HAMMOND ORGAN SAGA
HAMMOND ORGAN SAGA . . .
Hammond RT-2
RECENTLY MY GOOD FRIEND
and high school classmate Rich Swale emailed me an interesting story
about a fellow who "rescued" a pipe organ that was scheduled to be
demolished. The gentleman actually restored the organ and installed it
in his living room!
That reminded me of a personal experience I had with a concert-style organ . . .
Back in the '60s when I was still at the University of Iowa, I bought a concert-style Hammond, a Hammond speaker cabinet plus a jumbo Leslie speaker from a local music store. I'd always wanted a Hammond, and I talked my mother into letting me buy it against her better judgment.
When I got back to West Union, I moved it into her living room (where we already had a piano, a Baldwin organ and a harmonium.) This massive Hammond was a model RT-2 (see above) which was designed for a church or concert hall - not a living room!
I had the mistaken belief that this organ would be perfect to take to Rubber Band gigs. It along with the two, tone cabinets took up so much space that we had to rent a U-Haul to transport it to Electric Park in Waterloo for our one and only gig with it.
When we arrived at Electric Park, I'd noticed the detached pedal keyboard (which had been place on top of the console on a padded cover) had worn a hole through the pad during transport and had dug a huge gouge into the organ's wooden lid (that folded over the keyboard.)
Then we all about broke our backs trying to haul the behemoth into the ballroom and onto the stage. The final insult was that we couldn't get any sound out of the speakers - when we finally did get them working, it wasn't loud enough to be heard over the din known as the Rubber Band! What a fiasco.
Anyway, the organ stayed in the living room after that; and years later I finally gave it to my sister. She taught piano at the time, and they'd built a fairly large studio onto to their home in Cedar Rapids. Her intentions were to also give organ lessons, but I don't think that ever materialized. The organ sat virtually unused in her studio for several years until she finally sold it.
That reminded me of a personal experience I had with a concert-style organ . . .
Back in the '60s when I was still at the University of Iowa, I bought a concert-style Hammond, a Hammond speaker cabinet plus a jumbo Leslie speaker from a local music store. I'd always wanted a Hammond, and I talked my mother into letting me buy it against her better judgment.
When I got back to West Union, I moved it into her living room (where we already had a piano, a Baldwin organ and a harmonium.) This massive Hammond was a model RT-2 (see above) which was designed for a church or concert hall - not a living room!
I had the mistaken belief that this organ would be perfect to take to Rubber Band gigs. It along with the two, tone cabinets took up so much space that we had to rent a U-Haul to transport it to Electric Park in Waterloo for our one and only gig with it.
When we arrived at Electric Park, I'd noticed the detached pedal keyboard (which had been place on top of the console on a padded cover) had worn a hole through the pad during transport and had dug a huge gouge into the organ's wooden lid (that folded over the keyboard.)
Then we all about broke our backs trying to haul the behemoth into the ballroom and onto the stage. The final insult was that we couldn't get any sound out of the speakers - when we finally did get them working, it wasn't loud enough to be heard over the din known as the Rubber Band! What a fiasco.
Anyway, the organ stayed in the living room after that; and years later I finally gave it to my sister. She taught piano at the time, and they'd built a fairly large studio onto to their home in Cedar Rapids. Her intentions were to also give organ lessons, but I don't think that ever materialized. The organ sat virtually unused in her studio for several years until she finally sold it.
Hammond A-100
Meanwhile back in the '80s, the wife of one of my cousins inherited a Hammond A-100 which I purchased from them. So I finally had my dream Hammond - a normal-sized organ - much better suited for a home/studio setting.
I still have that Hammond A-100, and you can hear it on many of the Memory Brothers' recordings. I love that organ!
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