division industry musical instruments fate acquired by gibson in 2003 ; 13 years ago 2003 founded 1913 in kalamazoo michigan usa founder henry heanon slingerland headquarters conway arkansas united states area served worldwide products drum kits electric & acoustic guitars mandolins banjos parent gibson website slingerland at gibson website slingerland is an american drum kits brand currently owned by gibson . the brand is strongly related to jazz drummers such as gene krupa 1 or buddy rich who used to play signature instruments made by the company . slingerland also produced electric and acoustic guitars mandolins and banjos during the 1930s . contents 1 history 2 products 2.1 radio king 2.2 rolling bomber 2.3 rock and roll 2.4 marching drums 3 manufacturing 4 endorsers 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit a slingerland drum kit . the slingerland drum company was founded by henry heanon h.h. slingerland 1875 1946 in 1912 . slingerland had won a correspondence school of music in a card game aboard one of the gaming boats that once cruised lake michigan . citation needed he then opened a music school in chicago and soon turned to manufacturing instruments as well . the company started out importing ukuleles from germany but set up its own production because it could not meet demand . soon they produced their own banjos and ukuleles and eventually also guitars including electric guitars from 1936 or earlier . production of drums was started in 1927 in answer to the entry of the ludwig & ludwig drum company into the banjo market . the first slingerland drum kits came out in 1928 . a resourceful and energetic businessman h.h. established an extensive dealer network throughout the u.s. the then territory of hawaii in the early 1930s and china . after h.h. s death from a stroke the company was run by his wife nona and one of their children henry jr. known as budd . the company s manufacturing plant was later moved from chicago proper to the outer suburbs . 2 as the slingerland company best known as a drum manufacturer also made guitars and banjos . 3 the songster electric guitar featured in a 1939 company catalog pre dates les paul s log guitar and is probably the earliest spanish style solid body electric guitar model . the guitar s pickup includes individual string magnets as well as a large horseshoe magnet . slingerland ceased making electric instruments in 1940 in order to exclusively focus on producing percussion instruments . the company remained in the slingerland family until 1970 . after introducing the magnum series in the late 1970s slingerland lost its footing and the company folded . in the 1970s and 1980s slingerland changed ownership multiple times until it was acquired from gretsch by the gibson musical instruments company in 1994 . in 1998 slingerland released a model based on its gene krupa signature drum kit . 4 products edit radio king edit slingerland s most famous product line is the radio king series of drums . these drums were introduced in 1936 37 and remained slingerland s flagship snare drums and drum sets until 1957 when the radio king model briefly disappeared from the product line . between 1960 and 1962 radio kings were reintroduced and remain the premier product for the slingerland drum company . older radio kings are obsessively collected by vintage drum enthusiasts . gene krupa and buddy rich were both radio king endorsers . the original radio king snare drum is distinguished by its construction rather than several plies of mahogany like most snare drums of the era a radio king drum is created from a single piece of steam bent maple with solid maple reinforcement rings which assist in keeping the drum round under the pressure of the metal hardware attached to it along with the wear and tear drums are regularly exposed to . single ply wood drums are known for their resonance and bright tone . radio king bass drums and tom toms were made from mahogany with maple reinforcement hoops . these drums are known for their thuddy sound ; citation needed very warm with quick decay . the popularity of the old slingerland radio king snare drum is evidenced by myriad professional drummers that still use the snare in 2010 despite endorsing other brands . rolling bomber edit a departure from the standard slingerland product line occurred during world war ii when wood was used to manufacture drum parts that had traditionally been made of brass chrome nickel and steel . this was due to high demand for metals needed for the war effort . these drums were named the rolling bomber series and are highly collectible . rock and roll edit the rock and roll era of the 1960s and 1970s was a good time for many american drum companies including slingerland . slingerland s main competitor the ludwig drum company had the advantage of being endorsed by ringo starr but slingerland too produced high quality drums in that era and had robust sales . beside long time endorser buddy rich slingerland in the 1970s garnered drummers danny seraphine with chicago and nigel olsson still playing with elton john . short lived in the 1970s were slingerland s version of ludwig vistalite clear drums . they stopped production quickly after their introduction due to a patent infringement suit and a cease and desist warrant from ludwig regarding slingerlands foray into acrylic drums . these drums today remain quite collectible . marching drums edit slingerland marching drums were produced as early as the 1920s . by the 1970s the slingerland line of marching equipment had become very popular in marching bands colleges and drum corps . during the late 1970s slingerland introduced its tdr marching snare drum with a novel strainer and synthetic gut snare that produced a distinctive sound . another late 70s innovation was the slingerland cutaway multi tenors that were carried in trios quad or quint arrangements . the cutaway design was first used in 1977 by the santa clara vanguard under drum caption head fred sanford and the oakland crusaders under tom float . famous drum corps such as the 27th lancers of revere massachusetts the bridgemen of bayonne n.j. the pittsburgh royal crusaders and the general butler vagabonds all used slingerland equipment in the late 1970s and early 1980s . in the early 1980s slingerland was gaining significant market share but the company was sold and corporate finances fell apart . by the late 1980s slingerland had fallen behind technologically and ludwig musser and especially pearl drums began to pick up its market share . manufacturing edit for most of the company s pre 1970s history slingerland s manufacturing processes were not standardized in the way that modern large scale manufacturing companies are . exceptions to nearly every strict product taxonomy existed . this is due in large part to the fact that parts would often be left over from year to year and would be used by workers even though some of those parts had been officially discontinued from the line . endorsers edit louie bellson in 1980 . for many years slingerland drums were associated with such jazz drummers as gene krupa buddy rich 1937 40 1968 77 2 and louie bellson who had slingerland drums named after them ; another notable jazz drummer from the newer generation was weather report s peter erskine . rock drummers who endorsed slingerland were clive bunker of jethro tull jim mccarty of the yardbirds ; barry whitwam with herman s hermits ; mike smith who all had previously played ludwig and later joe correro jr. with paul revere & the raiders ; dick dodd of the standells ; adolfo fito de la parra with canned heat ; bev bevan of electric light orchestra ; bobby columby of blood sweat and tears ; danny seraphine of chicago ; joey stefko of meat loaf ; phil ehart of kansas ; artimus pyle of lynyrd skynyrd ; jimmie fox of the james gang ; alice cooper s original drummer neal smith ; richard hughes with johnny winter ; and elton john s drummer nigel olsson . bun e. carlos of cheap trick also played them in the late 1970s . tre cool of green day and ray mehlbaum of automatic 7 endorsed slingerland drums in the late 1990s . neil peart used them without an endorsement from 1974 to 1979 . vinny appice used slingerlands in the original dio lineup . rick brainer of code of ethics and currently with tommy steele aj nester of foreign policy still uses slingerland drums to this day as does austin texas drummer pat brown . yet slingerland s achilles heel was its overall inability to successfully market its drums to the rock n roll market compared to its main rival ludwig . though not endorsed jean paul gaster of the rock band clutch uses slingerland drums and is described as one of the last drummers to play rock using vintage weapons besides neil hennessy of the lawrence arms . 5 see also edit list of drum makers references edit gene krupa drum kit set up a b slingerland history on cooper vintage drums the slingerland stringed instruments on slingerland guitars.com the legends series gene krupa signature drum kit on drummerman.net drummerbitch neil hennessy interview on lawrencearms.org 22 feb 2008 external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to slingerland drum company . slingerland products on gibson website slingerland guitar website radio king drums on vintage drums website v t e gibson guitar corporation established 1902 founder orville gibson key figures orville gibson lloyd loar ted mccarty seth lover les paul henry juszkiewicz david harvey guitars electric current gibson eds 1275 es series explorer firebird flying v l 4 l 5 les paul moderne sg super 400 discontinued byrdland blueshawk citation corvus futura l6 s little lucille marauder nighthawk rd sonex spirit 335 s acoustic current j series dove hummingbird discontinued advanced jumbo b series chet atkins sst l 1 basses current grabber les paul bass thunderbird discontinued eb 0 eb 1 eb 2 eb 3 g3 mandolins f5 f5 g f5 l f9 doyle lawson sam bush amplifiers atlas medalist atlas iv bass amp discoverer duo medalist eh 150 explorer falcon ga series keh les paul junior medalist 4 10 mercury medalist power stealth skylark super goldtone subsidiaries cakewalk cerwin vega epiphone esoteric integra kramer maestro onkyo 16.5 % stanton steinberger teac corporation tascam 54.4 % tobias brands chickering and sons dobro original orville slingerland website gibson.com retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title slingerland drum company & oldid 739273752 categories percussion instrument manufacturing companiesguitar manufacturing companiescompanies established in 19131913 establishments in michiganhidden categories all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from may 2016articles with unsourced statements from november 2012commons category with local link same as on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages deutschespa olitalianosuomi edit links this page was last modified on 13 september 2016 at 19 16 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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