Interviews with Don Leslie -- NAMM Oral History, 2001 and 2004 respectively.

[Monarke]

Here are a couple interviews with Don Leslie. The lengthier one (48 minutes) is in his former home in Altadena California. The other I believe was either at the NAMM offices in Carlsbad, or perhaps at the NAMM show itself.

https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/don-leslie

This interview certainly answered my own personal pondering about his life, business and his thought process.

Enjoy!

[gtc]

Here's the Gulbransen Rialto Model K that Don Leslie thought "sounds just like a big beautiful pipe organ" ... clearly his notion of pipes were those of a theater organ.

[Monarke]

Is there something wrong with that?

It's no secret that Don Leslie as well as Richard Peterson (founder of Peterson Electro-Musical) loved Theatre organ.

If you look at the cover page of his Leslie service documents you will see a drawing of a Theatre Organ console.

The effect produced by the Leslie speaker even as early as the Vibratone 30A is modeled after Threatre Organ Tremulant.

From my search via Youtube I will say that the Rialto K (1960-1961) does seem to sound better than the Rialto II.

The Leslie speaker connected to the Hammond organ was a huge success. Later refinements produced the Rotosonic Drum with the spinning 6" x 9" mounted in a drum with a narrow slit opening.

I was at Don Leslie's home for his memorial in 2004. The friend and associate whom went with me on that day sat at the organ console and went through every voice stop to give them a listen.

Bob Mitchell was one of the organists that day. I will say the instrument is wonderful sounding and most certainly fills the room, let alone the whole house.

Seen in this image near the upper right side is a Rotosonic drum unit showing the Mercotac connector, bearing and the motor pulley.

[muckelroy]

I think the most fascinating story is how "bad press became good press" for his company, leading to little to no effort on advertising.

[Monarke]

I liked his musings about finding tossed out vacuum tubes and reusing them by mounting them sideways to make the filaments reconnect. This must have been when most vacuum tubes were direct heating and had no cathodes. It would be very difficult to do this with a 5U4G (5Z3 predecessor) as if the filament breaks at the spot weld, it moves outward and touches the plate.

[Goff]

https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/don-leslie




Wow what a treat to hear and see Don Leslie and the stories from the man himself.
Hahaha...I got the basement treatment when getting my first B3 new. Reniers Piano and Organs On Dodge Street in Omaha where I went to college was the Hammond dealer. I mentioned I wanted a Leslie so Mr. Renier pulls me to another room and shows me the Leslie. I sensed there was something going on then but didn't know what.

The IRS.... Had no idea Don let go of his company because the IRS put the screws to him.

To get a pipe organ in a home, you'd have to have a big home AND it would have to be constructed to where nothing in the house rattled. Pipes sound best in a giant cathedral.

Seems like it would take an enormous study of pipe size and materials given a certain sized space that would need to be custom fabricated. Nails and batteries...

Serendiptiously found this video that proves my point. It still sounds puny compared to a cathedral. A large venue is needed because the angle of incidences are all over the place meaning the sound reinfections come back too quick and cancels itself out.
Shades of Don Leslie.

[Monarke]

I looked up the 90% tax rate:

There are a few obvious reasons why the taxes the rich actually paid in the 1950s were so much lower than the confiscatory top rates that sat on the books. For one, the max tax rates on investment income were far lower than on wages and salaries, which gave a lot of wealthy individuals some relief. Tax avoidance may have also been a big problem. Moreover, there simply weren’t that many extraordinarily rich households. Those fabled 90 percent tax rates only bit at incomes over $200,000, the equivalent of more than $2 million in today’s dollars. As Greenberg notes, the tax may have only applied to 10,000 families.

https://slate.com/business/2017/08/t...-the-rich.html