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Keeping the Beat

Duration: 2:32 minutes
Accession No: TWCMS : 2009.14
This story has been viewed 1853 times

Summary
This is a story of one drum kit and the three generations of one family who learned to play it. From big band and blues, all the way through to punk rock, this tortoise shell drum kit provided the backbeat to over 50 years of music.

By John Coburn


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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

Posted on Haha, Sarah, you're hilarious and I love it! Honestly, it doesn't even matetr that they leave my name out when all the cool kids on the internet mention me! We know who has more street cred!XOXOFeliciaPosted on 05/10/2012 at 03:15:31

Wow! Great thniikng! JKPosted on 05/10/2012 at 11:09:09

g1QgSO itndcgixfsyqPosted on 06/10/2012 at 12:52:54

Uo3fWd clfjlgezykmjPosted on 07/10/2012 at 03:28:38

Mr. Patrophoski, The financial iomtrfaoinn for SFL is on the last page of the Annual Report. If you read the report in detail, you will see that SFL is spending money on projects that are positively impacting thousands of students' lives. SFL's programs would not be successful if students were not interested in using the resources. However, as any good organization should do, I am sure SFL will continue striving to spend money more and more effectively each year.Posted on 07/10/2012 at 04:41:14

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