Organ Morgan

[tommymack.livejournal.com]

Why do so many garage bands feature a Hammond organ (or similar, pedantry fans...)? Surely it would have been a prohibatively expensive and cumbersome instrument for 60s teenagers with cheapo Danelectro guitars made out of plastic?

Comments

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

Well, not all Hammonds are as unportable as a C3. There are various more moveable ones (A series, I think).

Also: not all organs are Hammonds. The Vox and Farfisa organs were also really popular back in the day (cf: House of the Rising Sun) because they were way cheaper. They're also way more portable (like this Vox (http://www.midtownmusic.com/images/voxjag.jpg)).

And they were often floating around, I guses - if your parents or local church owned one, made sense to use it.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

could you play chords on a farfisa or a vox? the online hammond histories make a lot of that distinction

(bah i used to know all this stuff really well and it has turned to mush in my brain)

[tommymack.livejournal.com]

I think so. I believe The Doors used a Vox Continental on Light My Fire.

Christ I'm ashamed of knowing that.

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

Yeah, should be able to. A proper organ (as opposed to a synthesizer) should have a tone-generator for each note. Maybe they had limited polyphony, not sure. There are definitely chords from the Vox on Rising Sun, for sure.

[koganbot]

Red Dark Sweet used a Vox. And yes, played chords (though this was a decade and a half after "96 Tears"). I think "96 Tears" made the Farfisa famous. But I haven't done the research, and am too busy to go to Wiki and find out.