Classic Drummer Magazine

The Ballad of Rick Faucher - King of the Drum Techs and Friend to the Stars

by Mike Megaffin

Rick Faucher knows all the streets and alleyways of Hollywood. He discovered them long ago. During the mid to late 1940s, as a little kid, he had been an underage “swamper” for the Los Angeles Examiner, working the biggest district of the city. He rode the open backs of newspaper trucks, racing at 70 mph down the narrow side streets in the quest of getting that evening’s headlines out before the main competition, the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper was the principal way that folks back then got the news. Remember, this was before television. Rick learned to maintain his balance as he hung on to the back of the truck, firing heavy bundles of newspapers to the pavement of the street corners. It was just like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Rick Faucher knew the location of all the major Hollywood recording studios, the historic temples of sound – Gold Star, United Western, the Capitol Tower, Columbia, Sunset Sound, A&M, and RCA. In the early 1960s, he had been legendary remote-recording czar Wally Heider’s right-hand man. Rick was also tight with Bill Putnam, the godfather of modern-day recording. Rick knew the ins and outs of all the studios. He knew the motion picture and television sound stages, their entrances, hallways and catacombs. He knew every light switch.

In mid 1964, Rick got the word that supremo Hollywood session drummer Hal Blaine was over at Western Studio 3 recording with the Beach Boys. Hal wanted to have a chat. The following summit meeting and soon-to-be friendship between these two ambitious men would result in something very special in relation to the journals of the golden age of music history.

From 1964-1981, Rick rode the Hollywoodland express as the first and original independent drum tech/valet. He was the pioneer. Hal Blaine would become the most prolific studio drummer of all time. Rick Faucher, a mechanical genius, was there at Hal’s side as “King of the Drum Techs and Friend to the Stars”.

The California Kid 1938-1964

Rick Faucher
I was born Richard Arthur Faucher on June 14, 1938, at White Memorial Hospital in East Los Angeles, California. My three older sisters – Lorraine, Patricia and Eileen – named me “Rick”. They were sixteen, fifteen, and fourteen years older than I. I grew up in the area of Pico and Vermont, which was a very significant corner. In those days it was central Los Angeles, about a mile and a half from the downtown of the city. I was very fortunate to be born and raised in that neighborhood. It was a tough neighborhood, ethnically divided, but the doors were always open and there was a good spirit of community. I couldn’t have had a better childhood. Mom was forty-two and Dad forty-four when I was born. They had raised my sisters smack in the middle of the great depression. My parents once lived in a log cabin and ran a thirty-five mile trapline on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. After two of my sisters were born in Canada, the family moved down the west coast working at logging camps in Washington and Oregon. They finally settled in Los Angeles.

My grandfather, Joseph Arthur Faucher, was the original Eviel Knievel. He was known as “Subway Joe”. He was a stuntman for the Barnum & Bailey Circus, and in 1905 jumped over ten elephants on a bicycle! He also flew with the Wright Brothers and was both a world-class roller skater and bicyclist. My dad, Joseph Arthur Faucher Jr., had been a boxer and had fought undefeated in New York before he went to the First Great War. My dad was the bravest man I ever met. My mother’s name was Catherine Marie St. John. Her parents were immigrants from Ireland, and she was raised on the lower east side of NYC. My mother was very smart and very pretty. My dad was in the dry cleaning business when I was growing up. My parents were married for fifty-two years and they died three months apart from one another.

I loved music at an early age. My sisters were listening to Glenn Miller, and String of Pearls really touched me. There was a little mom-and-pop record store in my neighborhood. They sold sodas, candy and records. There was a little speaker outside the store, so from the street you could hear music being played. It was the first time I heard Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Eckstein. The folks in the store were into that style of music, so it kind of opened up my ears.

I had two paper routes while I was in grade school, including one that began at two in the morning. We used to go to the theatre for a dime in those days. I remember seeing a Bowery Boys movie where the gang was working on the backs of the newspaper trucks. It was called “swamping” and it looked like fun to me! You really had to be sixteen to swamp. Two blocks from my house was the largest independent distributor of the Los Angeles Examiner. They had a wooden building, the paper shack, where the older boys, the swampers, would meet everyday. I got to know them and from the time I was eight or nine years old until I was twelve, I was a swamper too. We would go downtown to the distributor, load the newspapers onto the trucks and get ready for the bell that rang at 6 PM. Then the race was on. I loved to hang out in the press room. I had the complete run of the Examiner facility. I ran around with a lot of older kids in the neighborhood; some had driver’s licenses. They just accepted me.

Hot-rodding really started in southern California. Hot rods were already being built and raced there, years before the war. The CRA began in 1946 as the California Roadster Association. The first issue of Hot Rod magazine came out in 1948 when I was ten years old. I was very interested in what was going on and read all I could about cars and bikes. I loved the track roadsters that were prerunners of the sprint cars. I owned a 1929 Ford Competition Roadster when I was fourteen, and it set a drag racing record at Santa Ana in 1953. We were running up in El Mirage during the early 1950s. I was the president of our car club – “The Injectors”.

I delivered packages for a drugstore that just happened to be across the street from Floyd Clymer Publications, the largest automotive book publisher in the world. I knew Floyd Clymer had been a great rider in the 1920s, affiliated with Harley-Davidson’s factory team – “The Wrecking Crew” – and that he was in the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He used to come into the drugstore every day for a malt. I began to work for Floyd when I was fifteen and soon quit the drugstore. I was on the “4-4” plan while in high school. I would go to school for four hours and then go to work for four hours. In grade 12 I went to night school and worked for Floyd during the day in his shipping department. I graduated from Los Angeles High School and went to work full time at Floyd Clymer Publications. Some of the magazines included Cycle Magazine, Auto Topics, and Pit Pass, as well as the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race Official Yearbook. One of the highlights was working on the Indy yearbook. I knew a lot about race cars. In 1957 Floyd asked me if I would like to accompany him out to the speedway. He only had to ask me once! It was like asking me if I would like to go to heaven. I went to the speedway in ’57, ’59 and ’60 for Floyd. My reason for going was that I was able to tell the photographers what pictures to take. What an experience! I left the shipping department in 1958 for various reasons, including to build a sprint car with Al Hendricks. I went back to Floyd and for two years I travelled thirty-nine states, visiting every motorcycle dealer, speed shop and bookstore in the country. We would do road tests on cars. I would go to Detroit and pick up a vehicle and use it for my travels back and forth. Floyd would drive the car around the block a few times and I would tell him what I thought and he’d print it.
I was hot-rodding in those days, big time – cars, bikes and dragsters! I worked for Floyd Clymer for a total of six years. He was a good man and I learned so much from him and his entire staff. He had great writers.

In the early 1960s, I got a phone call from my dear friend Ron Trowbridge who knew Wally Heider. I didn’t know at that time who Wally Heider was. Wally had originally been a criminal lawyer from the family firm of Heider and Heider out of Portland, Oregon. He gave up his law practice and moved to Hollywood where for a time he worked for the legendary Bill Putnam at United Western Recorders. Wally had started assembling remote-recording gear probably ten years prior to coming to Hollywood. He had built a 2 track mono board which he used on live remotes – recordings done outside the studios. Wally had started off as a hobbyist and sometimes while on vacation would travel to New York where he would record big bands like Count Basie and Stan Kenton.

I was told that Wally Heider wanted to talk to me about doing live and remote-recording. I called Wally and found him to be a real upbeat guy. He said that he wanted me to drive his remote truck to a planned recording date in Dallas, Texas. I drove through a blinding rainstorm to get that truck there. That was my first job with Wally Heider. We recorded Hank Thompson and The Boso River Boys, which included Merle Travis in the band at the Texas State Fair. I spent the next three and a half years on the road, non-stop, with Wally. It was truly an odyssey that included recording one hundred and twenty-five different artists from Cannonball Adderley to Frank Sinatra, sometimes more often than once. They were all live remotes and some were one-nighters. We worked with great bands such as Terry Gibbs, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Harry James and Chico Hamilton. I learned the craft of recordist and how to set up microphones. I loved being on the road. We did remotes in Los Angeles, Hollywood, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Reno, Salt Lake City and Chicago.

One very interesting recording took place in November, 1962. It featured Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. at a club called the Villa Venice in Des Plaines, Illinois. It was known as a “mobster club” in a “mobster town”. Sam Giacana owned the Villa Venice and he, his family and friends were the audience. Wally and I recorded for a solid week – two shows a night and three on the weekend. Frank called Wally and I “Fellas”. Frank Sinatra never released the recording from the Villa Venice. It would finally be released by Tina Sinatra, a year or two after her dad’s death some thirty-eight years later. It was called The Summit.

Wally and I parted company in early 1964. He wound up with seventeen studios nationwide, the biggest independent operation in the world. He had something like two hundred and fifty employees. When Wally and I were doing it, it was just him and I. You had to walk into the room that you were going to record in. If you hadn’t been there before, you had to figure out acoustically how to work this out, how and where to put your mics, and where to hang blankets and baffles. We never failed to bring the tape back after every gig. That’s got to be some kind of record. Remote-recording was very tricky, but Wally was a master at it.
Wally and I only had one real argument in the entire time we worked together. We didn’t part on the best of terms, but we had respect for one another and eventually renewed our friendship. Years later he wrote in Rolling Stone magazine and said on a radio station that “Rick Faucher was my ace.”

Shortly after my split from Wally Heider in early ’64, I got a phone call from Jim Tanner who, along with his brother Tom, owned Tanner Engineering. I first met Jim when he was the head of maintenance at Capitol Records. Jim was a genius. Tanner Engineering had built a television ratings truck and they wanted it driven to the Hilton Hotel in Chicago for the National Television and Radio Broadcasters Annual Convention. It was going to be the biggest exhibit there. Wally Heider knew Jim Tanner and said to him, “If you want that truck to get to Chicago on such and such date, call Rick Faucher.” The whole thing from day one was so full of intrigue and nonsense that only a fool would have done it – and that fool was me. I wasn’t allowed to take anybody with me, which I thought was kind of weird.

There were only three television networks in those days. Television sets send a signal as well as receive one. Jim Tanner developed this truck that you drove down the street and it registered what network was being watched on individual television sets in the houses. Ideally you had to drive at 17.5 mph, which is really hard to do. The television sets would send back channel 2 and the calculator, an old rotary type, would click and register the viewer’s channel. You’d drive down the street and the calculator would go “click click click click”.   At the end of the night, if we drove it around for a couple hours, we knew who was watching what between 8 and 10 PM.

Getting the “calculator truck” to Chicago and back to LA was like something out of a mystery movie. Jim Tanner said, “They think we’re sending it by plane or by rail, but you’re going to drive it out.” “They” were Nielsen & Nielsen, who dominated the television ratings business. The Tanner people were afraid they might mess with the truck on the way to the convention. I agreed to do it, but I told the Tanners up front that they had put all this in the wrong truck, the wrong chassis, and that it was way too light to put all this equipment in. They didn’t understand what I was talking about. They understood the electronic part of it but not the mechanical part. The balance and so on didn’t mean anything to them. The truck, actually a Corvair van, had eight 8” Sony television monitors along with eight liquid batteries in the back. It was a big mistake because the Corvair van is a rear engine machine to begin with. They just knew that I was the one to get it there. It was insane. The truck was black with “Tanner Engineering” in gold lettering on each side of it. Its tail was practically dragging the ground. It had no horsepower and was so overloaded. Every syndicated newspaper and magazine in the world had a story about this truck. It was written up in Time magazine, and the Los Angeles Times had a big spread on the truck all before I even left with it. I was supposed to drive it to Chicago without being seen!

By the time I made Albuquerque, New Mexico, only a thousand miles away, all the shock absorbers were blown and the rear axles were bent. I still had another thousand miles to go along the rough and narrow roads of Route 66. I ended up sending the truck by freight train, but I got it to the convention on time. It was the biggest exhibit at the show and got the most attention from all the television technical people. This truck blew them away because it looked like it worked and it did. They had proof. I don’t know how they did. I stayed out of that part. All I had to do was take care of that truck and get it there. Because it was a television ratings truck, Nielsen & Nielsen were afraid of the competition and offered Tanner Engineering two million dollars to throw a blanket over it at the convention and get it out of there.

That was the end of my thing with Tanner Engineering. They did call me again later that year in relation to another caper. While back in Illinois, they got a contract from the state to come up with a system of locating stalled vehicles on the turnpikes. Six months later they had it finished. It was actually a black Flexable bus with “Tanner Engineering” on the sides. They wanted me to drive the bus back to Chicago, but by that time I had moved on to the next chapter of my life. It was a compliment that they approached me to drive this multi-million dollar vehicle. The Tanners had it finished and called to say to meet them and see the vehicle under the tower at KTLA. It looked like Cape Canaveral inside – the board on it! It was extraordinary. It was nice of them to think of me, but I was busy and couldn’t do it.

I thought maybe I would go to work for United Recording. I knew Bill and Miriam Putnam very well. They were wonderful people. I could have gotten a job at United if I wanted to stay in the recording business but, to be honest, I wasn’t really that interested in recording. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I was twenty-six years old.

It was mid 1964. I happened to stop by United one day and a friend who worked there said that Hal Blaine was in Western Studio 3 with the Beach Boys. He wanted to talk to me. I didn’t know who Hal Blaine was. I asked, “Who’s Hal Blaine?” He said, “The drummer, Hal Blaine, wants to talk to you.” I said, “What’s he want?” I was told, “Something about moving his drums.”

The Hollywood Drum Tech 1964-1981

Rick Faucher
The man who started the cartage business, way back in 1928, was Mr. Vincent Kuehn. That’s about the time the Hollywood studios started setting up their sound stages. Kuehn was real old-time with an old truck that had a cloth-covered ragtop on it. He had only one truck. That’s all he had. I would see Kuehn driving around Hollywood in his old truck. I never really knew him well at all. I don’t remember ever talking to him. The old man had been a pioneer of the cartage business.

Ed Van Sloten was a long-time friend of mine. He was about five or six years older than me. At that time he owned the biggest cartage company in Los Angeles. “Van” had worked for Mr. Kuehn and referred to him as “the old man”. In 1957 Van branched out and kind of secretly went into business for himself. He bought himself a brand new truck. He was a good businessman. Soon Van had two or three trucks going, moving all the big instruments like harps, pianos and all the percussion stuff, like kettledrums. He had the whole cartage scene sewed up. Ed Van Sloten took over the cartage business with another approach and called his company Modern Musical Services. The old man gradually gave up and got out, finally retiring around 1960. He had seen the writing on the wall.

Ed Van Sloten and I were hanging out together every day. Van’s company handled Hal Blaine’s cartage. I guess Hal probably asked Van to set his drums up for him. Van wouldn’t do it because he was afraid if he did it, everyone would want the same treatment. Modern Musical Services didn’t have time to do that. They had two or three trucks going all the time.

I probably had lunch with Van and some friends the afternoon I heard Hal Blaine was looking for me. I had a date that night. Afterwards, I wound up coming back down Sunset at around 11 PM. I stopped off at Western. I walked into Studio 3 and went to the control room. Hal saw me and waved to everyone to take five. Hal and I stepped out to the hallway and we introduced ourselves. He said, “What I want is somebody to set my drums up. I’ll guarantee you a hundred dollars a week. The record companies will pay you thirteen dollars and fifty cents both ways to deliver and pick up the drum set.” I already had my beautiful blue 1953 Ford half-ton pickup with the tarp. It had a ’55 Ford front end, a Buick Century V8 engine and a Buick rear-end. Hal added, “I think maybe I can get Earl Palmer for you too.” I wasn’t really sure who Earl Palmer was. I said, “Well, I guess we can give it a shot.” Hal said “Rick, there’s only one problem. Right now my drums are with Ed Van Sloten. We’re at real odds and Van doesn’t want me to do this.” They had this conflict going. I told Hal that I knew Van and not to worry about it.

I told Van the next day that I had talked with Hal and that he wanted me to handle and set up his drums. Van’s mouth dropped to the floor. He really didn’t want me to do that. Van said, “If you start that, then everyone is going to want it. Why don’t you come to work for us?” These guys were friends of mine. They talked me out of it. They used the term “loyalty”. I called Hal and told him that I talked to Van and Van asked me not to do it. I said that I had known these guys forever and that I’d be working for Van. I told Hal that I would see him around. I soon found out what Ed Van Sloten’s motive was. He really didn’t want me on the scene at all and figured if I got out there I would be an independent and competition, even if I was working for him. That’s what Van had done. He had taken over from the old man. Van saw me as a threat. I reported to work and asked when I would start. Van said, “Things are kind of slow right now. Maybe when they pick up in the spring you’ll be working for us, but not right away. It’ll be several months before we have room for you.” I went across the street to a pay phone. I dialed Hal Blaine in the middle of the day and caught him at home. That was really uncommon because he was always in the studios. He was home for a break. I said, “Hal, I just had a talk with Van and decided to reconsider your offer. When can we get together?” Hal gave me his address in Hollywood and we planned to meet at noon on the coming Saturday. I went back across the street and told Van about my decision to go with Hal. Van said, “You got to keep in mind, man, that I got to do what I have to do.” I took that as a threat. He had some bad actors as friends. I told Van, “If anything happens to me, it’s going to come back harder on you.”

I met with Hal on the Saturday. He had just bought the actor, Lee J. Cobb’s house.   We took a ride in Hal’s old white 1958 Pontiac convertible and while driving down the Hollywood Freeway, through the Cahuenga Pass, we agreed on what I would be doing. Hal said, “Pick my set up at Columbia Records on Monday morning.” I understood the protocol of recording. I had been at it for some time. I understood what the red light meant. That was a real advantage to me. I knew a lot of the players because I had recorded them on different things. I understood how the studios operated because I had worked for United Recording’s studio in Las Vegas for six months. Ed Van Sloten got wind of what I was going to do. I walked into Columbia and Hal’s blue sparkle Ludwig kit was in the middle of the big room. Terry Melcher and Bruce Johnston were the only ones there. They watched me from the control room. Next thing I saw was Ed Van Sloten with a 35mm motion picture camera. Someone walked up to me and said, “Didn’t you see we were recording? You’re going to have to come back later.” I replied, “Your red light isn’t on. I’m here to pick these drums up now and I’m taking them now.” Van talked a couple of guys into going in there and trying to stop me. They were trying to intimidate me. Van took the tape down to the California Public Utilities Commission. He knew the main man and played the tape for them. I was only working for one drummer. We called it the “Lydia Angela Music Company”. “Lydia Angela” was Hal’s wife. That’s what I operated under. I was Hal’s personal valet. The PUC wasn’t interested and they chased Van out. A year or two later, Van and I became friends again and renewed our relationship. We got along after that. He tried to hire me back even after all this. Ed Van Sloten sold out years later and made an awful lot of money. He owned at least half a block right on Sunset Boulevard, so you can imagine how much money he retired with. Van went out of business and sold it all at the same time.

I lived in Sunland from 1964-1967, and then moved to 440 Occidental Street in Silver Lake off the 101 Hollywood Freeway. That property has a legendary story behind it. A book should be written about it, including my twenty years there – the stuff that went on. That’s where I kept Hal’s drums. One night in Sunland I was looking at Hal’s bass drum and I took one of the lugs apart. I thought this would sound a whole lot better if I wrapped the lugs with cotton. I didn’t even ask Hal about it. I had the drum apart with its pieces spread across the room and at 11 PM the phone rang. It was Hal. He said, “Rick, we’ve got a 9 AM downbeat at Gold Star with Herb and the Brass.” I went ahead and finished the drum. I wrapped all the springs in cotton and put it all back together. I was at Gold Star at 8:30 in the morning. The drums were set up and the band came in. I stayed to see if this was going to work. Hal walked in and I remember standing behind him. Herb Alpert and all the Tijuana Brass guys started to show up. Hal was hitting the bass drum. Seemed like he was retuning it. The bass drum had calfskin heads. The first song they were going to do was A Taste of Honey. They didn’t know how to start it – how to kick it off. As I recall they tried several horn intros. Hal being Hal said, “Let’s try this.” Out came that legendary bass drum intro. It’s ironic that A Taste of Honey is notably one of the great drum intros. Thank God it worked! I hadn’t told Hal what I had done. I told him afterwards. Recorded in 1964, A Taste of Honey won Grammy Record of the Year in 1965.

Hal had a blue sparkle Rogers set that he had used for quite a while with Tommy Sands. Hal gave that set as a gift to Jack Nitzsche’s son. I remember delivering the set. Jack was Jack. He was a quiet guy who had a lot on his mind. After doing Hal’s bass drum I wrapped the lugs on all the drums. Hal’s blue sparkle Ludwig set-up included a 22” bass drum, 13” small tom, 16” floor tom and metal Ludwig 400 Supraphonic snare. We had two identical sets of blue sparkle Ludwigs so I could alternate and work both of them. He also had a complete blue sparkle Ludwig double bass drum set with all the toms. Hal had them at his house the first time I was there.   He said, “What do you think of the new blues?” The bass drums were both 20”. Those drums were known as the “Jan and Dean” set. One bass drum had Jan Berry’s caricature and the other Dean Torrance’s. Hal played the set with Jan and Dean at the Hollywood Bowl. Hal already had the timbale toms before I joined up. He had legs for the bigger one that he played as a floor tom. He had a tom mount on the smaller timbale and put that on the bass drum. The timbales were chrome-plated over hard steel. I always brought them along. Hal liked them. He had an incredible ear and such a head full of ideas. He was successful because of many things. He was in the right place at the right time. He was never late. He always brought more to the show than what was required. Hal played with such authority. He would take the charts at the sessions and make the changes with his marking pencil even before the downbeat. Hal was always leader. He was inexhaustible. He could do three sessions a day, easy. The drummer had to play all the time! The most dates that Hal ever did in one week was twenty-six, with a complete weekender. The last one was The Mamas & The Papas which started at eight o’clock on a Friday night and went straight through until about that same time Sunday night. Generally I’d drop the drums off and split. I knew John Phillips quite well and I’d talk to him for awhile. Michelle Phillips was gorgeous. I would take the drums in and out at John and Michelle’s house while they were asleep. They lived in the old Jeanette McDonald mansion at 783 Bel Air Road, Bel Air. They had a studio in their house. That was long after The Mamas & The Papas had made it. All their stuff was done at Studio 3 at Western with Joe Osborn, Larry Knechtel, and Hal Blaine – the anonymous kings of rock ‘n’ roll – and everybody’s rhythm section.   Listen to the stuff Hal did with The Fifth Dimension – the licks he’d come up with! There are a lot of good drummers now and they’ve improved over the last forty years. Hal replaced the drummers in a hundred and seventy-five different bands. Many couldn’t cut it in the studios. They were road drummers. Hal Blaine was the one they called in for stuff that couldn’t be done. Hal and I got along very well. We really understood one another.

Hal Blaine
During the late 1950s, I was lucky enough to have transferred from Local 10 in Chicago to Local 47 in Hollywood. Almost immediately I started doing studio calls. Earl Palmer was about the only guy who would even accept rock ‘n’ roll calls. Earl turned some of the producers on to me and I started working steady. Too steady, I might add. I could not possibly get to a studio, unpack my drums, finish, pack up again and get to the next call. Enter Richard Faucher. Everyone got to know Rick, who was Wally Heider’s right-hand man doing remotes all over the country.   I met Rick at Western Studios one lucky day and that was over forty years ago.

Sometimes Rick would be setting up one of my dozen sets at 4 AM for an 8 AM downbeat. Without Rick, “The King” of all drum techs and the first ever, I could never have done the sessions that I was being called for. Rick was a master mechanic and all the Crew got to know him. He would often go out and bring food in for the guys working on double sessions without breaks. Everyone loved Rick, and of course he is still the number one drum tech ever. Rick has helped Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner, just to name a few.

From Overture (October 2005) The Official Publication of Professional Musicians Local 47, Los Angeles, Ca.

Rick Faucher
When it became time to take the front head off the bass drum, I didn’t want all the parts hanging off. I got a Gates power belt which was “V” shaped. They were belts used by giant heavy-duty machinery. If you took the drum hoop off and shoved the belt against the lug, it slipped in there perfectly. If you wanted to put the calfskin head back on you could do it quickly. I wanted to keep all the hardware on front and that was the way to do it. I made straight floor tom legs out of stainless steel and put rubber tips on both ends. The rubber tip idea acted as dampener. The more dampening you got in the set, to my ears, the more you wanted, so I dampened everything. The drum companies didn’t use nylon washers in those days. The nylon ones I used were almost invisible. I didn’t like the tapered washers so I used thick flat ones. I pressed a nylon washer on, then a heavy metal one, then another nylon washer. I used handkerchiefs as dampeners. You had to use a good handkerchief and good masking tape and really get it against the head. The set on the cover of Hal’s solo album, Have Fun!!! Play Drums!!! was “Set 5”. I put two handkerchiefs on the front bass drum head.

The guys working all the time were Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer. There are not a lot of drummers who can play together, but Hal and Earl could. I’ve seen them play together – two phenomenal drummers on the same wavelength, complementing each other. That is very difficult to do. I met Earl Palmer through Hal. I tried to get Earl’s cartage. He had a blue sparkle Rogers set. I approached Earl after I had been in business for a couple of years. I remember driving to Western 2 one night to talk to him about it. We used to hang out and became good friends. Earl was an absolute prince. He was a very dapper dresser. He was another drummer who had total authority and knew what he was doing. He had a head full of ideas. Earl, like Hal, always brought more to the show. Hal and Earl had already done quite a bit with Phil Spector by 1964. Hal did a lot of the Righteous Brothers’ records, but Earl played You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling which I think is one of the all-time greatest songs. That song was such a classic performance for rock ‘n’ roll. The reason why I didn’t get Earl was because he had a strong loyalty to Ed Van Sloten. He and Van were very tight.

I borrowed Earl’s car one night at Capitol. I met a girl and wanted to take her out. Hal’s drums were in my van so I asked Earl if I could use his Thunderbird. Earl tossed me his keys and I was off. A couple of hours later I returned to Capitol, parked the car, went into the studio, threw Earl the keys, and split. Earl comes out at two o’clock in the morning and finds his driver’s side front tire flat with a broken beer bottle beneath it. It was my fault. I drove right over the beer bottle and never heard it. Next time I saw Earl, he said, “Man, you ain’t getting that Thunderbird again! No more T-Bird for Rick!”

Earl Palmer is one of the most beautiful human beings on earth. I literally mean that. He’s an awful funny cat! His sense of humor is still something else. He was a Secretary-Treasurer of Local 47. He was also extremely active in the community. Earl must have been involved with a dozen different foundations and schools to help the kids. I don’t know where he found the time – but he did. He was inexhaustible.

Earl Palmer
Rick Faucher was a well-rounded guy. He did a little bit of everything. I’ve known Ricky for a long time. He worked for Hal all the time. I’d see him bringing Hal’s drums into the studios. Ricky was a great guy and a very hard worker. He never forgot me. Rick was always good to me, even though he never worked for me. Hal and Rick were loyal to one another. You can’t ask anything more than somebody’s loyalty.
Rick was supposed to come to my birthday party! He called that night to say that his ride was delayed. See, out here where I’m living now, you don’t have things too late. They close down early. By the time he got out here, it would have been in the middle of the morning. The party would’ve been over! We had a house full of people. Hal Blaine was over. Rick will have to come out another time.

Rick Faucher
Think of the difference between arriving at the studio and having your drums all set up or not having them set up. It was bulletproof. All Hal had to do was go in, sit down, and kick it off. He didn’t have to go out to the hallway and drag his cases inside the studio. He didn’t have to unload and set his drums up which took more time. It was a brilliant idea and it was all Hal’s thinking. He knew he was busy enough for a drum tech to make some money. This was not only an advantage for Hal Blaine but also an advantage to the producer, contractor, engineer, the guys who miked the set, and the rest of the players. They weren’t sitting on pins and needles wondering if the drums were going to show up. You can’t start a date without the drums. When the drums were there, it just took everything off everybody’s mind. The drums were always there. I think I missed twice in twenty years. God only knows how many sessions. That’s why they gave me keys to seventeen different rooms. The reason they gave them to me was because I worked independently. They wouldn’t give the keys to Ed Van Sloten because he was hiring different people that the studio operators didn’t always know. His employees came and went. Van’s company was late a lot. They delivered Earl Palmer’s drum cases one time with no drums in them! Van had so many clients that he could only do so well.

I don’t think Hal dented a drumhead the whole time I was with him. Hal’s drums were used a lot – every day. Every once in a while it was time for fresh Remo heads and I would change them. I could just about nail the tuning. Hal would tweak them. Hal carried the cymbals himself for a couple of years. Then I took them. Those old Zildjian cymbals are just incredible and irreplaceable! Think of all the hits they played on! Hal only used one rivet which was actually a set screw. I still look after the cymbals.

I spent a lot of time talking to Larry Levine at Gold Star. He’d be there at eight o’clock in the morning for a nine o’clock downbeat. I’d arrive at eight and set the drums up. Larry was one of the grandest guys you’d ever wanted to meet. He was an extraordinary engineer. He had the persona of a giant. Larry had that authority, honesty, openness, grace and class. Chuck Britz, who engineered many Beach Boys sessions, was another. Dayton B. “Bones” Howe was also another great engineer. Bones played drums too. He was working at United as an engineer and then went on to become a successful independent. Bones did The Fifth Dimension hits.

The first time I saw Brian Wilson was during a record date at Gold Star. The band was in the room and this young kid walked in. It was Brian Wilson. Everybody smoked in those days and he came out and told the entire band, “No smoking, fellas.” The band just laughed at him. He didn’t like smoke. Brian was real sharp at that age. He was very focused on what he was doing and didn’t hang out. I didn’t know Brian like I knew John Phillips. Of all the Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson was my only friend. I hung out with Dennis a lot. I saw the father, Murry Wilson, on the dates in those days. The players all loved Murry because he tipped them after the sessions. Then I didn’t see Murry around and I started hearing these tales about him and all the troubles the Beach Boys were having.

I knew who Frank Capp was before I knew Frank Capp. I may have seen Frank around when I worked for Wally Heider. The first time I met Frank was when I was looking after Hal. Frank played timpani and percussion on a lot of Beach Boys sessions. Frank’s a monster, an extraordinary big band jazz drummer. He’s a great guy. He had the Frank Capp/Nat Pierce Orchestra and is still playing around town as the Frank Capp Juggernaut. I handled Frank’s cartage for about eight months, then Alfred Rodriguez took over.
Alfred Rodriguez worked for the old man Kuehn, and then went directly from Kuehn into his own business. Alfred had a partner and they wanted to go into business with me. I told them that I wasn’t interested in partners and encouraged them to go for it. Frank Capp wanted to go into the cartage business with me as well. One day Frank came up to me at Studio A at United and said something like, “Rick, hold on because shortly you’re going to find yourself vice-president of a going concern!” I didn’t have to ask Frank who the president was going to be!

Frank Capp
I would see Rick Faucher a lot on all the dates that Hal Blaine and I were on. Hal was the first drummer to use a personal drum tech or “set up guy” as he was known back then. It later caused all the drum cartage companies to set up drums for the cats they were hauling. Rick was always a friendly, helpful guy. He was so busy with Hal, who was doing all the work. I was usually playing percussion on the dates I did with Hal. My cartage company would drag my timps or xylophone, whatever I needed, my special effects trunk, to the dates. When I played drums, and I still do, my work in the studios was relegated to more motion picture work and I did everything that came out of Hanna-Barbera, all the cartoons, like The Yogi Bear Show, The Flintstones, The Jetsons and The Smurfs. I was sick and tired of setting up drums all the time having to get to the session an hour ahead of time to set up. I didn’t have a Rick Faucher to work for me, so I had my drums set up and nailed to a rolling platform with real big heavy castors. I had a big fiber cover made and it looked like a huge trunk. My cartage guys didn’t like it too much because it was so big and heavy. They would lift the top off it and I would put my cymbals on. There were certain studios that the damn box wouldn’t fit in the door so then I had to use my number two set.
Musician’s Transfer was formed over forty years ago by Alfred Rodriguez. Al used to work for Mr. Vincent Kuehn who owned the only early cartage service. Back when I first came to LA, the cartage fee the old man would charge for a set of drums and everything else was five dollars. He later raised it to seven dollars and everyone was furious. Joe Medina owns and runs Musician’s Transfer since Al died several years ago. Ed Van Sloten started Modern Musical Transfer. They are no longer in business.
I would see Mr. Kuehn around in the old days and he always wore a hat, like a cab driver’s hat. I never saw Mr. Kuehn with his hat off. Alvin Stoller, a good friend of mine, would say that the old man used to keep his money under his hat.

Rick Faucher
I operated the first year under the “Lydia Angela Music Company”. I got my own license and it was “Rick’s Musical Instrument Services” from then on. My billing books showed the bills that went to the record companies, including information in regards to particular studio or studios, time of day, Hal Blaine’s name, and what I delivered, such as five cases, drums and effects, and the price. My 1953 Ford pickup truck could only carry one drum set at a time, so I bought a brand new white 1966 Ford van. Then in ’68, I bought another one with a V8 in it. That blue Ford van was probably the best truck I ever owned. In 1974 I bought another van and kept it until I quit doing what I was doing. I did a lot of moving around at night. Many of the major studios we worked were open twenty-four hours. The gate guards all knew me. I never had anything written on the panels of my vehicles. They were plain and unmarked for obvious reasons. I didn’t want “Rick’s Musical Instrument Services” written on the side just in case the vehicle got stolen. I wanted people to think that I was carrying paper plates or something. I tried to stay as invisible as I could. I didn’t wear any uniform. I just wore what I was wearing. There’s no way you could do this today. You couldn’t move through Hollywood fast enough to do what we were doing in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It’s just a madhouse. There were times when I just loved it. I spent years in Hollywood.

In 1968 Hal Blaine turned me on to Jim Keltner. I got a phone call and a 1965 Daytona Blue Corvette Stingray drove into the driveway. It was Jim Keltner. He was mainly a jazz drummer who had played with cats like Don Randi and Gabor Szabo, but his eyes were on the studios. Jim blew me away. He was an absolute prince and still is to this day. Jim said he was going to do more sessions and wanted to know if I would handle his drums. I had never laid eyes on him before, but I guess Jim would go around to the studios after the sessions and check out Hal’s set. Jim really got it. He lived for music. Jim and his wife Cynthia were high school sweethearts. When Jim started his career he didn’t realize, as anybody would, that he was going to become “Jim Keltner” the famous drummer. When I first met him he wasn’t “Jim Keltner”. He was just “Jim the drummer”. We hit it off very well and I started handling his drums. He had a black pearl Ludwig kit. I wrapped the springs in Jim’s drums and put the Gates power belt on the bass drum. Jim started out by doing a session or two a week and then progressively more. In no time he was working a lot. Jim operated a little differently than Hal. Hal did mostly three hour sessions because he was booked two months in advance. He had to run from one date to the other. Things started to kind of change about that time in relation to what bands were doing and so on. Jim was doing more projects. He’d start with an artist or a band and hang with them until they were finished with their whole album. Jim was there to stay. Obviously he was going to make it. Jim really took his career seriously. I suggested to him, as soon as he was in the position, to move from his place in Altadena into town. I told him that he would start getting a lot of last-minute calls. Hal was getting lots. Jim and Cynthia moved to a place in the Los Feliz area close to the Hollywood studios. Jim became real involved with George Harrison. We were in the Record Plant in town a lot in those days. I was there one day because Jim was doing something for George and I was setting up the drums. George came loping across the room, fell to his knees, and opened the palm of his hand. There was a big black badge in it that said, “Jim Keltner Fan Club”. George had started it.

Jim Keltner
I got with Rick Faucher because of Hal Blaine. I was trying to do everything that Hal did back in those days, so obviously when it came time for a cartage situation for my drums, it had to be Rick. That was around 1968 when that happened. What was so great about Rick was that he did all kinds of custom work for Hal. Rick tricked-out all Hal’s drums, the lugs, the hardware, and so he did the same thing for me. Of course I was trying to copy Hal to a tee. I had a calf head on the batter side of my 22” bass drum. Rick rubbed the head down with some sort of soap which he had used on Hal’s. It just was always a great pleasure to come and sit behind my drums and have them sound so great, without any squeaks or rattles. He was a real stickler for that. We had a good long relationship. Rick is like a drum scientist. He really knows what he’s doing and he just did a great job for me all those years.   We’re still great friends. He made my drums sound better. I had a black pearl Ludwig set. I wasn’t looking for my own sound. I was looking for my drums to sound like Hal’s. The first time I saw Hal play drums was way before I started. This was perhaps in 1962. I saw Earl Palmer play a year or so after Hal. My mind was blown because of the power both those guys used when they played. They didn’t play loud. Hal and Earl just had such a power from their groove. It was awesome. I was always knocked out that Rick was doing my drums. I loved his whole ethic and everything. I really learned a lot from Rick and to this day I have Ross Garfield, from The Drum Doctors, do some of the stuff to my set-up that Rick used to do. It was a magical time in my life and I was just getting started. There’s nothing like the beginning where everything is fresh and brand new. Rick was there at the very beginning for me. I will always have a very special place in my heart for the guy. Ricky’s a jazz guy and he will always represent something about jazz to me that I love. Rick’s a special cat. He’s like one of the original beatnik kind of guys in a certain way.

Rick Faucher
Gold Star had an alley behind it and some room for small parking places. This was when Hollywood was Hollywood. I was outside the studio one day. This tall handsome guy who looked like a movie star walked up to me and introduced himself. “My name is Jim Gordon.” Jim told me that he had just got off the road and he was going to start doing more record dates. As a teenager, Jim had been the drummer for the Everly Brothers. He had been doing sessions for a few years now. Jim had played on the Beach Boys 1966 album Pet Sounds along with some great musicians such as Hal Blaine and Frank Capp. He wanted me, and only me, to handle his drums. This was around the late ‘60s. I already had Jim Keltner by that time. Jim Gordon was very polite, soft-spoken and a perfect gentleman. He was just as grand as he could be – the sweetest cat in the world. You couldn’t have met a nicer guy. I had known my good friend Donny Patterson since I was thirteen years old. Donny, like a number of other people, wanted to go into the cartage business with me, but I didn’t want any partners. There was a certain way I operated and I ran my own show. One of the biggest musical contractors at the time approached and offered me two hundred thousand dollars to take over the cartage business. He wanted to buy several trucks and get a big warehouse. Then he would guarantee me the clients because they were all working for him. Ed Van Sloten also made me an offer to come work for him again. I was more interested in making drums sound better. I had Jim Gordon. Jim was mine and I gave him to Donny Patterson. I told Donny, “There’s a drummer in town and he’s already set the world on fire. His name is Jim Gordon. I can get you Jim Gordon.” Jim had gone to Pro Drum in Hollywood and bought the exact same set as Hal Blaine’s – a blue sparkle Ludwig. Hal was the first one to have a handmade sound effects case. In fact he had two. Each case would have Hal’s homemade percussion toys, plus his shakers, bells and tambourines. An effects case was by the set all the time. Ideas constantly popped into Hal’s head and he could reach into the case for his taped bottles or tire chains. Jim Gordon literally copied Hal to a tee and also got an effects case. Jim had been back on the scene for about a month and I went over to United 2 to see him. I told him that I was going to let Donny Patterson handle his drums. Jim was really disappointed. He didn’t have an angry bone in him but Jim let me know that he was disappointed. He said, “Man, I thought we had an arrangement.” I told Jim, “Let Donny work for you for a month. If he screws up, you’ve got me.” We hadn’t made a formal agreement but I guess verbally we had. I could have handled Jim Gordon easily but I wanted to see Donny make it. Jim really gained a reputation quickly on par with some of the big players. Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer were the top guys, followed by Jim Gordon and Jim Keltner. Gordon, like Keltner, became awfully busy, awfully fast. They had what it took. Jim Gordon and I hung out a lot even after he was with Donny Patterson. Jim and I would be at the studio the same time and after, we would drive out in his car to hear somebody at a club or somewhere. Jim introduced me to some great players. Everything was very cordial and the thing with Donny was working at that point. Then the Eric Clapton thing happened and Jim went to England. He was gone for about a year. My friendship duration with Jim Gordon was very short but it was very close.

I don’t remember how I got Larry Brown, but I handled him for years. Larry could do anything. He was a recording engineer, a great drummer, a great piano player, a great arranger, played saxophone, and virtually could do everything very well. Larry was Andy Williams’ drummer for years. That’s how I got hooked up with Andy Williams, through Larry Brown. I had a great relationship with Andy’s production company and made a lot of money. I did a lot of things for Andy which really blew him away on more than one occasion, so he knew who I was. Andy gave me some cashmere sweaters. He had a music library, probably one of the largest in the world, on Ventura. He had two guys that did nothing but take care of Andy Williams’ music. They had a big room with shelves to the ceiling with sheet music that all belonged to him. Andy was carrying his whole band’s music around in a fiber trapcase, all mixed up! When the band went out of town, they selected what tunes they were going to do and it was all in this trapcase which was broken and falling apart. I was very tight with Larry Vallas who owned the Anvil Case Company. I had Larry build a case with interior slots so all the music for the different sections of the band could be kept separate. Andy also used a clear plastic stool so it looked like he was suspended when he was onstage. He had NBC make it for him. The stool would sometimes get damaged when it went on the road, so Anvil made a custom case for that. Then a friend, John McCarty, made a stool from clear Lucite which came out absolutely seamless, just like glass. Andy liked the new stool and had matching music stands made in the same material as well.
Sometimes I would have three or four 9 AM downbeats on the same day. Jim Keltner would be in one room, Larry Brown in another, and Hal Blaine in yet another. All three of them would be starting at nine o’clock in the morning.

The first hardcases were Anvil cases. Larry Vallas was the first to come up with the idea of the aircraft specification cases for musical instruments and anything else. They were plywood and fiberglass with aluminum borders and those heavy aircraft-type latches on them. Larry made a fortune! Anvil made soft, regular, and hard cases. They made a grand piano case for Elton John. Larry was good friends with Joe Pollard. Joe ran Anvil Case for awhile, like so many other things. He is an extraordinary guy and there’s not a better friend in the world. He’s a real foul-weather friend. I’ve known the cat for over thirty-five years. He has over three hundred Checker cabs! He bought a brand new one in 1978 and has been collecting Checkers ever since. Joe rents them out and sells parts around the world. Joe was one of my drummers for a long time. I met him in the big room at RCA, when it was still RCA, before Wally Heider got the studio. This was late ‘60s, early ‘70s. Joe was working in the other room with the Grass Roots. It was about 3 AM when he came in and introduced himself. Joe was really interested in tricking-out drums and doing all kinds of stuff. We did a lot of business deals together. We’re very close friends. He’s a very interesting character, a real hustler, and is originally from Seattle. There’s only one Joe Pollard! Joe invented the syndrum. He really takes care of business. He’s made drumheads and sticks. Joe is one of the grandest, most interesting and helpful people you’d ever meet.   Joe was on the road with such artists as the Beach Boys, the Grass Roots, and Wilson Pickett. I did two Ludwig maple sets for him, a 20” and a 22”, as well as the big clear set. Joe used to come out a lot to the house on Occidental Street. I remember when he was working on the syndrums. Joe said, “Well, I got ‘em working. The only problem is that they cost seventeen thousand dollars to produce!” He finally got it down so a company could sell them for twenty-five hundred dollars. Joe got everybody to buy them. Hal Blaine and Jim Keltner got some syndrums.

Joe Pollard
Rick was just incredibly creative on drum stuff. He did my cartage for years. He would show up with my set, having worked it over from the night before, because I may have mentioned something in passing about the set. He’d re-engineer the whole thing and bring it to the studio and the set would be perfect! Rick would even tune drums. He would do a better job sometimes than I would tuning the drums! He did Hal’s a lot of times too. The drum companies weren’t this creative with all their engineers and prototyping guys. I think a lot of it came from Rick being a hot rod/car type of guy and so he would apply that kind of ingenuity to it.   It’s like that multi-tom set he built for me out of the clear stuff and the big sets he built for Hal. Those were just incredible engineering masterpieces. The drum companies were out of touch pretty much and still living in the past. I remember one time that Yamaha Drums paid us to bring the sets down so they could look them over and try to get ideas from them. I would talk to Ricky about some idea and he’d have it down already. He’d have it done the next day or within a week or something. Rick’s an innovative guy. I could hardly keep track of him. His schedule was something. He was running Hal’s set, Jim Keltner’s, my set – the guys he handled! It was like poetry in motion the way Rick was doing the stuff. I’d go out to his house late at night in Silverlake where the drums were stored and we would work on things. Sometimes it would be two in the morning after a session. Ricky did his number on my drums. My brass Ludwig snares had all the lugs packed and the fan belts on the inner edge – incredible recording drums. It was incredible what he did with the old Rogers Swiv-o-matic pedals. Ricky would do a few minor modifications to the pedals and they never broke. I let Dennis Wilson borrow mine and he flipped over it. I’m still using the first Swiv-o-matic pedal Ricky ever made me. All my Swivos had the solid footboard. He would slice the beater so it hit the head square. Wonder why the drum companies didn’t think of that? Rick used to take an old straightedge razor and cut the beaters. If I cut them on a saw, they’d fray. Rick Faucher built so many incredible things, and nobody knew who the hell he was. The guys in the industry certainly knew him.

Monsters and Masterpieces

Rick Faucher
Hal Blaine had the concept of a multi-tom drum set, and he knew what he wanted. In early 1969, Hal and I were driving somewhere, or having lunch, and he told me what he had in mind. Hal said, “Rick, I’m thinking of having this whole row of toms put in front of the Ludwigs.” I couldn’t visualize it. We had other stuff to deal with. Hal had gone into Pro Drum and spoke to Howie Oliver about his idea. Howie Oliver was the maintenance man at Pro Drum in Hollywood and had everything he needed there, all the hardware and parts. Howie had built blue sparkle music stands for Hal’s Hollywood Drum Band and did a magnificent job. Howie lived up in Eagle Rock near A.F. Blaemire. Blaemire built drum shells from spun fiberglass. He worked out of a garage next to his house. Howie Oliver and Pro Drum have to be credited with constructing the first two sets, the original prototypes. Those drums became known as the “Monsters”. I didn’t even know they were being done. I was busy. I was on roller skates! Howie put all brand new Ludwig hardware, including the mounting brackets, on the Blaemire shells. Those drums are nearly forty years old and have lasted an awful long time. I remember the day Pro Drum called and said that Hal Blaine’s rack toms were done. It was late in the afternoon on a weekday. I took them home to my house in Silverlake. I set them up and made a run on the toms. The toms were 6”, 8”, 10”, 12”, 13”, 14”, and 16”. A duplicate set was ready a couple of days later. The idea was to roll them in, right in front of the bass drum. The two stands were different. One was a Klieg lighting stand and the other an old Mole-Richardson. Mole-Richardson was one of the biggest lighting boom companies in the world and is still located in Hollywood. I took all the drums off the stands and undid the mounting brackets. I knew with the fiberglass that the big washers were only contacting in two places. They weren’t flush against the shell and I was afraid that they were just going to break. I made a little tool in my workshop at Occidental Street. I laid the washer in the tool and slammed it with a steel bar so you could get the amount of bend in accordance to each tom’s different angle. Hal wanted the drums done like yesterday and ready for sessions. I knew that all these tom lugs would have to be wrapped immediately. I had the one set done completely, probably within the first week. I made some rubber protectors, strips most likely cut from a rubber tube, and wrapped those around the base of the stands because they were awfully close to the bass drum. Sometimes they would rub up against the set and I didn’t want them damaging the hoops.
I learned a lot from hot-rodding and I took that experience to drum-teching. With drums, when you’re beating on them that much, they loosen up. I would take all the screws, nuts and bolts out of the Ludwig drums and throw it all in the trash can. There were probably five aircraft surplus stores along Victory Boulevard in the 1960s. You could go in there and buy, for five dollars, bags of every possible type of screw or nut and bolt, aircraft-quality. I could get real high-quality locktight screws. I would also go to Keystone, a little nut and bolt place located at Pico and Normandie. I was looking for absolute silence. I’ll tell you a story. Hal had a lot of drums. We had the two big Monster sets, the double bass “Jan and Dean” set, his congas, and one day on a Sunday we took everything to Western Recorders. We put everything on a riser and it covered almost the entire width of the whole studio. A couple of people were there and Hal jumped up and down on the riser. Hal looked at these people and said, “You can’t hear a damn thing, can you? They’re absolutely silent.”

Hal Blaine’s Monster drums were used all the time. They left my house Monday morning and didn’t come back until Friday night. You had to be careful with the Blaemire fiberglass toms. We never got cases for them. The toms always stayed mounted the way they were on the stands. They went into my van with one row on one side and the other row on the other side of the vehicle. I tied them down inside and they didn’t roll around because the wheels on the stands had good wheel locks. One time we moved the big set from Columbia, at 6120 Sunset Boulevard, to United, at 6050 Sunset Boulevard, on the opposite side of the street in twelve minutes! Hal finished at Columbia at quarter to six and we had them set up across the street at United for a six o’clock downbeat. Hal’s blue sparkle Ludwig sets had stenciled cases, but sometimes if we were really busy I didn’t even bother to put the drums back in their cases. I’d just place the drums in the van and toss the cases in along with them.

Karen Carpenter was one of the sweetest girls I ever met in my life. She was gorgeous, and absolutely beautiful for starters and a lot prettier in person than in photos. In 1969 we got a call to go to Studio A at A&M, for two o’clock in the afternoon and the artists were somebody called “The Carpenters”. A&M was on Sunset and La Brea. It was at the old Charlie Chaplin studios that had the original curved gate from the 1920s. Herb Alpert had bought that old property which took up the whole block. I arrived at A&M and started taking Hal’s cases into Studio A. I went back out to get another load, the stands probably, and when I came back in Karen had opened the cases and took Hal’s blue sparkle Ludwigs out. She had the bass drum out and began helping set up. I walked in and Karen said hello. I had never laid eyes on her before. She was very friendly. I didn’t know that Karen also played drums. She had an angelic voice. Hal took Richard Carpenter aside and told him to put Karen out front. The Carpenters started doing a lot of work. They lived at A&M for awhile. They were there all the time. I never knew Richard other than to say hello when passing in the hallway. There were certain artists that you made a connection with and others that you didn’t and so you left them alone. The Carpenters always recorded in Studio C which is the big room in the back of A&M. Karen approached me shortly after seeing Hal’s Monsters and asked if I could make her a set like Hal’s. Karen and I became very friendly. She was very old-fashioned and a perfect lady all the time. It didn’t take me long to think about it. I thought, here’s my chance to really put one of these sets together right, from the ground up. There would be no hurry and I’d take my time with it. I drove out to Alan Blaemire’s shop and picked up Karen’s drum shells. They were the same sizes as Hal’s toms. One thing happened in between that. George Harrison ordered a big set for Ringo Starr, and I was to pick them up and send them to England. Howie Oliver built this set for Ringo as well and I already knew how to improve them. I always wanted to paint the inside of Hal’s Blaemire shells either blue or black. I thought blue would match the Ludwig bass drum. Hal didn’t want to do that because he was afraid it would change the tone. It wouldn’t have at all. Believe me, it would have helped. I painted the inside of Karen’s shells black. Her Blaemire toms looked darker on the exterior than Hal’s because of the polished black lacquer inside. They were beautiful. By that time, I started using the lamp washers inserted with a piece of leather with a flat washer so those lugs wouldn’t snap off on you. The leather washer absorbed the snap point. It took me about six months to build the set. I delivered them to Karen at A&M but the set didn’t blow her away. I hadn’t really done my number on them yet, as I recall. I don’t think I had painted the interiors. I got the picture that Karen wanted a nicer set than the Pro Drum sets. By that time, I had taken the black paint off the bronze parts at the base of Hal’s stands where the legs bolt to the triangular tube. I stripped all the paint off it and hand-polished just the highlights, the edges. They really looked nice but the stands were not the same. I went straight to Mole-Richardson and bought two stands for Karen. You had to buy the whole stand from them even though you only needed the very base. I liked the Mole-Richardson stands better than the Klieg. I went back to the drawing board and decided to completely redo the stands in an entirely different way. I started down at the bottom again and came up using a different stainless steel. The brackets were all straight-up on the bars. These bars came out of Frank Follo’s machine shop in San Fernando. Frank Follo was a genius. They were entirely different and a lot heavier. It probably took another six months to do the set over. When I delivered them the second time, Karen was just blown away and she was really happy. They were beautiful and sounded great. None of the sets were any better than Karen’s.
I could not believe it when in 1983, Karen Carpenter died from anorexia. How could a girl who could have been on the cover of Playboy die of anorexia? It didn’t make any sense. We all loved Karen and we still think of her.

I had a phone call to tell me that Ringo Starr’s Monster set was ready at Pro Drum. I was also given the address where to send them, a place outside London, England. I didn’t know Ringo personally. George Harrison had ordered the drums as a big surprise for him. I picked the set up and brought them home to Silverlake. I took the drums all apart and wrapped the lugs. There were lots of springs and they’d be all resonating at the same time. I didn’t want to send the set until I had the springs and washers done. I couldn’t have just shipped them without bothering with this. Howie Oliver made the stands and they were the Klieg design, identical to Hal’s original prototypes. I shipped the set air freight. We called Ringo’s “the third set”. This all took place while I was working on Karen Carpenter’s set.

Joe Pollard had the idea that he was going to build this giant Lucite set with the Zickos bass drum. The bass drum was a 22”x24”. Zickos were the best of the acrylic stuff. This project took two years to complete. Joe got the Lucite toms. Some came from San Diego and they were actually cut from a tube. They weren’t moulded. I packed the lugs and put them on. The drum set sounded great! It was never used much in the studio but the clear set always attracted a lot of attention. Joe called me to say that The Who wanted to use them for a television show. We dropped the set off in the morning at a sound stage on Sunset Boulevard. The Who, with Keith Moon on drums, did its number and when Joe and I picked the set up later that afternoon, the floor tom was full of live goldfish! They had filled the floor tom full of water and put about six or eight goldfish inside. I thought that took a lot of nerve, but Joe and I both laughed out loud. We thought it was funny. A friend of mine, a bass player, was there and he wanted the goldfish. We got a jar for the goldfish and drained the water out of the floor tom. That’s how tight the Lucite drums were! Joe Pollard’s big clear set ended up out in Ike Turner’s studio. The studio – with the drums inside – burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances.

One Sunday morning, Hal Blaine and I took a ride out to West Los Angeles, in the vicinity of Santa Monica and Larabee. Someone had told Hal about an older drummer who had been with the Ice Follies for years and the man had all this gear that he wanted to sell. The gentleman took us into his garage and there was a gold mine of old cymbals, drums, and timpani! The timpani were copper and brass with calfskin heads and giant T handles. The pedals were stamped 1923. One timp was a 22” and the other was a 24”. They were absolutely beautiful, in perfect shape, and there were secure wooden cases for them. Hal bought everything. He wanted the cymbals and percussion stuff, like the old woodblocks. Joe Osborn bought the timpani from Hal, so I took them out to Joe’s and set them up. Joe had a little studio in his house. A couple of months later, Joe called and said that he wanted to sell the timpani. Jim Keltner found out and called to say that George Harrison wanted them. I went back out to Joe Osborn’s, picked the timpani up, and brought them back to my house. I took the timpani, which were suspended in their own shipping cases, drove out to Japan Airlines one night, and off they went to England. It cost more to ship the timpani than what we sold them for!

Hal had given me the old Ludwig drum set with mahogany shells that came from the Ice Follies. There was a 26” bass drum, a 20”x20” floor tom with goatskin heads and metal hoops, and a 16” floor tom, shallower in length, with a wooden top hoop and concave nickel-plated brass bottom which screwed to the shell. The snare drum had twenty lugs with collar clips for the tension rods on top, and the same number on the bottom. I took the lugs off the bass drum and discovered that someone had wrapped the springs! They were much heavier springs. The bass drum, the oldest of the lot, had two brass heat elements and a light bulb inside. These drums, which had been around the world with the Ice Follies, were used to being in a very cold and moist atmosphere inside the ice-skating rinks.

A couple of years went by and I still had the old drums out in my garage. Jim Keltner called to say that Ringo Starr was in town and that Ringo was going to be doing some sessions, and he needed my help. I went to Ringo’s house up in the Hollywood Hills, picked up his late ‘60s maple Ludwig drum set and took it, along with the cases, to my house. Jim and Ringo started doing quite a bit of work double-drumming together. Ringo called them “Thunder and Lightning”. Ringo was “Thunder” and Jim was “Lightning”. Jim would tell me to set Ringo up about a foot in front of him so he could watch Ringo’s hands. If they were both set up looking in the direction of the control room, then Jim would be behind Ringo’s hi-hat. When Hal and Jim did a few things drumming together, I would set them up pretty much side by side.
We were hanging out one time at Ringo’s house and started talking about old drums and how much better quality they were than the drums of the present day. This was around 1976, the time Japanese drums started coming out on the market. I told Ringo about the old Ice Follies set in my garage and his eyes got really big. Ringo said, “I want them!” He wanted them sight unseen. I told him that the set needed a lot of work. Ringo took off for England with the idea that I’d have the set ready for him by the time he got back. It got really involved and I spent several months working on the set. At that point we weren’t using a front head on the bass drum. I couldn’t use the Gates power belt on the 26” bass drum because it wouldn’t fit the spacing. I took a 26” hoop and cut it down at the very bottom with a hacksaw, making it very springy. I then spread it, pushed it out, let it go, and it sprung together up against the lugs. It was a perfect spacer to put all the hardware back on the front of the drum. You could also see the beautiful mahogany interior. I found a 15” tom in the Recycler, bought it, and put a row of brass nuts along the bottom, but kept the bottom head open. I moved the tom mount, which had been offset, to the center. I also used one of Ringo’s own maple toms on top to go with the 15” drum. The old drums were ivory in color on the exterior and I painted the inside of the bass drum. When the drums were ready I brought them to Ringo’s house, and Keith Moon was there. I think the set was far more than what Ringo expected. He had never seen them. They really were spectacular. We set the drums up in the den and Ringo was just in awe. Keith really liked them, as well. The old set had turned out nice. Keith Moon was the first to play them. Ringo just stood back and asked Keith to play. He wanted to hear how they sounded. I remember Ringo standing there watching with his arms crossed. The drums were sent to England and I think Jim Keltner later told me that Ringo gave the set to his son Zak, who was about ten years old at that time.
The reason that I got Ringo Starr was because of Mal Evans. Mal was the long-time roadie for the Beatles. He was living in Los Angeles and working for Ringo. I met Mal and his gorgeous girlfriend one day in 1975 at RCA. He was a big cat. I may have seen Mal once or twice after that, just to say hello. Then a couple of months later something happened – Mal Evans was dead. The reason that Ringo needed me was because Mal was no longer on the scene. My understanding was that Mal had been with Ringo for years. That’s why Jim Keltner called me – because Ringo needed somebody to handle his drums.

There were things that could be done to a Rogers Swiv-o-matic pedal that would give you nice action and not have it break on you. Hal Blaine played the Swivo-o-matic. We used the same pedal for over forty years. We had two of the older models. One pedal was stolen out of Sunset Sound. That was the only thing we ever lost. I came in to pick the set up one morning and the pedal was gone. Dennis Wilson brought me four or five Rogers Swiv-o-matic pedals one time that were completely destroyed. I asked myself, “How could anybody mess-up a pedal like that?” The ones I took apart that Dennis owned were the newer model Swiv-o-matic. This was around 1970. If you had a pedal later than probably 1968, you had different bushings and there was nothing you could do with them. You could oil them but there was no comparison between the older model and the newer one. The older Rogers pedal’s shaft was riding on Timkin needle bearings. They were silent. I came to the conclusion that with the newer Rogers pedals I could press out the bushings and replace them with the Timkins. I would soak the pedal’s leather strap in needsfoot oil for a couple of weeks and then squeegee any excess. Hal’s leather strap was on his pedal for forty years! Rogers originally used aluminum set screws and they’d just break immediately or sometimes crack. I figured that out and started replacing the pedals with stainless steel set screws and never had to worry about it again. To me, the only pedal that compared to the Rogers Swiv-o-matic was the Caroline. That was a good pedal. Jim Keltner used a Caroline and that’s how I got wind of them. In the studio you didn’t want any sounds or overtones other than what you were looking for. I tried to eliminate all of the overtones.

Dennis Wilson and I hung out a lot. Dennis was a “player”. He bought a beautiful brand new black Ferrari coupe which cost him seventeen thousand dollars. I first saw his Ferrari one day behind Western Studio. The Beach Boys had built Brothers Studio out on 5th Street and Santa Monica. It was a nice room and other artists recorded there as well. Joe Pollard was hanging at Brothers Studio and working for the Beach Boys at the time. Joe told me that Dennis wanted a big set with Blaemire shells and calfskin heads all around. I built Dennis a big set that included a Blaemire bass drum and a Blaemire snare drum. The bass drum was a 22”x24”. I picked up the shells out at Alan Blaemire’s shop and did the whole works to them. Dennis’ toms were all the same sizes as Hal’s. I bought the stands from Mole-Richardson and subcontracted the upper stand parts to Frank Follo. At that time it was hard to find 6” and 8” calfskin heads, but I got those at Valgie Drums up on Sunset and Silverlake. Valgie really made by far the best conga drums. When Dennis’ drums were ready, I dropped them off at Brothers Studio.

Hal Blaine first met John Denver, who was a relatively unknown folk singer, on a commercial date in October, 1970. Hal began recording with John in 1974 at RCA. John was an incredible, multi-talented guy and hit it big time. John wanted a drum set designed with his motif painted on the exterior of the shells to match the John Denver Show’s stage setting. He ordered an unpainted set from Ludwig, along with all the hardware. The Ludwig maple set included a 24” bass drum, 13” small tom, 16” floor tom, and a ten lug prototype Jazz Festival snare. The raw maple shells were sent directly from the Ludwig factory to Goshe Graphics in Aspen, Colorado, where they were custom-painted with a southwest American Indian motif. The Ludwig hardware was shipped separately to my house in Silverlake. The shells were sent to me after they were painted and when I opened up the boxes, I was just floored. They were magnificent! I did everything to the set that I should have done, all my tricks, and they were ready to go. I went on tour with the John Denver Show and my job was to look after the drum set. I enjoyed that very much. The drums looked and played great onstage, sounded wonderful, and recorded beautifully. John gave the set to Hal as a gift. Hal just loved them! They became referred to as “The John Denver Set”. Hal also owned a pair of Gon Bops congas that went along with the set and they were custom-painted as well to match the drums.

Hal Blaine
I spent ten years with The John Denver Show out of Aspen, Colorado. During those ten years, at the height of John Denver’s popularity, I used these drums exclusively for John’s shows. We travelled the world a number of times, throughout Europe and Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and of course every major city in the United States. I started recording with John at the very beginnings of his career. We did nine gold and platinum albums, many of which were singles and reached the top of the charts. During my years with John we performed many television specials using this set. Many of those specials are shown on occasion today. John Denver loved this set of drums and of course they were on all his hits.

King Richard

Rick Faucher
I got out of the cartage business in 1981, after being in the business since 1964. I had a series of personal issues that forced me to take some time off, and that’s what I did. I ran the Red Baron Air Ads, an aerial banner towing company, from 1984-1994. Hal Blaine moved to Phoenix about that time and when he came back, I quit the Red Baron. Hal and I went back into the studio business but it wasn’t at all like it had been in the early days. The recording business had changed. Royal Percussion had Hal’s drums.   In 1985 I moved back to the same house in Sunland. I took the drums back from Royal and kept them at my house again. I finally had some time to work on Hal’s gear, so I started with the Monsters, the drums, and their rolling stands.

I met some great jazz drummers in my time. I hung out with Frank Isola in the late ‘50s while in Detroit when I worked for Floyd Clymer. Frank Isola was one of the most musical drummers I have ever known. I also met Frank Gant and Elvin Jones in the Motor City. I saw Art Blakey play at a club on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood during the late ‘50s. Wally Heider and I had recorded some of the best musicians of the day like Count Basie, and his drummer, Sonny Payne. I would sometimes run into Mel Lewis in Hollywood and chat with him. I did some cartage for Les DeMerle. Les and I were very close and good friends. Les was such an incredible player and his style was like Buddy Rich’s.

Another drummer I handled for a little while was Alvin Taylor. Alvin worked with Billy Preston, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Elton John, just to name a few. Toxey French was another drummer I looked after. Toxey produced the music for the movie Midnight Cowboy. There were also one or two drummers I had that came to town and didn’t make it. You had to be able to sit down, be a fast reader, and you had to fit in. You had to be very familiar with how each different studio operated and also how each different producer operated.

I met Rick Cunha when Hal did a date at Rick’s studio, The Rainbow Garage, out in Van Nuys. I was really impressed with both Rick and his studio. The atmosphere was all you could ask for. Rick is a master guitarist and a great recording engineer. He’s a buddy of Mason Williams and Hal Blaine. My nephew, Alberto Galaz, made an album in 2003, Canciones De Amore, at The Rainbow Garage. Some of the players included Don Randi, Chad Watson, and Hal Blaine. Rick Cunha engineered the project and it went like magic. I was the executive producer. Lorin Hart is another outstanding musician that I’m proud to call my friend. She is an incredible singer-songwriter.

The Mason Williams Documentary played last Wednesday night at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Beverly Hills. The Documentary is Mason’s band that features Hal Blaine on drums, Rick Cunha on guitar, Art Maddox playing piano, Dave Schneider on upright bass, and Tom Bergeron blowing sax and duck call. I have Hal’s Taye Studio Maple set in Sunland, along with his old Zildjian cymbals. Bruce Bentley works for Jimmy Williamson, who owns Williamson Music, a cartage company. On the day before the gig, Bruce came out to Sunland to pick me and the drums up, and then we headed to the Getty. Bruce was a really big help and couldn’t possibly have been more on the money. He moved Hal’s cases inside to the museum bandstand and I set the drums up. I knew exactly where Hal wanted his set, not just straight ahead but on a little angle so he’s looking at Mason. Hal Blaine and Mason Williams go back a long time. After the show, Hal called my home and complimented me on the set-up. I said, “Hal, it’s 2007! We’ve done this a million times!”

It just seems to be that I happened to be in the right place at the right time and I had a reputation that would lead me from one interesting adventure to the next. One thing just fell into the other.

Hal Blaine
I guess if I had not met Rick Faucher in the early 1960s, when my career started out as a studio drummer, I would probably have joined a big band somewhere on a cruise line and sailed the seven seas. Rick was my set-up master and master drum technician. He was always one kit in front of me and one kit behind me. I was doing four and five studio dates a day, as many as seven calls, commercials interspersed with records, movies, television and live personal appearances.

Rick was really the backbone of my drumming works. I could never have accomplished the volumes of work that happened for me without Rick by my side. Rick is the most loyal person I have ever known and he had the respect of every drummer and engineer in the business and you can toss in all of the producers too. They all tried to hire Rick but he always stuck it out with me. He had the keys to just about every recording and movie studio in our area and all of the keys to the alarm systems. Now that is total trust!! He was often called upon to help set up a big session because of his previous studio work as an assistant engineer for the Wally Heider organization. Rick was an invaluable part of the golden age of music. Rick was always there and never let me or anyone else down. He was also family. My daughter, Michelle (today a film director) grew up with Uncle Rick. In closing, Rick, I love you, man. Thanks for making my life a part of yours.