Late '30s Wurli

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sahib

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 19, 2006
Messages
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Location
Glasgow - UK
Tonight we were invited to one of my wife's colleagues' party in a townhall. We never knew that there was a Wurlitzer organ, and more importantly it would be played. The organist, Aaron, a great player, took this thing on a journey of smooth playing to utter growling. Fantastic. I have taken some pictures which I hope you enjoy. I managed to get some pictures of the mechanics behind it. The signalling between the organ and the pipes is modernised with computer control. More information is here;
https://www.cinema-organs.org.uk/venues/pollokshaws-burgh-hall-scot/
There are also plenty of you tube clips.

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Pipe organs of all kinds are awesome.

An acquaintance of mine (now RIP) was a huge fan of theater organs. He referred to church organs as "designed to scare the hell out of the parishioners". <g>

Bri
 
Very cool! The only time I've seen/heard a Wurlitzer was at Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland in the mid 90s. They would have a mini concert before evening movie showings, played by a tiny old man who could really work that old organ. The console was on a platform that would be elevated as the front curtain parted. After he took his bow and exited the stage the console would be lowered and the screen curtain opened for the movie.

I am also a sucker for pipe organs of all kinds. Thanks for sharing the pics.
 
AnalogPackrat said:
Very cool! The only time I've seen/heard a Wurlitzer was at Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland in the mid 90s. They would have a mini concert before evening movie showings, played by a tiny old man who could really work that old organ. The console was on a platform that would be elevated as the front curtain parted. After he took his bow and exited the stage the console would be lowered and the screen curtain opened for the movie.

I am also a sucker for pipe organs of all kinds. Thanks for sharing the pics.
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Thank you too.

Pipe organ sucker? You are in the club.

I have not looked up Wurlitzer's history in detail yet, so I do not know how the requirement for mobility came about, but apparently a telephone engineer designed the signalling system between the organ and the wind pipes. So, yes the elevating/lowering of the organ itself is part of Wurlitzer's trademark as a cinema organ.
 
Last year I bought a Leslie speaker for my Hammond organ from ebay. When I got in contact with the vendor to pick it up it was at a theatre organ museum in Wales. https://www.pktoc.co.uk/ A really interesting place with several theatre organs of different manufacturers & also 3 or 4 Hammond organs. They do silent movie evenings where they have someone improvising to early movies by people like Buster Keyton. I would love to go to one of these evenings but it's a 7 hour round trip from where I live.
 
Rob Flinn said:
Last year I bought a Leslie speaker for my Hammond organ from ebay.............
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Fantastic Rob. What Hammond have got?

When I was a kid, after hearing Jimmy Smith I fell in love with Hammond sound, and wanted to play organ but could not get one. So I ended up with the guitar. But my heart has always been in organs.
 
sahib said:
Fantastic Rob. What Hammond have got?

When I was a kid, after hearing Jimmy Smith I fell in love with Hammond sound, and wanted to play organ but could not get one. So I ended up with the guitar. But my heart has always been in organs.
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I bought an immaculate but unused for 15 years 1968 L102 for £50. I used quite a bit of oil to wake up the TW but after that it works well.

The leslie is a 710, which I modified to make it more like a 122. I took the reverb speakers out and the foam rotor. I made a new bass rotor from scratch to some dimensions that a friend measured from his 147 out of some used plywood. I then designed a crossover & used the 2 original solid state amps one for the horn & the other for the bass rotor. I rubbed the cabinet down & refinished with some varnish a neighbour gave me.

I made little circuit to take a line level signal from the speaker out in the L102, so I could use the internal speaker or switch it off an just use the leslie. I made my own half moon speed switch out of a bit of oak & a telecaster pickup selector switch.

The whole setup keyboard & Leslie and all mods cost about £200. The ironic thing is I don't play keyboards but I do love Hammonds. My retired neighbour in France is a great Hammond player but had to sell his B3 & 147 set up & I wanted him to have something to play when he came over to visit.
 
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Excellent.

My wife's cousin is a master church organ restorer/builder, based in Modena. Very fascinating to see. For restoration work he uses the techniques of that particular period that the organ belongs to. He even makes the nails by himself. Very fascinating stuff.
 
sahib said:
Excellent.

My wife's cousin is a master church organ restorer/builder, based in Modena. Very fascinating to see. For restoration work he uses the techniques of that particular period that the organ belongs to. He even makes the nails by himself. Very fascinating stuff.
Click to expand...
Very cool. My best friend in college was from Cocoa Beach, FL. I visited him down there a few times during spring break, summer, etc. He was a guitarist and I played keys (we later started a band together), so one trip down he introduced me to a guy around the corner from his parents who had salvaged a small pipe organ from an "old" (maybe c.1900) church that was replacing it with a new digital thing. He had the console set up in his living room beside his harpsichord and antique piano. He'd opened up an adjacent bedroom wall and set up the various pipes in there with the longer square wooden ones laid on their sides. He put a compressor outside to feed the wind chest.

He showed me how he tuned the various types of pipes and how it worked. I was maybe 19 at the time and don't recall all of the details--I was pretty clueless then anyway. That was the first time I'd seen a pipe organ up close. The harpsichord was really cool, too.
 
As a kid I grew up attending a church which had a "kick ass" pipe organ.

https://organhistoricalsociety.org/aeolianskinner/Specs/Op01237.html

The organist apparently would "have a drink or two" before services (according to a girl I knew there who was his page turner) and he'd romp on the gas pedals and rattle the walls. I loved it....although he would drown out the choir. <g>

In later years as a young puke installing church PA systems, I had the joy of being in one of the pipe chambers (at a different church) as the client (church music director) diddled around on the keyboards at my request.

Bri
 
sahib said:
When I was a kid, after hearing Jimmy Smith I fell in love with Hammond sound, and wanted to play organ but could not get one. So I ended up with the guitar. But my heart has always been in organs.
Click to expand...
I too fell in love with the Hammond. Aside from plunking a few chords I can’t play them but I do keep them in top shape so the real guys can make them sing, proper like.

Like this song here.
 

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