Evans DrumheadsBob Beals thinks back over the nearly 40-year history of
Evans Drumheads to a time in the early 60`s. `We were asked to build a drum for the Rose Bowl parade, not just the heads, but the entire drum,` he says. `I went and measured the train car they were going to ship it in and it came to seven feet. So we built a seven-foot shell and the heads, and there was this enormous drum in the parade that took four people to play it.The McDonalds Marching Band liked it, so they bought it and asked me to get it to New York for Macy`s Thanksgiving Parade. No one could ship it in time, so I drove from Kansas to New York with the drum in a trailer. That was some trip.`The `Boot Hill Boomer,` as the drum was called, became famous. But the company that manufactured it, and also developed some of the drumhead industry`s most important technological accomplishments, has remained decidedly low-key.When Evans began manufacturing
Evans Drumheads in 1958, they developed a head that was an immediate success: the All-Weather Drumhead. At a time when plastic heads were still looked upon with some suspicion, Evans` All-Weather heads proved that heads made of polyester could rival the sound quality of those made of calfskin. And since the plastic heads could be played in any weather conditions, they had an advantage over the older calfskin heads, which were impossible to play when wet.
