Back in the early 80's, a bud of mine named Chad Rager was a Rogers endorser. Lately, he's using Steve Maxwell's stuff.

Some other guys from that time and earlier were Craig Krampf(sp?) and Dave Clark (although the british Rogers drums were not the same as the U.S. stuff.)

Their profile seemingly lowered quite a bit once CBS bought 'em. I remember seeing Rogers kits, Fender guitars and amps, and Rhodes pianos put up for bids on "The Price Is Right" a couple of times when I was a kid. Show was on CBS, go figure.

David Garibaldi, Sherman Ferguson, Bill Lordan, and Roy Burns were also endorsers in the late '70's/early'80's.

While this has previously been hashed over ten million times in the past 30 years, it seems incumbent to again state the primary cause for the demise of Rogers Drums USA was directly the result of bad management by the parent company. It was not bad drums. It was not something caused by an insufficiency within Rogers.

And, the last Rogers drums to leave the Rogers factory in Fullerton CA, were the best production drums available anywhere at the time.

As for endorsers, there were several pages of endorsers in the 1964 catalogue.

I don't know if he was officially an endorser,but Steven Jo Bladd of J.Geils Band played a New England White set (probably 7 piece) when I saw them,which was MANY times,during the 70's.And those drums sounded WICKED good!

JR!

Good answers thus far, but I'd like to add that you really should go buy "The Rogers Book" by Rob Cook... Second Edition of course. You will find TWO full pages of endorsers with many names you will recognize. More than you think I bet! Plus... it's THE book to have for the Rogers freak, and/or anyone interested in a fabulous and pretty darn complete overview of the Rogers Drum Co.. including .. the WHY behind their eventual failure in what became an incredibly crowded drum market. A GREAT read/reference!

Tommyp

I have always found it weird that more Rock drummers were not Rogers endorsers then that is very probably one of the reasons they went under they never got it like Ludwig did Ludwig had Ringo,John Bonham,ginger baker, and tons of others who in Rock ever was a big Rogers endorser? Dave Clark but that was English rogers just more of the bad management......

That's what I'm talking about, it seems all the big name rock drummers of the time were playing Ludwig. The music changed drastically in the 60's and rock music was king, so if Rogers were the best made drums, why wasn't all the big rock guys endorsing them? What did Ludwig do to win over the rock guys? I know a lot of it started with Ringo playing Ludwig, do you ever wonder why Ringo chose Ludwig and not Rogers? Just something to think about.

JR/Mike T!

Rogers... for whatever reason, were considered more of a "jazz" drummers drum. They got that reputation pretty early on, going back to the old B&B days. What also helped that along I think, was the shell make-up. Rogers, during their highest popularity/visibility during the 60's, featured a 5 ply maple shell with 5 ply maple rings. Ludwig on the other hand, was at 3 plies/rings which gave their drums that R&R "thud" as I like to call it. If you were to compare a Rogers shell at 5 plies w/rings and a WFL/Ludwig at 3 plies w/rings with heads being equal between both drums and head tension being equal... you would hear the difference between both drums based on the shell make-up alone. Rogers never got "in" with the R&R crowd the way Ludwig did, and again... I think a lot of that was Rogers reputation as a jazz drummers drum.. plus .. a shell make-up that "spoke" a little clearer with a higher fundamental from the get go. That all said...

This doesn't mean that either these drums couldn't function in ANY style/tuning... but Rogers were most definitely found MORE in the jazz circles, and Ludwig, owing in part to Ringo and the Beatles of course... Rock and Roll.

Tommyp

TommyP, I also gotta add that the Swiv-o-matic tom holder was not generally considered to safely hold up under the assbeatin's administrated by the purveyors of that style. It was develpoed at a time when jazz was still the main thing and for that, it's certainly more than adequate. But start using big, heavy toms; big, heavy sticks; and playin' like you hate 'em...

There are exceptions, of course, such as one of Bonzo's kits had a Rogers (or Premier of the same nature) rack tom holder and Mitch Mitchell had a black double-bass Gretsch kit that had one coming out of BOTH SIDES of the single rack tom in the middle. I'm thinking that that was partially because of the ability, with that holder, to mount the BD receiver plates off-center and still have that rack tom smack in the middle of the kit, along with th stability afforded by being suspended on 2 sides simulataneously. (Prob'ly sounded like a Folger's can, tho'.)

And of course, Ringo's main studio kit, the 22, 13, 16, had a similar mount but Ringo's drumming approach was not overly "athletic", comparatively speaking.

But FWIW, that's all I personally remember ever seeing.

Ivor Arbiter chose Ludwig for Ringo. Ringo just picked the now infamous color.

http://ringosbeatlekits.com/premier_kit

If this wouldn't have happened, it might have been a different story for Premier.

-Tim