as well as Remo/Slingerland and Rogers, he also played Gretsch and Pearl also.

No he did not use remo drums before the 80's in the 50's and 60's remo was only making heads!! louie played gretsch and rogers, slingerland,,40's to the 70's,, here is a pic of louie on his last REMO DRUMSET!! so once again NO remo was not making drumsets in the 50's and 60's

Does anyone know what the shells of L.B.'s kit were made of? I have a Remo Acousticon snare which is made of something like a fine masonite.

the gold crown kit he played was maple.

on his Remo profile it says he uses the Remo Gold Crown's however I never saw that.

Thanks for the info. Is the maple Remo hard to find?

I just spoke to my buddy john aldridge about the remo drum sets and you were correct the kit that louie used was called the gold crown kit, but the gold kit you saw louie on is called the encore model and this is probably the gold kit you saw the pic of, this line of remo drums had a very cool feature the lugs would snap open for quick head changes! John said the high end remo kits demand big money he said that they were in the $3000.00-$5000.00 price range used not new? you have started a geat thread so far<

Those snap on/snap off heads are called "PTS" or Pre-Tensioned (Tuned) System. They are a very cool design. If you were one of the big boys and couild afford the set up, you typically would have your tech handy to switch heads rather than take time retuning for different songs, or rather sets. You could literally take enough pre-tensioned (tuned) heads along and do the quick change when it was time to change up from a rock set to say a jazz set. Dan had a set of those, and I hated them. Not for the sound, but because it was so much gear to lug around. Heads everywhere. He had this guy in Tucson that always had used gear of every description, like a pawnshop in his house, and you did a pay for play deal with him. Pay the down and so much every week or so, and if you wanted to trade out, as long as you had no damage, it was no hickey on you to do so. The drums were a complete set, snare, all the toms and double bass. Plus we had like three complete sets of heads to schlep to gigs. They were amazing sounding drums, but Oiy! it sucked going out to gig. So much to carry, my back hurts thinking about it. I wish I had those today, I can only imagine what they would be worth.

as for the Encore. I have seen a few of those but never in the brass like Louie had. The thing is it makes more sense to me that the brass one maybe a very early protype of the current Gold Crown series that Jeff Hamilton uses (and me), rather than the Encore. The other set he had ... this one http://www.louiebellson.info/images/bellsonatdrumset.jpg looks much closer to the 'encore' that I know pretty well.

Its still a little confusing. It would be great to have a time line for Remo drums. there was a signiture Bellson snare http://thedrumaddicts.com/remo5.JPG about 11 years ago to ad confussion but I never saw him using that model.