October 3, 2008
Hammond Eggs
This girl just bought her second Hammond Organ of the year. The first one I bought is better in many ways, the pedals don’t work though, and the wiring is faulty and I am constantly back there jiggling wires and playing around with electric currents. If I had to guess, it was manufactured in the late sixties or very early seventies. This second one, judging from the intrepid font choices on the face, is very very late seventies. Everything works perfectly, but part of me felt guilty for ooh-ing over the faultless tones. Who doesn’t love a little static-y rotating buzz with their early morning Organ session?
There isn’t really room for dualing organs in my room, so I shall have to move the sewing station. No more organs this year. Unless I find a B-3 lying around, so I should be safe.
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11 Responses to “Hammond Eggs”
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B-3s never require space consideration, they are a kind of “feng shui” trump card.
Amanda Mae, if you were to find one laying around…..well, I have just done a little research on the price….my god! You’d need a mortgage to get one! Do organs really go for that sort of money? And there was me worrying about spending $3000 on a camera…sheesh.
I assume it would make a very pretty sound at that price?
A Hammond B-3! I’d love to have one to thump (and thump, I would, I’m no organist, though I’ve dabbled in that churchy kind of way). Memories come to mind.
James Brown, playing one with “open-legs.” Where you could see what was going on underneath, on the Mike Douglas show, singing, playing, standing on, walking across the pedals, with that dance-step I so much remember him for. Seems he could glide, heel/toe, side to side. How he moved!
Me, benched on one in Ralph Nielsen’s Music City in Rockford, IL, when I was an early teen, waiting for time for my piano lesson. (They likely thought they’d wish I’d stop trying to play The Alley Cat Song on every one of them. They tolerated me.)
Me, turning pages for my teacher, for her audition (not on a Hammond) at The Mendelsohn Club. She wore a “peuse” cocktail dress, Chiffon, and the flats she’d carried around for years as her organ shoes. (For the occasion, she’d bought a “real” pair, tap-heels without the taps, but gave them up on first try, so used-to she was of the ones she’d worn for years. Her audition was successful.
I love the sound of a B-3, played expertly by someone at one with the instrument. One of my favorite sounds is the sound of the Leslie speaker, kicked down from fast-rotation, to slow and the “percussive” setting on “High”. Cooper might be able to help name an instance, many bands from the sixties/seventies used this technique, though I can’t recall a particular song as example. Wait, I just thought of one, the end of Cherokee Nation by Paul Revere and the Raiders. If I remember rightly, the last few bars of the song use this exact technique.
Thanks, ‘Manda Mae!
Girl, I love imagining the slam-bang collision of the sewing station and the organ. Girl, I just love you to bits. Even if you aren’t Jandek. Actually, for all the not | Jandek in you.
O lordy, Rick. Ralph Nielsen’s Music City in Rockford, IL.. O punkin. Never knew it, but what a thought!
And: “Alleycat”. Will you play it for me one of these days, babe?
A Hammond is like a Fender Rhodes or a Farfisa: we love them for what they don’t sound like.
I have been doing a little Hammond B-3 research and it would appear this was what a friends dad had when I was a kid. Stunning sound and there is a mass to listen to on Youtube this particular piece by Barbara Dennerlein & Rhoda Scott is just great.
Y’all: Just in case you haven’t caught on. Amanda Mae is one gifted woman.
Oh you guys!
I would probably trade a kidney for a B3, and I really want a rhodes. And a new concertina, and I need to fix my xylophone. It’s endless.
OK Amanda Mae, I’m working on the B-3 for ya….I have organised a nice Chianti for the occasion!
Girl! Hang onto that kidney. ‘flockers bought Dave Vogt a bottle of Stoli, and okay — yeah. I know a B-3 costs just an eensy bit more, but . . . hey . . . you’re one of us.
Gooble gobble.
Gabba gabba hey.