The PAS President’s Industry Award was established to recognize those individuals in the Percussion Industry that have demonstrated outstanding achievement in their field and outstanding support of the Society. For his support of PAS and the countless artists he has supported at both PASIC and Days of Percussion to help make our events memorable, educational, and entertaining, we award the 2020 PAS President’s Industry Award to Don Lombardi.
Don Lombardi is the founder of DW Drums and Drum Channel, and has more than 30 patents registered to his name.
Don’s fascination with drums started at age 12 which led him to start taking drum lessons with a teacher at a local music store. At age 14 Don joined the Musician’s Union after getting hired to play in a kids Dixie Land band performing in the Los Angeles area. At age 16 Don was fortunate to study with great teachers, Nick Ceroli and Colin Bailey, and in his 20’s he had the incredible opportunity to study with Freddie Gruber for five years. Immediately after graduating high school Don joined a Show Band performing in Las Vegas, Reno and Tahoe for the next year. He then moved back to Los Angeles and immediately started working with a rock band headed by Niki Sullivan, one of the members of Buddy Holly’s band, The Crickets. After 3 years Don became part of the Jerry Wright Jazz Piano Trio playing at PJ’s, one of the most popular nightclubs in Hollywood.
Don’s professional career began at 16 and during his 20+ year playing career he was never without work. He also taught 40-50 students drum lessons each week at three music stores. In building a successful teaching career many of Don’s students were older, which gave him the idea of opening his own teaching studio in 1972 which he called Drum Workshop.
In 1977 the parents of one of Don’s student’s offered to sell him Camco Drum Company’s tooling, dies and molds. (The name Camco was sold to another drum company.) Don thought this would be a great opportunity as there was a need for high quality drum equipment during that time, and having just had his son he also knew he did not want to become a traveling musician.
Don’s first invention was a new design for a height adjustable seat. One of Don’s students during that time was John Good. As Don was playing 6 nights per week, with a full teaching schedule, he asked John to help him build drum seats, and they continued to work together as Drum Workshop evolved from a teaching studio into a manufacturing company. An early decision was made to keep the teaching studio name “Drum Workshop” as the manufacturing name. Don felt like it was a perfect fit.
During the ‘80s one of the key ingredients to the success of Drum Workshop was Don getting over 30 patents in his name. As DW continued to grow, there was no time for Don to return to his passion as a teacher until 2008 when he founded Drum Channel. Drum Channel was a place where Don could catalog all of the content that had been taught by the greatest drum instructors to create a vault of information for generations to come.
Don’s son Chris Lombardi, CEO of DW Drums, has successfully driven DW beyond Don’s wildest dreams. Don continues to be involved in Research and Development with DW, but spends the majority of his time working with today’s great drummers as he continues to build the Drum Channel library. Don was inducted into Guitar Center’s Rock Walk on Sunset Blvd. in 2018 and was most recently honored with the Percussive Arts Society President’s Industry Award for 2020.
Original Story: HERE
