Record Cover of the Week

Kenyon Hopkins: Lilith

Riz Ortolani: The 7th Dawn

Two fine movie soundtracks from 1964.

Squaresville

This has to be my favourite mid-century house in Edmonton…

…quite possibly because it reminds me of my favourite movie – Jacque Tati’s Mon Oncle.

Thrift Item of the Moment

Luxury aloft

Two Trans-Canada Airlines (now Air Canada) postcards, probably mid-50s, 10¢ each at Salvation Army.

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“TCA’s great SUPER Constellation Skyliners provide a new high in luxury, speed, and passenger comfort.”

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“The four propeller-turbine engines of the TCA VISCOUNT Skyliner make possible new standards of quiet, dependable flight.”

These are the people in my neighbourhood

Angry guy

Walks around shouting profanities, usually along the lines of “[really loud] HEY!!! [less loud] fucking son of a bitch” over and over. Otherwise seems harmless – people leave him alone and vice versa. Still, this is as close as I want to get.

The Culling X: Organic

I’m well into the instrumental section of my collection. I survived accordions, banjos, carillons, drums, flutes, guitars, harmonicas, harps, harpsichords, and kazoos (only one LP thankfully) and now I’m into organs (go ahead, make your jokes). I’ve subdivided organs into electronic and pipe sections (I used to have street organs here too but I decided it made more sense to put them in a section of their own along with music boxes and other mechanical instruments).

The electronic section is dominated by Hammond players but includes many other makes from Allen to Yamaha.

Johnny Dupont: All Stops Out!

Does “Johnny Dupont” exist? I have yet to find any biographical info on him on the internet. Maybe he was a fictitious identity made up for some anonymous studio musician for some obscure reason. The liner notes claim Dupont was a native of Troy, New York, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, and still a teen. I really like his swinging versions of Caravan, Bluesette and others.

Walt Reneker on The Electrohome Console

Electrohome was a Canadian electronics company that mostly manufactured televisions, but they also made home organs into the 1970s. This record demonstrates many of the special effects possible with the Electrohome Richelieu organ.

Walt Reneker

The “Rhythm King” – a device with 17 different rhythms which could be used manually as a metronome with the organist following the beat, or automatically with the beat following the organist’s lead.

Demos Pay Off

Another demonstration record, this one for salesmen selling Lowrey organs.

Click here for an audio except (MP3) – Mr. Virtuoso “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”

“Lookee here!”

“Don’t display too much musical ability.”

Maurice Montez: The Groovy Organ Goes Romantic

The young lady is leaning on an Italian-made Panther Combo 300 organ. Maurice’s jazzy version of Moon River rocks my world.

George Wright: Encores

George Wright, dean of theatre organists, next to a Wurlitzer organ console. This was George’s look circa 1956.

George Wright: Now’s The Right Time

And this was his look in 1969 – keeping up with the times, both sartorially and musically. Songs include Light My Fire, Mission: Impossible, Time Is Tight, and the theme from Mannix. Inasmuch as anything played on a pipe organ can rock, this record totally does.

Jonas Nordwall: Omnificent

It seems a lot of 1920s movie palace organs ended up in pizza parlors.The Wurlitzer console on the left, originally in the Metropolitan Theatre in Boston, made its way to the Organ Grinder Restaurant in Portland, OR, which closed in 1996. The one on the right, in the Organ Grinder in Denver CO, was from Portland’s Paramount Theatre. The Denver Organ Grinder opened in 1979 and closed a few years later.

Richard Ellsasser: The Thundering Pipe Organ

The instrument on this record is a 10,000 pipe organ built for John Hays Hammond Jr. (no relation to Laurens Hammond, inventor of the Hammond organ). Hammond Jr. was a wealthy inventor (something to do with radio control) who used part of his fortune to build a medieval-style castle on the New England coastline near Gloucester, MA. The organ is housed in and around a great hall dating from the 13th century. Today, Hammond Castle is a museum. To clarify: even though it’s called the Hammond pipe organ, it’s not a Hammond organ.

Wolfgang Oehms: The Historic Bamboo Organ of Las Piñas (Philippines)

The world’s only bamboo pipe organ (only the trumpet stops are made from metal). Built by a parish priest, completed in 1824. In the 1880s, earthquakes and typhoons rendered the organ unplayable. Many unprofessional repairs were done on it throughout the 20th century. In 1973 it was shipped to Germany for complete restoration and it was returned to the Philippines in 1975. To my (untrained) ear it doesn’t sound much different from a conventional pipe organ.

The listened: 1323
The loved: 1005
The lamented: 318

Power Play

This is my niece Vanessa’s entry in CBC’s contest to find a new Hockey Night in Canada theme. Maybe you heard that CBC lost the use of Dolores Claman’s hockey theme that they’d been using since 1968 when she sold it to CTV for a reputed 2.5 to 3 million dollars. The winner of the CBCs contest will not be nearly so well rewarded – the prize is $100,000 plus half of performance royalties (the other half going to minor hockey). Still, it would be a nice payday for Vanessa. If you’d like to comment on Vanessa’s song, do it at the contest website (registration required), not here. Although ratings and comments aren’t the only thing that determines which songs make the “semi-finals,” they’re probably one factor in helping the judges choose which songs advance. Semi-finalists will be announced on October 4th, after which public voting will decide two finalists and then the winner. Competition will be stiff – more than 12,000 entries have been received.