Seriously, I was listening last night to some great old recordings of Fats Waller playing wild stuff on electric organ. This whet my appetite, and I ended up pulling out stuff by Booker T, Billy Preston, Jimmy Smith, âQuestion Mark & the Mysteriansâ and others. What a great instrument!
But it occurred to me that I really know very little about organs. That lead to Googling and learning about the whole gamut of Farfisas, Hammonds, and the new âclonewheelsâ that try to simulate other organs. Very cool stuff.
So, anyway, itâs not a poll, because I know where that would goâŚ
I have an old Lowrey with a built-in Leslie speaker, and a Yamaha electronic keyboard sitting on top of it. Iâd like to find a way to route the Yamaha into the Leslie.
Is there still any such thing as a Farfisa, or did someone else (e.g. Roland) take over the brand?
Rod Argent is a great organ player. On the second Argent album the second side is mostly taken up with a piece thatâs about half solo organ. And the solo in Time of the Season is to die for.
Steppenwolf made great use of the Hammond/Leslie on their first few albums, although itâs hardly used as a solo instrument.
If ever there could be a âclassicâ electric organ, indeed! To hear one, however, youâll need to go back in musical time, more than a few decades.
The Hammond was the big thing, just before synthesizers.
By the mid-seventies, however, those still playing the Hammond were sometimes called âspecialistsâ, as outdated as the Hammond was by then.
Made you look!
