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It was a quiet street in Bay City, if there are any quiet streets in this beatnik generation where you can't get through a meal without some male or female stomach singer belching out a kind of love that is as old-fashioned as a bustle or some Hammond organ jazzing it up in the customer's soup.
"The Pencil" by Raymond Chandler
"You can't have a monkey in Poodle Springs. You have to have a poodle. I have a beauty coming. Black as coal and very talented. He's had piano lessons. Perhaps he can play the Hammond organ in the house."
"We got a Hammond organ? Now that's something I've always dreamed of doing without."
"Poodle Springs" by Raymond Chandler (and Robert B. Parker)
Somehow, a web search for "Hammond" and "poodle" takes you to the A Whiter Shade of Pale homepage, dedicated to Procol Harum's 1967 hit with it's searing Hammond theme. Apparently there is a poodle dog with a "Procolian name", and it ain't Frunobulax (or Phydeaux).
Mark Vail's book "Beauty in the B", whose very pithy full title is "Keyboard presents The Hammond organ: beauty in the B" includes a reproduction of a Hammond ad with a poodle ogling a "French Provincial" Hammond A-102. The caption quotes Richard Goodsell of Numerous Complaints Music to the effect that the A-102 is Hammond's "most hideous" model. Actually, this slur is repeated twice, once opposite the page bearing the image of a truly godawful "Early American" A-143. (Guess which tonewheel model this author owns.)
"Beauty in the B" is noted for containing lots of factual errors, so I guess a serious lack of esthetic judgment should come as no surprise. In another example of dubious fact checking, the dates of production for the S-series chord organs is given as April, 1962 to December, 1966, which would probably surprise the thousands who bought chord organs in the 1950s.
Mr. Goodsell was kind enough to clarify his views on French Provincial styling in a note to the author:
I'm Richard Goodsell of Numerous Complaints Music, LLC in Atlanta, GA, and I accidentally came across your goofy Hammond page late tonight while piddling around with Google... and while I agree that there a couple of innocent, modest factual missteps in Mark Vail's book (I was one of several he interviewed during the writing), there is no way one can defend the combining of French Provincial styling (which stands alone as the most gaudy and tacky on the planet) with undeniably hip innards that the A102 shares with the B3. This is not a lack of aesthetic judgement, but rather the very valid observation that those who show up in an urban gospel church or a rock 'n' roll stage with an organ with those legs runs the risk of being beaten to death with a claw hammer by an angry mob, and rightfully so. After carefully removing the manuals, tone generator, and pre-amp we routinely chain saw the French organ bodies so that they fit in the dumpster better... hideous doesn't even begin to describe the entire genre of "French Provincial".. the A102 makes about as much sense as a Citreon 2CV on a NASCAR track. It's like comparing Celine Dion to Aretha Franklin... I could go on, but I think maybe you get the picture.
I had no idea Mr. Goodsell was such a big Celine Dion fan.
Snookers: [crawling under the organ] "Hey Raoul, do you know your organ's oozing oil?"
Raoul: "Sure!"
[sings and plays]
Your organ's oozing oil! (di-dee-di)
Your piano's started to spoil!
Everything has gone wrong,
Now you can't play your song,
That's what happens when you lose your goil!
Hey!
Snookers: [grunts in pain]
from "The Tooth Fairy" by Dick Orkin and Co. (quoted from memory, from the Larry Lujack show on WLS-AM about 1972 or so). In this long-running radio serial, Orkin played mild-mannered dentist Newton J. Snookers, who had a secret identity -- the Tooth Fairy. Snookers worked for kindly Dr. Armadingo (inventor of the molar inversion technique), who employed Raoul Feldheiser to play the Mammoth Dental Organ to soothe his patients. Armadingo and his Brooklyn-born receptionist (whose name escapes me) were aware of Snookers' secret identity, and assisted in his crime- and tooth-decay-fighting activities.
Based on the success of "The Tooth Fairy" and its predecessor "Chickenman", both of which were syndicated nationwide, Orkin and Co. went on to become very large cheeses in radio advertising. For many years a Chicago resident, Orkin has long since headed west, and now runs the Radio Ranch, where he attempts to teach the method to his madness. His voice can still be heard on numerous radio spots in Chicago and nationwide.
"Hey baby, my organ requires four strong men to move it!"
(It only goes downhill from there.)
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