Velvet Knights Drum and Bugle Corps

The Velvet Knights is a defunct Division I (now World Class) competitive junior drum and bugle corps. Based in Anaheim, California, the corps was a member of Drum Corps International.

The Velvet Knights had their origins in the Anaheim Explorer Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps, founded by Don Porter in 1958. Practicing on military installations, the corps and its members adopted a very military style, even when out of uniform. In 1963, the Explorer Scouts corps split into two new corps, the Anaheim Kingsmen and the Velvet Knights.

Success came quickly for the Velvet Knights; within two years, the corps won the 1965 California State American Legion Championship. Throughout the remainder of the 1960s, the corps was a West Coast powerhouse, as were the Anaheim Kingsmen, with the two corps dominating the state championships. (The two corps often also saw members move from one corps to the other, since their corps halls faced each other on opposite sides of the street.) The Velvet Knights started touring nationally by 1968, with mixed success; they made finals at both CYO Nationals and American Legion Nationals in 1970. Although the corps was founded on the basis of maintaining tradition, it was still innovative; the corps was credited with being the first to perform with G-F bugles during an appearance at Chicago's Civic Opera House in 1968, and they pioneered electronics on the field in 1968, when they used an electronic bugle that could sound like several other instruments.

During the early 1970s, the Velvet Knights struggled to attract members, although they did manage to recruit many very good musicians, which tended to offset their smaller numbers. The corps attended its first Drum Corps International World Championships at Whitewater, Wisconsin in 1973, finishing prelims in twenty-ninth place among forty-eight corps. The corps did not, however, return to DCI until 1977, when they finished in 25th place in Denver, earning DCI Associate membership. They repeated their placement in 1978, again in Denver. 1979, though, saw the Velvet Knights drop to 33rd place in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1978, corps members were hired by the California Surf professional soccer team to create the sound of pounding surf on tympani with special electronics effects, and in 1979, the corps appeared in the feature film, "Americathon".

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