringo changed his mind after seeing a swatch of Ludwig's new oyster black pearl finish on Arbiter's desk. When told that it was only available on Ludwig drums, his mind was made up. "That's what I want," he told Arbiter, who fortunately had a £238 Ludwig Downbeat kit with the finish in stock.
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 May 12 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.
Beatles Gear, Andy Babiuk
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 rumoured to still own the original drum head, along with the Ludwig kit.
Drop-T drum head number two
Starr used seven different drop-T bass drum heads between 1963 and 1967, each with a slightly different logo.
Following Ivor Arbiter's original, the second drop-T head is commonly known as the Sullivan Head, as it was the one used during The Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964.
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.
Rather than shipping Starr's drums to America, a new drum kit was purchased for him to play there; only the snare and cymbals were brought over, as well as head number two. Manny's Music Store in Manhattan delivered the kit, to which the head was attached, just before the taping of their historic appearances for Ed Sullivan.
The second skin was used throughout The Beatles' first US tour, including three Ed Sullivan shoots, two Carnegie Hall concerts and their live US debut at the Washington Coliseum. During the tour a scratch, most likely caused by a hi-hat cymbal being packed in the same case, ran from the letter B through to the A.
The new drums were sent to EMI Studios in Abbey Road after the first US tour. The head was not seen again in public until it was auctioned at Sotheby's in London 1984. It was sold to George Wilkins, an Australian restauratuer, before being sold once more 10 years later at Sotheby's, where it was purchased by collector Russ Lease.
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Previously I would have guessed that Ringo or The Beatles as a whole came up with the "drop T" idea. Its was certainly a big improvement on the previous drumskin that had beetle bug antennas (antennae?) on top of the letter B.