In 1998, I began looking for a new acoustic drum kit after a few years of not playing drums. I had some gear to trade and after seeing what was available locally I stumbled across a 5-piece drum set made by a company I had never heard of - Legend. It was flat black with a textured finish. The snare was a beast measuring 7" x 14". It had one 9" x 12" tom that was mounted on a cymbal stand with a clamp and an "L" bracket, and it had a 16" x 16" floor tom. The kick drum was 18" x 22" and the hardware was heavy duty, double braced Gibraltar hi-hat stand, three boom cymbal stands, and snare stand. I spent an hour playing it and the more I played it the more I wanted it. It was the best sounding kit I had ever played.
I spent some time researching the brand if only to learn more about it. Everything I read only verified that I needed to buy this kit. I discovered that Legend was a top-tier brand launched in the late eighties by Kaman Music Corp, which also owned Gibraltar, LP, and several other music instrument companies The Legend brand of drums disappeared sometime in the mid-90's and only a relatively few drum sets were made during the brand's life span.
Legend drums were the brainchild of Kaman marketing manager John Roderick and designed/built by noted custom drum builder Joe Montineri before he eventually parted ways with the company. At least some, if not all shells were finished at Kaman's Ovation factory and within those in the know they were appreciated for the attention to detail and excellent design. The drums were built in-house by hand, one drum at a time, with Keller 8 ply shells finished in a polyester lacquer, a state of the art finish that was extremely durable and highly resistant to scratching.
I bought the drum set and haven't looked back since. As great as my Pearl BLX drum set was for recording, and as much as I enjoyed playing that kit, this Legend kit blows it and everything else I have ever played away. The only addition I made a couple of years later was a Ludwig LRS313EC piccolo snare with a 3" x 13" maple shell to compliment the super-deep Legend snare with something that offered more high end crack and articulation.