Drumming News
Glyn Thomas
April 22, 1939 – February 23, 2025
Glyn Thomas was born in Newcastle, England on April 22, 1939. He began his musical career as the drummer for the Bo St. Runners band. He then joined the original Manfred Mann group but left the band to pursue a studio career during the “English Beat” boom of the mid 1960s. During this period, he was also called on to back many of the visiting Motown acts such as The Supremes, The Temptations and The Four Tops.
Although he was a busy studio and live player, Glyn traded in his drumsticks to become a product specialist and clinician for the English distributor of Pearl drums in the 70’s.
Later, after meeting Dave Simmons, he opened Group Centre, Ltd., a retail drum shop in London’s “Tin Pan Alley”, and began selling Simmons’ new, hexagonal, electronic drumkits. As the primary dealer of Simmons drums, Glyn began making frequent trips to the major U.S. trade shows and drum shops in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to promote them.
It quickly became apparent that the United States was going to be a major market for electronic drums and would require a U.S.-based sales, service and marketing organization. So, in May 1981, Glyn. his wife and two sons moved to Southern California and Group Centre, Ltd. of London became Group Centre, Inc. of Los Angeles.
At the NAMM Summer Expo that year, the upstart drum company sold 200 SDSV electronic drumkits. From there, sales continued to grow as Simmons and Group Centre quickly established a reputation as a major force in the drum market.
Even though less than 2,000 SDSVs were sold in the US. those first drummer-operated drum synthesizers had a huge influence on the worldwide music industry. The sounds, features and playability of Simmons drums gained immediate popularity with top professional drummers such as Harvey Mason, Larrie London, Phil Collins, Bill Bruford, Jim Keltner, JR Robinson and many more.
Glyn contributed to the development of subsequent Simmons products such as the SDS7, SDS9, Silicon Mallet and SDX. His role in the success of these instruments and the Simmons brand as well as his impact on the e-drum revolution was a vital one.
Under his leadership, Group Centre became an incubator for its talented staff and an innovator of marketing and promotion. The organization created the first TV commercial for drums (featuring a very young Josh Freese, current drummer for the Foo Fighters), the first electronic drum rack, progressive trade show demonstrations, a regular newsletter, Dr. Hex and Texas Tim.
Glyn left Group Centre in the late 1980’s and returned to England where he was a principal in a business that designed world-class golf courses and spent his retirement with friends, family, children and grandchildren.
David Levine:
“As a drummer and drum industry consultant, I have been involved in drumming for more than 60 years. During my career I have seen the development of the world’s greatest drummers and had the incredibly good fortune to work with many of the people and products that forever changed the art— from the introduction of the plastic head, electronic drums and double bass drum pedal to the growth of educational drum videos, world percussion and the female drumming community. It’s been an amazing journey.” @drumshopdave
