Laurens Hammond: Close up

[Tonewheel]

I was trying to determine if there were any recorded films of Laurens Hammond interviews or of him meeting any of our famous Hammond players, but so far have not found anything. However, there is quite a detailed biography with abundant personal quotes by Laurens Hammond here http://thehammondorganstory.com.

Stuyvesant Barry, the author, has a compelling foreward, knew Hammond personally, who never wanted publicity, but Barry somehow succeeded in compiling this before Hammond passed on.

Chapter XIV deals with the actual creation of the organ. The story is all that more amusing because Hammond did not "give in" to Henry Ford or Don Leslie. It would have been nice, however, to have found a photo of Hammond and Leslie shaking hands!.

Correct me if I am wrong, but for some reason, this history has not been published in book form. I hope that it never is accidentally erased.

[skydawg]

According to Beauty In The B,Hammond did a tv interview for CBS in Chicago in 1956.They moved his desk from his office to the tv studio,at his request,I would guess.

[Goff]

Can anyone see the interview from 1956?

[Austin Otto]

As an architect, I was interested to find out more about Hammond's father's home in Evanston. I found this.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...345685934).jpg
It includes my favorite ever description of the the creation of the tonewheel organ:
"He tinkered with a piano until it produced an organ-like sound and, in 1935, he released the Hammond organ"

[Tonewheel]

Great quote.

[Goff]

"He tinkered with a piano until it produced an organ-like sound and, in 1935, he released the Hammond organ"

Eureka! Eureka!

[JamesOrgan]

Thank you for the post - I've read the start, and it's fun. Written in an easy-going style. I'll come back to it later.

[JamesOrgan]

"He tinkered with a piano until it produced an organ-like sound and, in 1935, he released the Hammond organ"

That's some tinkering! Well they've both got a keyboard, but the tonewheel organ had already existed as the Telharmonium since 1896.

[gtc]

That's some tinkering! Well they've both got a keyboard, but the tonewheel organ had already existed as the Telharmonium since 1896.

This.

And I believe it was more likely that any such tinkering was done by John Hanert.

Hammond was a great ideas guy and salesman.

[Austin Otto]

This from the Laurens Hammond Wikipedia page that explains the "piano" comment:
"In 1933, Hammond bought a used piano, and discarded everything apart from the keyboard action. Using the keyboard as a controller, he experimented with different sound-generating methods, finally settling on one, the tonewheel generator. The company's assistant treasurer, W. L. Lahey, was the organist at the nearby St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, and Hammond consulted him concerning the quality of the new instrument's sound."

[JamesOrgan]

This quote implies that he was more of a musician, but he was a businessman, and I would have thought it more likely that he heard about the Telharmonium and realised it would be (another) way to sell his electric motors. There was a video posted a while ago with a comment relating to the motor being at a constant speed meant that the organ never went out of tune - "like your clock at home".

[Goff]

it more likely that he heard about the Telharmonium

The clocks would keep time as long as the power company spit out 60hz so the power company techs got a free clock so they would be sure to check the Hz on their AC generation.


As mentioned John Hanert was more of the inventor/musician and it was likely Hanert that saw the Cahill Telharmonium as the tonewheel generator was a miniature version of that giant system.

Still Hammond created a platform for Hanert's work.

Similar system to the TWG is the Pari E made in Italy.

[JamesOrgan]

"Similar system to the TWG is the Pari E made in Italy." TWO of these came up for sale locally a few years ago - one working, one not. I decided to keep away, as the non-working one would eventually run out of spare parts for the working one.