Hello and welcome to the Yorkshire hillside for another episode in the compelling series as (not) seen on TV, ‘Interesting Electronic Keyboards of the Sixties and Seventies’ or as I like to call it ‘Round The Wold in Eighty-One Keys’ (eat your heart out Michael Palin !)

Look, I know you’re all aware of the format by now but bear with me. I’ll keep the history and techie stuff to a minimum or you can skip to the artists bit and the Spotify list and go ‘I didn’t realise that’ or ‘I remember that one’.

Hammond organs were invented by Lauren Hammond and John M Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. The much favoured B3 was in production from 1954 to 1974. And what makes a B3 so different I hear you ask ? The shape and construction basically. The internal circuitry was the same as the C3 and the A 100, but then you probably new that.

It’s got two keyboards and (originally) foot pedals, draw bars that give you octaves, harmonics and sub harmonics. Nobs and levers for ‘harmonic percussion’,vibrato and chorus and if you run it through a Leslie 122 cabinet with it’s rotating speaker, woofer with baffle you get some seriously hot shit !………….according to Google but I may be paraphrasing.

Just getting the damn thing to go requires both a start and run switch. You probably have to double de-clutch too. The main thing is it’s all valves and mechanics with not a microchip in sight. Not then anyway.

So, who plays or played the B3 ?

I think we must doff our caps to 2 pioneers of the instrument from the 50s, Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff. These guys are the grandfathers of this unique organ sound. There is a specific draw bar setting called the ‘Jimmy Smith’ used by all and sundry these days.

The sixties brought us the Rhythm and Blues standard ‘Green Onions‘ by Booker T and the MGs. Small Faces (and Faces) keyboard player, Ian McLagan was one of the first UK rock players. Steve Winwood had hardly hung up his blazer when he brought his gutsy sound to the Spencer Davies Group and who can forget that rock anthem that the former Zombie, Rod Argent brought to his band. While Crazy Arthur Brown was frying his noggin with an ill conceived tin helmet, Vincent Crane was cremating the keys on ‘Fire’.

In the 70s another B3 ambassador was the late, great Jon Lord of Deep Purple, smoking on the water.

The simple one note cha-cha-cha by Santana‘s Gregg Rolie on ‘Oye Como Va‘ certainly gets my juices flowing and a personal favourite of mine is Tower of Power‘s Chester Thompson on ‘Squib Cakes‘. Man ! That cat is cookin’.

A shout out to the prog lads Messrs. Emerson, Wakeman and Van Leer too.

These days you can get a digital download for your computer that …….blah, blah blah !

In the 70s I worked in a music shop and have stood in the presence of a Hammond B3 through a Leslie speaker in full flight and it’s like a religious experience with it’s luscious encapsulating sound and Doppler effect (you know the changing ambulance siren sound as it hurtles by…………or a very fast ice cream van !)

If I had any money or a modicum of talent the B3 would certainly be on my bucket list. I’m just not sure if I could justify the cost of 4 roadies to move the bugger !

(Post by John Allan of Bridgetown, Western Australia – December 2024)