Video transcript
The first time they heard that awful sound, I was 13
years old. I was stood in my Grandpa Charlie's dark
and dusty attic. In front of me was a large mysterious
shape covered in brown canvas. I removed the canvas
with trembling fingers and my jaw fell. It was a beautiful
1950s tortoise-shell drum kit.
I picked up two sticks and played for the first time. It
was an amazing feeling.
After five minutes, my family were screaming for me to
stop.
I inherited my love of drums from my grandpa Charlie.
His real name was Alexander Richmond Blue Coburn,
but when me and my sisters were born he asked that
his grandchildren call him Charlie. For no particular
reason. It still makes me laugh to this day.
When Charlie was 14 he lost one of his legs in an
accident with a combine harvester. With only one leg,
he wasn't built for playing sports like the rest of the kids
his age- so with all that free time he turned to music. It
didn't take him long to master most instruments. Guitar,
saxophone, electric bass, double bass, piano, trumpet,
pedal steel guitar. And by the time he was turned 18 he
was already one of the best jazz drummers in all of
Ayrshire, Scotland.
Of all the groups Charlie was a part of, the Lex Coburn
Orchestra, his own big band, were the most successful.
They went on to play concert halls, nightclubs, dinner
dances and army barracks right across the UK and
Europe. They even played the Royal Albert Hall on one
occasion.
When my Dad was 12 he received the call. The Lex
Coburn Orchestra needed a stand-in drummer for a gig
down at the Halfway Hotel in Symington. And so began
my Dad's love of drums. Spending hours getting that
perfect snare sound, lugging drum kits out of dingy
clubs at 3am, calluses on every finger and the tortoise-
shell Broadway drum kit. That was all his now.
He went on to play in Peking and the Chinas,
Archimedes and his Principles and The Titans. Three
heavyweights of the Kilamarnock jazz and blues scene
back in the 1960s. You might have heard of them.
15 years after my first encounter in that dark and dusty
attic, I'm pleased to say that I've improved as a player.
I'm no match for the finest one legged drummer ever to
have come from Ayrshire, Scotland, but I've done
enough not to make friends and family cry.
And I'm very proud to have inherited the tortoise shell
Broadway drum kit.
I would love to see this drum kit on stage and in use well into the 21st centuryPosted on 29/10/2009 at 07:04:43
Just think how many people have listened to that kit - powering the rhythm section - all those gigs, shows, dances, numbers, .... what a fantastic history, what a brilliant legacy, what a great story ...Posted on 14/02/2010 at 07:04:31
And following on from that last entry - what if the kit itself could speak ? Just imagine the digital tales it could tell .....Posted on 14/02/2010 at 07:09:29