That Chinese Drum

[abstamaria]

Cliff Richard was supposed to have used a Chinese drum, held under his arm, for Apache. It had rope around it, the Shads recalled, and they referred it as a Chinese “tam tam.”

One problem is that a “tam tam” is a gong, not a drum. Setting nomenclature aside, the problem with the Chinese drums we found here is that they are high-pitched, not sounding like the drum in Apache at all. I wonder if indeed that was a Chinese drum Cliff used, but assume it must have looked like one. We’ll keep looking.

Andres

[abstamaria]

Jerry Lordan said, "Cliff Richard held that [the Chinese drum] over Tony Meehan's drum kit.
That's him all the way through, bom bom bom bom, bom bom... he kept great time, too." That made it seem like Cliff was beating the drum throughout.
In the recording, Cliff seems limited to the intro and outro, and perhaps the middle, staccato section. The BBC film confirms Jerry Lordan was accurate; Cliff did play the Chinese drum throughout, but the sound engineers muted it out when the melody came on.

[abstamaria]

The authentic Chinese drum we used. It is too high pitched.