Musings of the Past

This is the second installment of my new feature introduced last week, where I essentially republish previous content and update where I feel it’s warranted. This post is about the Hammond B-3 and the first installment of an irregular feature titled The Hardware, which I started in June 2017. The idea is to look at prominent instruments and music technology. It’s not as geeky as it sounds! 🙂

The Hardware: The Hammond B-3

The introduction of the Hammond B-3 in 1954 revolutionized music

I’ve decided to introduce a new category on the blog I’m calling The Hardware, where I’m going to take a look at instruments and technology that have had an important impact on rock music. Admittedly, my general understanding of technology is limited, so these posts will definitely be a bit of a lift for me. While I anticipate things may become a bit technical at times, I’m certainly not planning to go overboard.

With that being said, I’d like to get started by taking a look at an instrument I’ve admired from the very first time I heard it, which is probably longer than I want to remember: The legendary Hammond B-3 organ.

The Hammond organ was designed and built by American engineers and inventors Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and was first manufactured in 1935 by the Hammond Organ Company in Chicago. Following the original, the Hammond A, numerous other models were introduced, including the legendary B-3 in 1954.

Tonewheels inside the console of a Hammond

The Hammond B-3 is a tonewheel organ. These types of organs generate sound by mechanical toothed wheels, that rotate in front of electromagnetic pickups. The B-3 has 91 tone wheels located inside the console. Together with the so-called drawbars, they give the instrument its incredible sound versatility. According to Glen E. Nelson, a “Hammond B-3 can all at once sound like a carnival, a big band, a horn section, a small jazz combo, a funk group, a percussion section, a flute, and/or countless other things.”

Hammond drawbars

The organ has nine drawbars that represent the nine most important harmonics. “Each drawbar has eight degrees to which it can be literally “drawn” or pulled, out of the console of the organ, the eighth being the loudest, and all the way in being silence,” explains Nelson. The drawbars and the way each can be adjusted individually allow to create an enormous amount of different sounds, such as flute, trumpet or violin-like sounds.

Leslie loudspeaker

In spite of its impressive size, the B-3 does not have a built-in speaker. As such, it needs to be run through a separate speaker, which typically is a Leslie, named after its inventor Donald Leslie. The speaker combines an amplifier and a two-way loudspeaker that does not only project the signal from an electronic instrument but also modifies the sound by rotating the loudspeakers. While the Leslie is most closely associated with the Hammond, it was later also used for electric guitars and other instruments.

Due to its versatility and sound, the B-3 became very popular and has been used in all types of music, whether it’s gospel, jazz, blues, funk or rock. One of the artists who helped popularize the instrument was jazz musician Jimmy Smith. Some of the famous rock and blues musicians who have played this amazing organ include Booker T. Jones, Billy Preston, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, Gregg Allman, Steve Winwood and Gregg Rolie.

Jazz organist Jimmy Smith

The last original Hammond B-3 organs were manufactured in 1973. The Hammond Organ Company started to struggle financially in the 1970s and went out of business in 1975. The Hammond brand and rights were acquired by Hammond Organ Australia. Eventually, Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation signed a distribution agreement with the Australian company before purchasing the name outright in 1991 and rebranding it as Hammond-Suzuki.

In 2002, Hammond-Suzuki introduced the New B-3, a re-creation of the original instrument using contemporary electronics and a digital tonewheel simulator. The New B-3 is constructed to appear like the original B-3, and the designers attempted to retain the subtle nuances of the familiar B-3 sound. A review by Hugh Robjohns in the July 2003 issue of Sound on Sound concludes, “the New B3 really does emulate every aspect of the original in sounds, looks and feel.”

Following are a few examples of rock songs that prominently feature a Hammond B-3.

Gimme Some Lovin’/Spencer Davis Group (Steve Winwood)

Jingo/Santana (Gregg Rolie)

Just Another Rider/Gregg Allman

There is perhaps no better way to finish the post than with this amazing demonstration of the Hammond B-3 by Booker T. Jones. Watching his joy while playing the instrument and listening to the anecdotes in-between the songs is priceless.

-END-

This post was originally published on June 5, 2017. It has been slightly edited. The Spotify list is an addition.

Following is a Spotify playlist featuring the above and some additional prominent Hammond B-3 players.

Sources: Wikipedia; History of the Hammond B-3 Organ (Glen E. Nelson); Hammond USA website; Sound on Sound; YouTube; NPR

Celebration Day All Over Again

In 2007, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin – Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones – reunited for a tribute concert for Ahmet Ertegün, which they performed on December 10 that year at London’s O2 Arena, together with drummer Jason Bonham, son of the late John Bonham. This Saturday, that show will stream live on Led Zeppelin’s YouTube channel at 8:00 p.m. BST (3:00 p.m. EST).

Ertegün was the co-founder and president of Atlantic Records, the label that issued the band’s first five albums. Zep’s tribute gig was their first full-length show in almost three decades. The tribute opened with an all-star band, including Keith Emerson, Chris Squire, Alan White and Simon Kirke, who were backed by the brass section from Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings. The concert also featured Paul Rodgers, Paolo Nutini and Foreigner as supporting acts, who played together with the Rhythm Kings as well. Other guests on the Rhythm Kings’ set were Maggie Bell and Alvin Lee.

Zep’s show, the headliner of the event, has been captured in various formats, including a limited big screen release in October 2012, DVD, home audio and CD. My streaming music provider includes the latter, and I listened to it this morning. While perhaps not quite as outstanding as Cream’s 2005 reunion concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, I think it’s pretty great stuff, especially, once you get past the opener Good Times Bad Times, where to me Plant sounds like he’s holding back a bit.

I’m certainly planning to watch this Saturday. Apparently, the stream will be up for two or three days. Here are two clips – a little appetizer, if you want! First up: Black Dog, from Led Zeppelin IV, the band’s forth studio album released in November 1971. The song was co-written by Page, Plant and Jones.

And here’s Kashmir, from Physical Graffiti. Co-written by Bonham, Page and Plant, I’ve always found this tune both a bit weird, yet brilliant at the same time. Physical Graffiti, which appeared in February 1975, was Zep’s sixth studio album, and the first record they released on their own label Swan Song Records, which the band had launched in May 1974.

Sources: Wikipedia; Facebook; YouTube

If You Can’t See The One You Love, See The One You Can – Part 2

As more frequent visitors of the blog know, I generally dig tribute bands and wrote a feature about some of them about a year ago. While then I did not plan a part 2, the reality is I’ve seen many more tribute acts than I could ever feature in one post. So, who knows, this may turn into a series of occasional posts with additional parts in the future. For now, I’d like to focus on part 2. Since I couldn’t figure out in which order to lists the acts, I decided to do so alphabetically.

Almost Queen

As their name suggests, this band is a tribute to Queen. While I could not find public information on the backgrounds of the musicians, these guys from New York surely impressed me when I saw them last September at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J. Almost Queen are Joseph Russo as Freddie Mercury, Steve Leonard as Brian May, Randy Gregg as John Deacon and John Cappadona as Roger Taylor. Their delivery of four-part harmonies and Queen’s music, combined with their looks, make for a fun live experience. More information on the band and their impressive touring schedule that extends beyond the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, can be found on their website and Facebook page. Here’s a sample: We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions.

Beginnings

This tribute to Chicago is one of the most compelling tribute bands I’ve seen, and without meaning to brag, I’ve seen many! Another group from New York, Beginnings is a national act, performing over 100 shows each year – great news for Chicago fans. Founded in the fall of 2002, the band consists of Mason Swearingen (bass, vocals), Johnny Roggio (guitar, vocals), Dan Hendrix (trombone, percussion, vocals), Adam Seely (saxophone, percussion), Doug Woolverton (trumpet, percussion), Scott Chasolen (keyboards, vocals) and Chris Milillo (drums, vocals). Beginnings’ impressive member credits include recording and performing with artists like Peter Frampton, Don Henley, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations and Blood Sweat & Tears, and awards like the Billboard Songwriter’s Award and ASCAP Songwriter’s Award – frankly, way too many credits I can list here! Check out their website and Facebook page for more information. Here’s a great rendition of Just You ‘N’ Me I saw during a recent summer concert. BTW, the band mostly focuses on Chicago’s early and in my opinion best work.

Brit Floyd

This amazing tribute to Pink Floyd is the brainchild of musical director Damian Darlington, who also provides vocals and plays guitar and lap steel. Prior to forming the band in Liverpool, England in 2011, he had played for 17 years with long-running Aussie tribute The Australian Pink Floyd Show. The other members of Brit Floyd include Rob Stringer (keyboards, vocals), Ian Cattell (bass, vocals Chapman Stick, trumpet), Edo Scordo (guitar, vocals), Arran Ahmum (drums), Thomas Ashbrook (keyboards, vocals), as well as backing vocalists Ola Bienkowska, Angela Cervantes, Roberta Freeman,  Emily Jollands and Jacquie Williams – quite a mighty line-up! For more on this band, read my previous post from March of this year when I saw them in Bethlehem, Pa., and visit their website and Facebook page. Here’s Brit Floyd with Pink Floyd classic Comfortably Numb.

Decade

I have mentioned Decade on previous occasions, but as a huge Neil Young fan, I simply couldn’t resist to include this fantastic tribute from New Jersey in this post. The band revolves around singer-songwriter and Neil Young tribute artist John Hathaway. A life-long fan of Young, Hathaway has faithfully studied this artist in and out, and it shows. While he typically focuses on capturing the music, he can also act like Young, which I have witnessed myself. To bring the Canadian artist’s music to life in its full mighty, Hathaway is usually backed by a varying line-up of other long-time musicians. This clip of Old Man was captured during a gig earlier this year at Tim McLoone’s Super Club in Asbury Park. The backing musicians that night included Gordon Bunker Strout (guitar, backing vocals), Pam McCoy (backing vocals), John Dickson (bass), Bob Giunco (drums), Thomas Stevenson (banjo),  Dave O’Brien (pedal steel guitar), Jeff Levine (keyboards) and James Doyle (guitar, banjo). More information about Decade and John Hathaway is available on Facebook here and here.

The Doobie Others

I really dig The Doobie Brothers, so a tribute I came across last month caught my immediate attention. Ingeniously called The Doobie Others, this six-piece band from New York and New Jersey features Pat Montefusco (lead vocals, guitar), Joe Torres (lead vocals, percussion), Eddie Profet Jr. (bass, backing vocals), Allan Korenstein (keyboards, backing vocals), Mike Quadrino (saxophone, keyboards, backing vocals), Ron Lovisa (lead guitar) and Jim Del (lead & backing vocals, drums). While The Doobie Others mostly seem to perform in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area, their current schedule shows they occasionally venture out to other states on the East Coast. For more information, check their website and Facebook page. Here’s the band in action with Jesus Is Just Alright. Captured during a summer concert last month, the footage doesn’t do their high musical caliber full justice, but I feel you still get a good idea.

Free Fallin

This band from Minneapolis is a great tribute to Tom Petty, one of my all-time favorite artists. Founded in September 2007 and named after one of Petty’s songs, Free Fallin  are Tom Brademeyer (as Tom Petty, guitar & lead vocals), Mark Larsen (as Stan Lynch, drums), Russ Lund (as Ron Blair, bass), Karl Swartz (as Mike Campbell, guitar & vocals), Dale Peterson  (as Benmont Tench, keyboards, percussion & vocals) and Craig Volke (as Scott Thurston, guitar, keyboards, harmonica, percussion & vocals). Free Fallin is a full-time tribute band performing throughout the U.S. and even internationally. Check out their website and Facebook page, as well as this cover of Refugee from last year’s Rock The Farm Festival in Seaside Heights, N.J., which I previously covered here.

Good Stuff

Good Stuff is another outstanding tribute act I covered before here, but similar to Decade, I did not want to leave them out – how could I as a huge Steely Dan fan? Formed about a year ago and named after a Donald Fagen tune, Good Stuff features Mike Caputo (lead vocals), Don Regan  (guitar), Axel Belohoubek  (keyboards), Jay Dittamo  (drums), Scott Hogan (bass), Phil Armeno (saxophones, flute) and vocalists  Deanna Carroll and Linda Ferrano. Among them, these professional musicians have very impressive credits, such as tour pre-production for Madonna and David Bowie, and touring musicians for Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, The Duprees , The Les Paul Trio, Jose Feliciano and  Keith Emerson – yep, that Keith of ELP. Similar to Beginnings, there is too much to list. I should also mention that in addition to Steely Dan, the band performs music by Gino Vannelli, Sting and Stevie Wonder. While this may look somewhat arbitrary, combining music from these four artists works pretty well. The key is selecting songs that have a common denominator, which is a jazz influence. Check out more about this unique tribute act on their website and Facebook page. Oh, and here’s My Old School.

Kiss The Sky

With the 50th anniversary of Woodstock going on, I’d like to close this post with a compelling tribute act to Jimi Hendrix. Again, if you are a frequent reader of the blog, the name Kiss The Sky may sound familiar, since I covered them before here. The band revolves around Jimi Hendrix tribute artist Jimy Bleu, who actually met Hendrix in 1968 as a teenager. The following year, Bleu attended Woodstock and got one of the guitar straps Hendrix used during his performance there. You can read more about his cool background story in the above post. Kiss The Sky covers music from both the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys. Bleu’s excellent backing musicians for The Experience include bassist A.J. Hager as Noel Redding and drummer Ted Edwards as Mitch Mitchell. The Band of Gypsys tribute features Jay Powerz as Billy Cox (bass) and James Jaxon as Buddy Miles (drums). You can find more information about this tribute act on their Facebook page. I also encourage you to check out this clip of Voodoo Child I took last October. Filming conditions weren’t ideal, but I think the footage still gives a good impression about this outstanding band.

Pictured in the image on top of the post are (clockwise from upper left corner) Almost Queen, Beginnings, Brit Floyd and Jimy Bleu/Kiss The Sky.

Sources: Almost Queen website and Facebook page; Beginnings website and Facebook page; Brit Floyd website and Facebook page; Decade and John Hathaway Facebook pages; The Doobie Others website and Facebook page; Free Fallin website and Facebook page; Good Stuff website and Facebook page; Kiss The Sky Facebook page; YouTube

 

Good Stuff Celebrates Great Music of Steely Dan, Gino Vannelli, Sting And Stevie Wonder

At first sight, Steely Dan, Gino Vannelli, Sting and Stevie Wonder don’t seem to have many things in common. Of course, each are distinguished artists who became successful during an era when you could easily find great music, even on mainstream radio. Music that involved true craftsmanship. Music that had soul. Music that would grab you. Music that would want you to learn how to play an instrument yourself. At least, that’s what it did to me when I was in my young teens!

While I’m afraid the days when great music was part of the top 40 charts and all you really needed to do find it was switching on the radio are largely gone, there’s something very powerful about great music: It’s here to stay, in some cases even for more than 200 years, when you think about classical composers. And it should be celebrated. Enter Good Stuff, a unique tribute band to the above noted artists.

Mike Caputo, founder and lead vocalist of Good Stuff

As regular visitors of the blog know, I enjoy going to tribute shows and have done so quite frequently in recent years. This has included truly outstanding bands, and I’ve written about many of them in the past. Because of that my good blogger buddy Music Enthusiast has even jokingly called me The King of Tribute Bands. And why not? After all, there’s a king of pop, a king of rock & roll, a queen of soul, etc., so wouldn’t you agree it’s appropriate to have a king of tribute bands?😀

Most tribute acts I’ve seen focus on one particular artist or band. So when vocalist Mike Caputo, whom I’ve known for a couple of years, told me he was putting together a tribute band to celebrate the music of Steely Dan, Gino Vannelli, Sting and Stevie Wonder, frankly, I was a bit skeptical at first. Steely Dan made total sense to me. Mike has been a singer, songwriter and musician for more than five decades. From his previous longtime tenure as lead vocalist of a Steely Dan tribute band, I knew he nails the voice of Donald Fagen. But adding three other artists to the mix? Well, it may not be a common concept, but Good Stuff surely pull it off beautifully. And once you listen to their setlist, you realize these songs really work well together.

Good Stuff (clockwise): Mike Caputo, Don Regan, Axel Belohoubek, Deanna Carroll, Jay Dittamo, Scott Hogan, Phil Armeno and Linda Ferrano

Of course, it’s not only about selecting the “right” music from four different artists; it also takes great musicians to implement the concept. Which brings me to the band: Don Regan (guitar), Axel Belohoubek (keyboards), Deanna Carroll (vocals), Jay Dittamo (drums), Scott Hogan (bass), Phil Armeno (saxophones, flute) and Linda Ferrano (vocals). Linda is a recent addition to Good Stuff and alternates vocal duties with Deanna. All of these guys are professional musicians; most of them have been for more than three decades with impressive accomplishments.

For example, Alex’s credits include tour pre-production for Madonna and David Bowie. Phil was a touring backing musician for Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and The Duprees in the 70s. Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley? Only the thought of playing with these rock & roll pioneers would give me acid reflux. And Phil is so moderate about it! Or take Jay. He has performed nationally and internationally with artists like The Les Paul Trio, Jose Feliciano and Keith Emerson (yep, that Keith of ELP). Scott, the youngest member of the band and a student of Don, has toured with pop group Hanson, Bernie Worrel Orchestra and The Shirelles, among others. In addition to Good Stuff, almost all members also play solo or in other bands. Not surprisingly, all this impressive experience shows!

Time to get to some music! Half of Good Stuff’s show features Steely Dan tunes. As such, the band appropriately selected a name that not only reflects the music they play but is also related to Steely Dan, or more precisely to Donald Fagen. Good Stuff is a Fagen tune from his fourth studio album Sunken Condos released in October 2012. The song I’d like to highlight here is My Old School. Co-written by Fagen and Walter Becker, the tune appeared on Steely Dan’s second studio album Countdown to Ecstasy from July 1973.

Gino Vannelli is the one artist in the mix I’m much less familiar with than the others. Among the handful of his tunes I know and dig is Brother To Brother, the title track of his sixth studio record from September 1978. It’s a jazzy and pretty complex tune, which I think measures up nicely to the Aja album, the gem in Steely Dan’s catalog.

Next up: Sting. Good Stuff has decided to focus on featuring material from the ex-Police man’s fourth solo effort: the excellent Ten Summoner’s Tales, which happens to be my favorite Sting album. Here’s Heavy Cloud No Rain. Like the majority of the album’s tracks, the tune was entirely written by Sting.

The last song I’d like to call out is Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing by Stevie Wonder. This great tune is from his 16th studio album Innervisions, which is widely considered to be one of the highlights of Wonder’s long catalog. He is one of my all-time favorite artists, and I would have loved to see him last year in Atlantic City during his short summer tour. But with ticket prices starting at $350, it was simply impossible.

It’s still relatively early days for Good Stuff. So far, they haven’t ventured beyond New Jersey. In fact, next Saturday, March 23, they will play Tim McLoone’s Supper Club, a great performance venue in Asbury Park, the hotbed of Jersey’s music scene. Mike told me he is starting to receive an increasing amount of queries from agents, including from out of state. As such, folks who do not reside in the Garden State may get a chance to see the band in the future. In case you’d like to further check them out, visit their website or Facebook page.

Sources: Wikipedia, Good Stuff website, YouTube

The Hardware: The Hammond B-3

I’ve decided to introduce a new category on the blog I’m calling The Hardware, where I’m going to take a look at instruments and technology that have had an important impact on rock music. Admittedly, my general understanding of technology is limited, so these posts will definitely be a bit of a lift for me. While I anticipate things may become a bit technical at times, I’m certainly not planning to go overboard.

With that being said, I’d like to get started by taking a look at an instrument I’ve admired from the very first time I heard it, which is probably longer than I want to remember: The legendary Hammond B-3 organ.

The Hammond organ was designed and built by American engineers and inventors Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935 by the Hammond Organ Company in Chicago. Following the original, the Hammond A, numerous other models were introduced, including the legendary B-3 in 1954.

The Hammond B-3 is a tone wheel organ. These types of organs generate sound by mechanical toothed wheels, that rotate in front of electromagnetic pickups. The B-3 has 91 tone wheels located inside the console. Together with the so-called drawbars, they give the instrument its incredible sound versatility. According to Glen E. Nelson, a “Hammond B-3 can all at once sound like a carnival, a big band, a horn section, a small jazz combo, a funk group, a percussion section, a flute, and/or countless other things.”

The organ has nine drawbars that represent the nine most important harmonics. “Each drawbar has eight degrees to which it can be literally “drawn” or pulled, out of the console of the organ, the eighth being the loudest, and all the way in being silence,” explains Nelson. The drawbars and the way each can be adjusted individually allow to create an enormous amount of different sounds, such as flute, trumpet or violin-like sounds.

In spite of its impressive size, the B-3 does not have a built in speaker. As such, it needs to be run through a separate speaker, which typically is a Leslie, named after its inventor Donald Leslie. The speaker combines an amplifier and a two-way loudspeaker that does not only project the signal from an electronic instrument but also modifies the sound by rotating the loudspeakers. While the Leslie is most closely associated with the Hammond, it was later also used for electric guitars and other instruments.

Due to its versatility and sound, the B-3 became very popular and has been used in all types of music, whether it’s gospel, jazz, blues, funk or rock. One of the artists who helped popularize the instrument was jazz musician Jimmy Smith. Some of the famous rock and blues musicians who have played this amazing organ include Booker T. Jones, Billy Preston, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, Gregg Allman, Steve Winwood and Gregg Rolie.

The last original Hammond B-3 organs were manufactured in 1973. The Hammond Organ Company started to struggle financially in the 1970s and went out of business in 1975. The Hammond brand and rights were acquired by Hammond Organ Australia. Eventually, Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation signed a distribution agreement with the Australian company before purchasing the name outright in 1991 and rebranding it as Hammond-Suzuki.

In 2002, Hammond-Suzuki introduced the New B-3, a re-creation of the original instrument using contemporary electronics and a digital tone wheel simulator. The New B-3 is constructed to appear like the original B-3, and the designers attempted to retain the subtle nuances of the familiar B-3 sound. A review by Hugh Robjohns in the July 2003 issue of Sound on Sound concludes, “the New B3 really does emulate every aspect of the original in sounds, looks and feel.”

Following are a few examples of rock songs that prominently feature a Hammond B-3.

Gimme Some Lovin’/Spencer Davis Group (Steve Winwood)

Jingo/Santana (Gregg Rolie)

Just Another Rider/Gregg Allman

There is perhaps no better way to finish the post than with this amazing presentation of the Hammond B-3 from Booker T. Jones. Watching his joy while playing the instrument and listening to the anecdotes in-between the songs is priceless.

Sources: Wikipedia; History of the Hammond B-3 Organ (Glen E. Nelson); Hammond USA website; Sound on Sound; YouTube; NPR