The Organ Its Inventor Couldn't Play: The Hammond B-3 Story

In 1937, inside the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago, listeners sat in the pews and tried to tell a $75,000 pipe organ from a $2,600 wooden cabinet full of spinning wheels. The government had accused its maker of false advertising. And the man who invented it couldn't have told the difference himself. Laurens Hammond couldn't play his own organ, and by his own account he couldn't even carry a tune. Hammond made his fortune with an electric clock, bought a second-hand piano for $15, and built an organ out of tonewheels spun by a clock motor, so it could never drift out of tune. The patent came through in 1934, and the Model A went on sale in June 1935 for $1,193. Henry Ford ordered six. In three years, more than 1,750 churches bought one, and by 1966 about 50,000 churches had a Hammond. In the mid-1950s came the B-3, with 91 tonewheels, harmonic percussion and more than 400 pounds of wood and steel, for $2,745. Before 1956, the Hammond was a church organ. By 1970, it was the sound of jazz clubs, gospel choirs and Deep Purple. Jimmy Smith rented a warehouse to learn it, then made around 40 sessions for Blue Note. Booker T. built Green Onions on it, Procol Harum topped the charts with it, and Jon Lord plugged one into a Marshall stack. Every quirk Hammond's engineers fought to remove, from the key click to the tonewheel leakage to the tube growl, became the sound players loved. The last B-3s were built from leftover parts in 1975, and in 2002 Hammond-Suzuki put those "defects" back in digitally. Inside this documentary: The 1937 government hearing: Hammond vs. a $75,000 pipe organ Laurens Hammond: clocks, 3D glasses and a card-shuffling bridge table Tonewheels, drawbars and a $15 piano The church organ that sold to 50,000 churches The B-3: harmonic percussion and a 12-second start switch Jimmy Smith and the organ trio Key click, crosstalk and growl: the "faults" players loved Booker T., Procol Harum, Winwood, Gregg Allman and Jon Lord's Marshall The X-66, the last B-3 and the end of the Hammond Organ Company Suzuki and the New B-3 This episode includes your Hammond stories from the Leslie episode. Thank you, Robert, Jeff, Rich and Tony. Did you ever play a B-3 or C-3 in church, in a club or in a band? How many people did it take to move yours? What's your favorite drawbar setting? Tell us in the comments. If we got a date, a model or a name wrong, tell us there too. We read every comment and pin every correction. Sources Hammond organ, Leslie speaker, Jimmy Smith, Wikipedia Rumors and facts about Hammond and Leslie, Hammond Organ Club Holland: https://hammondclub.nl/nl/menu/Artike... Hammond B3, National Music Centre: https://nmc.emuseum.com/objects/245/h... Jon Lord biography: https://jonlord.org/a-biography/ Mark Vail, The Hammond Organ: Beauty in the B (Backbeat Books, 2002) More from this series: The Spinning Speaker Hammond Refused to Sell: The Leslie Story →    • The Spinning Speaker Hammond Refused to Se...   The Tube That Taught the Guitar to Scream: The 12AX7 Story →    • The Tube That Taught the Guitar to Scream:...   The Dutch Tube That Became the Sound of British Rock →    • The Dutch Tube That Became the Sound of Br...   The Heavyweight Tube: The KT88 and 6550 Story →    • The Heavyweight Tube: The KT88 and 6550 Story   The Transistor That Almost Killed the Tube Amp →    • The Transistor That Almost Killed the Tube...   The Tube Behind Clapton's Bluesbreaker Sound: The KT66 Story →    • The Tube Behind Clapton's Bluesbreaker Sou...