Oh my weeping heart! The memories!
I was barely six when my parents trooped me over to the convent to start violin(ce!) lessons. Sister whatever explained that I should start on piano for 1/2 year, and I dutifully performed for the masked woman every week.
We moved to a larger house a couple of years later (still no violin in site, fortunately!), and were therefore pianoless, as my father had cemented in the new basement bulkhead door just small enough to imprison our old player upright!
One day I returned from CYO basketball tryouts and what did I see in the living room? A Hammond L orrrrgannnn.... Hmmmm.
What the hell was I supposed to do with this? Only 44 keys per manual, but at least there were two. And these drawbars....
Well, before you know it I was a wiz at 11, and we traded up to a monstrous H: a B with percussion, double-reverb, twin 12's, etc. Hammond's best ($4k in '65), nest to the chrome monstrosity called an X77 or something ($11k!).
So I became the organist of northern Rhode Island, cranking out Ventures and Band's tunes in between Bach and Buxtehude, getting gigs mostly at local church fairs, weddings, funerals, etc. The Casavant Freres of Quebec made most of the wonderful huge pipe organs in French-Canadian little rhody, and I had a blast playing all these tired old monsters. But my favorite love was to play with the Hammond drawbars, imitating Jimmy Smith. At 17 I was invited to join a couple of jazz and blues bands that played in--- "Ah mon Dieu", my mom screeched---black clubs in south providence. I had to explain that my "H" was NOT portable, at 400 lbs., and that I would NOT lower myself to play a Farfisa or Rhodes. What crap. Poor white boy just too scared....
The grooming I endured for a bid at Julliard was turned away for a "safer" education in drugs at Brown, where I spent too many nights banging out Dylan, the Band, etc., on uprights in various dorms, hoping to catch the attention
of a gal or two. But guitarists were in vogue. Portability ruled....
After marriage and a house in Boston's northern burbs my folks called and asked if I wanted the old Hammond. I had a great Jewett 52" upright, was stuck in a bad job cranking out Pipetmen, and stalled. She decided to temporarily donate it to her big sis, my aunt "Mother Alma", who ran an order of nuns in Connecticut. Well, they stuck it in their new auditorium, and have used it since. I visited the place in Baltic CT a few years ago when Alma died (she never did divulge the secrets she said the Pope bestowed upon her), but didn't have the heart to ask for the Hammond back.
At 35 it was still pumping out sweet tunes, but mostly in square time, and with only the white and brown drawbars...not the black (odd-order harmonics) ones.
Someday I may go visit her again. My jewish wife says NO to the wormwood pecan French Provincial casework in vogue in the 60s...OY!
The old Jewett (no pun) held sway until 4 years ago, when I bought and restored an old black Steinway B from the Univ of Vermont, only to find that it's old black finish stripped away to a book-matched striped mahogany! So Brahms and Schubert it is, and a bit 'o jazz. The Dylan and Band tunes just don't sound the same. And the Ventures? Ha!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Cheers. Ernie
I was barely six when my parents trooped me over to the convent to start violin(ce!) lessons. Sister whatever explained that I should start on piano for 1/2 year, and I dutifully performed for the masked woman every week.
We moved to a larger house a couple of years later (still no violin in site, fortunately!), and were therefore pianoless, as my father had cemented in the new basement bulkhead door just small enough to imprison our old player upright!
One day I returned from CYO basketball tryouts and what did I see in the living room? A Hammond L orrrrgannnn.... Hmmmm.
What the hell was I supposed to do with this? Only 44 keys per manual, but at least there were two. And these drawbars....
Well, before you know it I was a wiz at 11, and we traded up to a monstrous H: a B with percussion, double-reverb, twin 12's, etc. Hammond's best ($4k in '65), nest to the chrome monstrosity called an X77 or something ($11k!).
So I became the organist of northern Rhode Island, cranking out Ventures and Band's tunes in between Bach and Buxtehude, getting gigs mostly at local church fairs, weddings, funerals, etc. The Casavant Freres of Quebec made most of the wonderful huge pipe organs in French-Canadian little rhody, and I had a blast playing all these tired old monsters. But my favorite love was to play with the Hammond drawbars, imitating Jimmy Smith. At 17 I was invited to join a couple of jazz and blues bands that played in--- "Ah mon Dieu", my mom screeched---black clubs in south providence. I had to explain that my "H" was NOT portable, at 400 lbs., and that I would NOT lower myself to play a Farfisa or Rhodes. What crap. Poor white boy just too scared....
The grooming I endured for a bid at Julliard was turned away for a "safer" education in drugs at Brown, where I spent too many nights banging out Dylan, the Band, etc., on uprights in various dorms, hoping to catch the attention
of a gal or two. But guitarists were in vogue. Portability ruled....
After marriage and a house in Boston's northern burbs my folks called and asked if I wanted the old Hammond. I had a great Jewett 52" upright, was stuck in a bad job cranking out Pipetmen, and stalled. She decided to temporarily donate it to her big sis, my aunt "Mother Alma", who ran an order of nuns in Connecticut. Well, they stuck it in their new auditorium, and have used it since. I visited the place in Baltic CT a few years ago when Alma died (she never did divulge the secrets she said the Pope bestowed upon her), but didn't have the heart to ask for the Hammond back.
At 35 it was still pumping out sweet tunes, but mostly in square time, and with only the white and brown drawbars...not the black (odd-order harmonics) ones.
Someday I may go visit her again. My jewish wife says NO to the wormwood pecan French Provincial casework in vogue in the 60s...OY!
The old Jewett (no pun) held sway until 4 years ago, when I bought and restored an old black Steinway B from the Univ of Vermont, only to find that it's old black finish stripped away to a book-matched striped mahogany! So Brahms and Schubert it is, and a bit 'o jazz. The Dylan and Band tunes just don't sound the same. And the Ventures? Ha!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Cheers. Ernie