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The Hammond Organ
What an amazing new instrument Papa Rudi received for his birthday! Kudos to Mona, Lisa, and Michaela for pulling off such an wonderful birthday surprise in such cool fashion! 👍😁
One of the big legends who use Papa Rudi’s Hammond C3 organ is Jon Lord of Deep Purple fame.
Here in 1996, he does Bach’s Tocatta and Fugue on the Hammond C3. Seeing this, I think it might be possible to lose some of the stucco in the MLT studio ceiling when the Hammond and massive Leslie speakers kick in to create huge good vibrations.
Do you have any famous rock organ works? I don’t think anything can top Bach’s Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor on the organ.
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35 Replies
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Jon Lord is one of my all-time favorites. Hard to believe he’s been gone over 10 years now.
A couple other favorites:
Tom Scholz doing “Get Organ-ized” live: https://youtu.be/z5pX82GebFU
And of course, the legendary Keith Emerson who could play forwards, backwards, upside-down, and even using knives: https://youtu.be/k_RVm9BTUig
But my favorite will always be Rick Wakeman. Here’s Rick and Jon Lord together: https://youtu.be/AsJApGdm97c-
This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Roger Penn.
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Johnny…speaking of Steve Winwood I remember seeing him at the Harvard Commons circa 1968/69 playing his hammond on Gimmie Some Lovin’. Here’s a video from his album “About Time” which is chockful of the Hammond and great percussion. “Why Can’t We Live Together” As with much of Winwoods music it is long, winding, jazzy and somewhat repetative. If you go to minute 4:20 there’s a nice section showing him playing the keyboard(s) nice and close up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwYFRlkTOIw
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Dave Johnston.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
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Hi Dave
Yeah some great keyboard work there on the Hammond. It’s such a unique and elegant looking instrument in it’s wooden cabinet taking direct heritage from those pipe organs in Bach’s day in a past meets present day feel underscoring the longevity of music that spans as far back as humanity itself. It looks ultra cool on stage with modern electric guitars, drums, and synthesizers.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
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Hi Roger, thanks for posting these awesome organ performances. I really enjoyed the dueling organs with Rick Wakeman and Jon Lord’s Hammond! Such incredible skill. Keith Emerson is amazing, as you said playing forwards, backwards and upside down. I like how Tom Scholz gets so into it that he literally lifts that organ off the ground as he plays!
It’s quite something that the organ is so prevalent in Rock and Roll, given it is in instrument that has been around since 200 BC!
Here is Jon Lord doing Highway Star
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Billy Preston contributed to a number of Beatles songs with his remarkable keyboards skills. He often used a Hammond B3 organ as shown here in Let It Be.
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Hi Jung, I tend to agree about the Bach, though I’ve not heard it on the Hammond. Somewhere I have a “direct to disc” recording of Virgil Fox on some big old pipe organ playing the Toccata and Fugue. As a teenager and a bit of a weirdo, on Halloween I used to put my stereo speakers in the window, facing the street, and crank up the sound as I played the Bach LP.
Okay, this isn’t exactly “popular” music, but I can’t resist:
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David and Jung…I have this Phillip Glass CD and though I don’t listen to it often every now and then I find it very comfortable background music because of the rhythmic repetition (like you said…not for everyone). Glass is a minimalist and has done many soundtracks and compositions for other instruments as well. I loved Billy Preston back in the day. He put his own albums out as well as being an in demand session player. His performance of “That’s the Way God Planned It’ features the hammond and was a joy to watch. Though I am not religious the spirit of this perfomance just takes me to a wonderful place!!
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Hi Dave
Nice playing by Billy Preston. I never see him singing in his days playing with the Beatles, but he can sing pretty good too. Yeah Billy was a Hammond organ musician. He also played the electric piano too.
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Hi David
That one is a very relaxing organ work for sure, great background music when you are doing something, and I did just that as I played and wrote something. Yeah, that Bach Tocatta and Fugue has often been associated with something eerie on TV. I guess that leading organ part does a have a very sombre tone to it, but it gets so beautiful. Love the counterpoint in it.
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Billy was a very good singer. You can hear him singing on his hits. I was fortunate to see him once with his band at 20/20 in New York. 20/20 was at 20 West 20th Street and was a club owned by the well known singing duo of Ashford & Simpson, the husband/wife team.
Great show, he played all his hits and sang that night, but that was a long time ago, I’m thinking it was in the ’80s.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Chris Weber.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
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Hi Chris
Thanks for sharing your experience seeing Billy Preston. I bet his organ playing was astounding too. It’s too bad he passed away in 2006, it would have been great to see him on stage again, say with Paul or Ringo in their 80s. I’d say Billy must have been one of the luckiest musicians ever to have been able to take part in creating music with the Beatles, and obviously respected by the Fab 4 for his musicianship skills.
It must have been absolutely joyful as you can see Billy Preston smile when John yells “take it Billy!” and he gets to do his keyboard magic for them.
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This is one of my favourite Beatles performances on stage. Despite whatever tensions might have brewed in the end, you can see John and Paul enjoyed playing together here.
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Here’s a great live clip from one of Procol Harums last albums featuring Matthew Fisher on the Hammond and Gary on piano. Powerful instrumental that features the hammond.
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Hi Dave
The Organ sound of Procol Harum is so iconic, especially Whiter Shade of Pale, one of my favourite organ sounds in rock music. The Animals also used the organ effectively in their House Of The Rising Sun, though they did not use a Hammond in that one.
Here is MLTs wonderful performance of House Of The Rising Sun, and we can hear Papa Rudi on the organ creating some awesome organ sounds.
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Here’s a couple of Cass Elliot & Dave Mason songs that might have Hammond playing on it or something similar
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And the other Dave & Cass one O wanted to share with that sound …
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Hi Jacki, some great singing by Mama Cass. I guess this was her solo work after leaving the Mama’s and Papa’s. I can hear that nice organ work in the background.
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Yes, her solo stuff was incredible, and wishing more had focused on her own stuff too, rather than her weight, image, but she & Michelle did a kind of-Reunion-ish thing on Denny’s “Waiting For A Song” album where tgey had done some backing vocals with Dennys and Cass had written the liner notes on that album, thus it was her last recording stuff, liner notes written up before she passed …
I wish her and David had recorded more collaborative stuff together , but it never transpired but glad I have both CDs ( the Dave & Cass one and the Denny one ), as well as her solo stuff, what I don’t have is the CSN album where she sung with them on one song ( Pre Roads Down ) …..
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Jacki Hopper.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
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Check this out, someone made a model of Keith Emerson’s C3 and it’s amazing! To the sound of the late great Keith Emerson playing his! I’m sure papa Rudi knows all about Keith.
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Hi Thomas
That’s an impressive scale model there of the Hammond C3. It’s remarkable the detail in the keys.
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Here is a really informative and entertaining little video on the history and legend of the Hammond Organ. Some interesting fun facts, like George Gershwin and Henry Ford are one off the very first owners of a Hammond organ. Though this video ends on the Hammond B3 legacy and does not mention the Hammond C3, apparently the only significant difference between the B3 and C3 is the cabinet design. The C3 is every bit as remarkable as the B3 in sound and performance.
Over the years, we at Keyboard Exchange International have been asked thousands of times, which is the better instrument, the B3 or the C3. The simple answer is that the only real difference is the furniture style.
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I believe the “only” difference is the cabinetry. It’s just an amazing sound that comes out with the Hammond connected to the Leslie. It will be great fun listening to how Papa Rudi uses it in upcoming new songs or even covers. There’s a ton of great music out there that could use the infusion of the Hammond/Leslie sound. I can only imagine how much pleasure he is getting out of his birthday gift!! There was a time when I wanted an old refurbished upright pump organ but that desire has passed. I just love the organ sound in all flavors. I listen far more these days than play so if I did get one (and my smarter partner didn’t throw me out 🤣) it would sit in a corner in my basement just like old exercise equipment 😎
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Hi Dave
Yeah I think there will be some great organ sounds in upcoming originals. In fact I was listening to the song WHY? and I noticed nice organ work in there along with the cello part. Papa Rudi’s new Hammond will sound great in WHY? for sure. I didn’t know you were into organs. I think a small upright organ would be great to sit in the corner in basement somewhere.
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Well Jung, that was a terrific documentary. YouTube never ceases to amaze, and if Papa Rudi is monitoring these posts, and all the tangents they can take him on, he won’t have time to play his new treasure.
I’m really glad that there was major mention of both jazz man Jimmy Smith, and R n’ B player Booker T. Jones. While I really don’t mind a lot of the prog rock, some of it is, to put it mildly, over the top bombastic. I guess that’s the theatricality part of it. To my great regret, I missed a Booker T Soul Review concert only a few weeks ago. By all reports, it was great, and included both vocalists, a horn section, and of course, the subject of this topic, a B3 player of great renown. Church music by any other name. I had thought, naively, it would be all instrumental, and not that great. Wrong! In any case, YouTube to the rescue. There is a very nice version of Booker T. Jones and one of his major classics, Green Onions, Live From Daryl’s House. Lot’s of others too, but the sound is very good on this one.
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Thanks for this Hammond History. Wow, a lot of it was about profit? David Gilmour featured Steve Winwood playing the Hammond on his 1984 solo album About Face. The solo at the end reminds me of Lisa and Rudi. This is called Blue Light. She’s a blue light – think of a police car’s blue lights.
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Hi JP
I envisioned Pink Floyd being the instrumental masters they are would have utilized the Hammond to it’s full potential on their songs, and in this one at 3 minutes in it sounds spectacular as it runs with the guitars, just like the way Lisa and Rudolf did it in Raise Your Head.
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Great documentary! Thx Jung.
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Hey!
I’m glad everyone enjoyed that Hammond documentary. It’s a good thing that electric bridge table stopped being a seller for them, to make way for the Hammond Organ.
Hi Len
It is remarkable how versatile the Hammond organ is utilized by church organists, and musicians from pretty much all the genres from jazz, rock/pop, classical etc..
The Hammond even made way onto some Beach Boys songs like California Girls etc. On this track from Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson does the honours on the organ as that Hammond provides the fabric for the song.
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Here’s an interesting video on the inner workings of a Leslie speaker, and everything you want to know about them in 9 minutes. Now I understand how that unique signature warbling sound effect of the Hammond organ is produced.
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Very cool description of the workings of the Leslie. Now I want to hear it with the reverb option!
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Great video Jung. Can’t wait for the first song on which they use this wonderful birthday gift.
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Hi Daryl, Dave
Yeah I couldn’t get over how mechanical the internals of the Leslie speaker is with the spinning parts, and those glowing tubes! It’s all quite ingenius, engineering marvel from 100 years ago, that even today fascinates it’s adoring owners.
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Tubes are amazing aren’t they? The way they glow just says “happy” to me.
My guitar amps are digital modeling amps so no tubes. Doesn’t mean I don’t long for one though. But for my limited abilities (and I really don’t do gigs) my Fender Mustang and Boss Katana do everything I kneed at the flip of a switch or touch of a button. I only have one foot pedal (overdrive) and if I was to get an EVH 5150, PRS Archon or a Fender Reverb then I’m into more pedals and boards and God knows what all else my weak mind and limited wallet condition would get me involved with!
Blast it all if sometimes I don’t wish I was 30 years younger again; I’m running out of time in this life for what I want to accomplish now that I don’t have that work affliction…🤣 -
Daryl, your gear sounds pretty fun and enjoyable, I say don’t hold back on what brings you passion. I hear in the back of my head that ole Stones song “Time Is On My Side”, I can only hope that is the case for myself HAHAHA.
It sounds like they still use those vacuum tubes in some music equipment like the VOX Amps MLT mentioned still used tubes in the big heavy ones at the Cavern Club. I was quite impressed with all those mechanical moving parts in the Leslie speakers. I don’t think good mechanical designs will go away any time soon. High end watch makers still rely on mechanical movements despite quartz/electronic movements being much more accurate and versatile because there is a beauty and elegance to it that is so appealing that efficiency and miniaturization/digitization will never displace. There is also a tactility with analog/mechanical that digital will never match or replace. Vinyl versus CDs/MP3s, pen & paper versus latest greatest smart device? Modern digital technology has it’s place, but so does sound and proven mechanical/analog technology of the past.
What do Tesla owners want for Christmas? A super, super long extension cord. 😀
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Tube amps are like the resurgence of vinyl in a way. They have their own very distinct sound. Hard to put into words if you’re a non-tech doofus like me, it’s a visceral thing for me. But yeah, heavy and the tubes do burn out and require maintenance/repair work far more than the ones I use. But they are to die for, like the Hammond and Leslie. My jamming pal has an old 40w VOX that he picked up used for $40 and it sounds killer! Looks like it’s been through a war but that doesn’t matter at all with what comes out of it.
Cool joke about the Tesla!🤣 My daily driver is a 3/4t Duramax diesel truck so I’m on the other side of the fence on that argument. But I need that truck for what I do. And 30 mpg on the highway (empty) is really exceptional for a beast like that. I also tow a large (#15k, 35 ft long) 5th wheel for my racing and travel addictions, need the grunt and size to handle the load.
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