THE HAMMOND ORGAN - HISTORY LESSON
The Hammond Organ came to life in the1930's. Laurens Hammond developed
his instrument based on the design of the Cahill Telharmonian. The first
production unit, the Model A, was introduced in 1935, and serial #1 now
resides in the Smithsonian Museum. The B3 and C3 organs played by most present
day organists were introduced in 1955. There were approximately sixty to
seventy thousand of these particular models produced by the time they were
discontinued in1974 when the factory in Chicago burned down.
The Hammond Organ creates its tones from a group of 91 tonewheels, collectively
called a tone generator. Inside it are a wondrous mix of gears, springs,
drive shafts, galleries and oil wicks. A motor causes the tonewheels to
spin at a rate locked to the electrical supply frequency of 50 to 60 Hz;
it is this system which makes tuning a Hammond unnecessary, although it
can be made frighteningly out of tune with other instruments when connected
to a misaligned AC generator system often used at outdoor concerts. The
output of the tone generator is 91 sine waves.
Combining these tones through drawbars located on the top of the organ allows
the player to mix and create many different sounds.
Nothing like this existed in the 30's, and the uniqueness of its tone soon
took the country by storm. Mr. Hammond was marketing savy enough to have
his instrument endorsed by many famous people of the time, including Henry
Ford and Thomas Edison.
The goal of the Hammond Organ Company was to sell to churches and concert
halls as a portable and less expensive way for a church to have an instrument
that sounded like a pipe organ without the pipes. Given the cost of the
pipe organ competition many Hammonds were sold. A number of them found their
way to black gospel churches, and it is from this environment many of the
early jazz and blues players developed their styles.
When designed, it came with a PR40 tone cabinet consisting of front facing
speakers in a cabinet that simulated the sound of the pipes. Don Leslie
designed a cabinet with a rotating speaker that he wanted to have Hammond
include in its manufacturing process. Hammond did not feel it had the pure
sound he wanted for his organ. Leslie manufactured his own cabinets and
people bought them separate. It consisted of an upper rotor for the high
frequency driver and a rotating cage on the bottom with a scoop which projects
the sound from the down-facing low speaker. This created a sound that locked
in perfectly with the sound of the organ and in fact became know as the
"Hammond Sound".
Hammond later started calling the B models the "Home Model" because
you could see the organist's legs work the pedals. C and RT models had full
modesty panels across the back supposedly so female church organists would
not worry the congregation was looking up their dress while playing.
People played the Hammonds from the time of manufacture throughout the 1940's
but Jimmy Smith was the man that popularized the instrument in the
1950's with his trio consisting of organ, guitar and drums. Others were
playing the instrument but Jimmy defined the style. In the 1960's he did
some albums with Lalo Schiffrin and Oliver Nelson which took
the organ to an original voice with a big band and others such as Gerald
Wilson had Richard "Groove" Holmes on organ on many
of his albums with his big band. Booker T and the MGs put it to work
on much of the Stax recordings of the 1960's and had many albums on their
own hits including "Green Onions" and "Time Is Tight".
It then went into the rock arena with the Young Rascals, Procol Harem,
Chicago, The Allman Brothers, Santana and became an integral part of
the music scene with many different tones and colors to choose from.
With the synthesizer revolution of the 1970's and 1980's then samplers that
were basically recordings of the Hammond organ sound and because of the
weight of the 600-pound instrument and difficulty of carrying it around
it became less and less plausible to include the instrument on stage performances.
Hammond abandoned tonewheel organ production in the late 70's and, sadly,
stopped making the instrument in 1984. Several keyboards have come out since
then which have tried to simulate the instrument. They began developing
other markets with the inclusion of rhythm units, auto-chord, and self-accompanying
organs. However, none have captured the tone and feel of the original instruments..
In the 90's, a few bands appeared that incorporated the sound of the instrument
and some even used the vintage organ itself such as Modeski, Martin &
Wood, Galactic, Santana (who always did use the organ in his bands),
Joey DeFrancesco, Soulive and others in the jazz and blues idiom
which created interest once again in the instrument.