I was the only kid on the block who was raised that had a Grand Piano and a B3 and the tall Leslie in my living room from birth. I heard my mom playing this every night when she would put us to bed, often having some Jazz friends come over and play. I thought everybody fell asleep to church music on a Hammond. Loved playing with the organ before mom would come home from work.
I knew Don Leslie. A friend and I bought a Robert Morton theatre organ which we installed in my friend's home in Pasadena. Don and his wife would come listen to the Robert Morton. A wonderful man.
…and they are tanks. In my teens my first keyboard was a “portable” XB2 organ with a Leslie 147 speaker. On the way to a gig the Leslie was not strapped down and tumbled out of my friend’s pick up, did a flip in the air and hit the pavement hard. We picked up up off the street went to the gig and it fired right up!
Wonderful tribute. My late Dad had the privilege of test driving early "Leslies" in LA and , of course, owned many a Hammond with the Leslie system. I remember meeting with Mr. Leslie and Dad at Finnegan's Piano, where Hammonds and Leslies were sold along with Steniways and such. Great memory piece, bravo!
I was lucky enough to work for him. He was always trying to duplicate the Leslie sound electronically. One by product was a circuit that was to become the phase shifter pedal also the cry baby pedal. He held more patents on speaker designs than just about anyone. Really nice man.
I'm "only" 43, but grew up with my best friend's dad who played his Farfisa Compact Duo ("poor man's B3,") through a Leslie 145. I used to peek through the side louvres to try and see the spinning horns. I've used a Leslie 45 for years, and learned the "art" of playing through it from this man. It's great to learn more about the history of this thing I grew up with.
OK, way back, when I was a child, I used my father's Dodge Maxivan, to transport quite a few {many} friends to a concert, played a local band, playing Beach Boys music. Papa do run de run. On stage, I saw stuff MOVING, coming out of the speakers. That was EARLY in the '80's. Since then, I've been in love of Don Leslie's speakers! Yes. I've seen the theory play out in numerous venues. But, NO ONE has impressed me, like the speakers, I heard and saw, so long ago! steve
Just renewed my membership in the Hammond-Leslie owners family.... a '58 M-3 paired with an early 70s Leslie 147. My little studio loves it and whole house vibrates along. Great video, thanks so much. Your warm voice and obvious love for Leslie's invention made this a wonderful history lesson.
As an Player of the Keys & Syth I can apprciate the Knowleged u giving to the Musicain World most People didnt even know that the Hammond was an 1930's creation or that Don Leslie was the Pioneer of the Portable Sound of The Organ THANKS and Keep Playing that Jazz lovin it- " Am Subscribing"
Hammond also made some of their organ's output jacks incompatible with Leslie speakers, that's how much Laurens Hammond hated the Leslie speaker. It's incredible that LH hated the Lesie so much given the fact that practically every organ he made had a Leslie attached to it the second it came out of the showroom. It's also quite cool that LH was tone deaf and couldn't play a note to save his life but he made such a fantastic contribution to music (across all genres). LH is one of my heroes (along with Don Leslie obviously), he invented 3D movies as well as the Hammond organ.
What a great piece of music history!!! I've been a professional Keyboard player In Madison, Wi. since 1979, and always wanted..no...needed a Hammond Organ, but they were always out of My price range, but as luck would have it, I found one a couple weeks ago on Ebay and bought it for only $140.00!!! It was definitely worth the wait. I need a Leslie now. But I'll be patient like I was about the Hammond, and keep My fingers crossed (when not playing it), for one. Great video!
Many people DO talk about Don Leslie when discussing the speakers. At least as many as do Laurens Hammond. I believe there is a full film documenting the Leslie story - it was in production in the late 1990s and early 2000s, finished only recently.
Don definitely made a revolutionary invention with the Leslie Speaker. You can't separate a Hammond Organ from one. A pity Laurens Hammond was so doggone stubborn.
I'm not a piano player or an organ player I play blues/ rock guitar and synth and when I was young I preferred line 6 amps with every crazy preset on earth but as I got older I bought a Leslie and now I collect them , restore them , and reluctantly I've sold a couple but I have experimented with Leslie's for 6 years now and found a lot of tricks and frankly with the right guitar / Leslie match I think they are the best guitar or synth amp on the market they aren't real well known with most guitarists but any pedal you want , no pedal however you play you are hearing half your set ups potential until you plug into a real Leslie the pedals are ok but nothing like the real thing I hope I haven't made any enemies with the piano purists but you guys know your stuff
I thought I had heard that Leslie developed his rotating speaker to eliminate "Standing Waves" or dead spots the occur in auditoriums where the "Compressions" and "Rarefactions" would converge on one another. By rotating the sound stream onto different surfaces in the room , the sound waves would never be able to overlap and cancel out each other. What are your thoughts?
Ciao sono un vecchio hammondista.. Per molti anni ho fatto professione come tastierista tra gli anni 60.70.80. Ho sempre con me un hammod c3 e un Leslie 147 tuttora funzionanti.. Un caro saluto e spero che faccia parte del gruppo. Ciao
Last week someone was selling one of the very first Leslie's on Ebay, like at 1:10, but with his early early paper mache horns. It went unsold at an opening bid of $499 USD. There are pictures of it on the Organ Forum on one of my posts early June 2011- paulj0557
2 of my 4 organs have built in "Leslies" although they aren't built by Leslie (so they are more just tremolo seakers.) the 2 organs are my Kimball swinger 700, ad my Baldwin Orga-Sonic 57R (the speaker's voice coid is dead though.) I once tried to build a n upper leslie tremolo horns with a upsidedown ceiling fan, a 1/4" jack and a a pair of old PC speakers, I thnk it worked, bu it had bad balanced. I love the natural "vibrato" tones the these speakers give, their so lovely!
Didn't Leslie come in contact with the Hammond organ (and how dead it could sound in a small room full of overstuffed furniture) when he had a contract job with an LA department store to convert 50 cycle Hammond organs to the new 60 cycle standard when LA made the change?
While it was true that Hammond banned Leslies from their stores, every store had a organ connected to a Leslie in the store. If a Hammond Rep saw the Leslie they were told it was used and therefore didn't fall under the edict. They would sell the Leslies and have them shipped directly to the customer so technically they were never in the store. The dealers knew what was selling Hammond Organs even if Laurence Hammond did not. By the way the sound of the Leslie was "tuned" by a wad of cotton in the throat of the Horn speaker.
I cant believe how stubborn people can be. I just love the sound, and find it compliments rock music so well. That amplifier schematic looks over simplified. I do work on tube equipment.
Any idea where to advertise a small collection of Hammonds cabinets and Leslies? My father started collecting them in the early 2000's thinking he would open up a shop, but it never materialized. Now they are just collecting dust out in his garage. He has always been church organist, but loves big band standards/Lawrence Welk.
Fascinating music history. As it turns out, in their efforts to develop a reasonably accurate unit-orchestra sound in the pre-digital days, Allen Organ Company had to find a way around Don Leslie's patents, eventually developing a four-transducer "gyrospeaker."
Nice video, but it neglects to demonstrate the sound Leslie speakers make. It should give us a comparison of the sound that is produced with and without Leslie speakers. Seems dumb to me to leave that out.
The Hammond-Leslie marriage could not be denied; its Americana! A coworker had a Hammond with the Leslie that I got to play. He wanted to get rid of it and I asked to buy it, but he had already promised it to his church. I was disappointed to say the least.
I've played organ here in Columbus Ohio (too) for about 15 years. I played guitar for 20 before realizing my thirst for great tone was better quenched with an organ. That's saying a lot considering the Marshall guitar amp is a golden voice in itself. There are a few questions I have about Leslie. The first is, why are the train horns called Leslie as well? Is this some bizarre coincidence or what? Just go to Ebay and type in Leslie horn. Also, later Leslie's used relays still, why not use SCR's?
Interesting do-up of the Leslie speaker story. I would, however, have to take exception with your remark about Leslie's contemporaries "seeking the limelight" as regards Bob Moog. There has perhaps been no person in music history who was as humble, self-effacing, quiet, gracious, and generous than Bob Moog. If anything, he seemed perplexed by people who made a fuss over him and treated him as a celebrity. And btw, you mispronounced his name. It rhymes with "vogue," not "boob."
And for the mexican musicia was bery important an dont make histori of the music if you taken of tha leslie.Fom Santana , Mana, Los Bukis los Fredys , Los muecas and many more
