The Hammond electric organ was invented in 1934 and was originally intended to be sold to churches as a cheaper alternative to big expensive pipe organs. Their model B-3 became very popular with jazz, rock, and blues musicians in the 1960s and 70s. There’s nothing quite like the sound of a Hammond B-3 organ. Don’t believe me? Have a listen.

The Hassles “A Taste Of Honey” (Bobby Scott)
Most people think that Billy Joel’s commercial career began with the band Attila, which is famous for releasing one of the worst rock albums of all time. But before the Piano Man joined that band he was part of the Hassles.

Because I had only previously heard Herb Albert’s instrumental version I was surprised to discover that this song has lyrics.

Fred Van Zegveld “I Wanna Be Your Man” (The Rolling Stones)
Fred showcases just about every Hammond riff ever conceived by the human mind in this song. It’s almost like it was recorded by Hammond’s sales department.

Bangor Flying Circus “Norwegian Wood” (The Beatles)
Another Hammond workout, this time with scat singing! Special thanks to Uncle Flakey for saving me the trouble of digitizing my vinyl copy of this.

Deep Purple “Hush” (Joe South)
One of my friends on Facebook did one of those silly “top five” lists that you see so often over there. It was Five Albums That Shaped Me. Being a music freak I picked five albums of my own. My friends weren’t surprised that I declared that I was “shaped” by albums by Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Camper Van Beethoven, or George Carlin. But people expressed surprise that I listed Deep Purple’s Machine Head.

I was a huge Deep Purple fan in high school and listened to their music quite a bit. At that time Classic Rock radio ruled the airwaves and the Holy Musical Trinity for all my peers was the Stones, the Who, and Led Zeppelin. I was sick of hearing those bands by the time I was out of high school. Deep Purple wasn’t played as much as the other Classic Rot staples and so sounded relatively fresh and different to me. And I challenge anybody to listen to “Lazy” from Machine Head and not say that it’s a damn fine song.

Korla Pandit “Miserlou” (Dick Dale)
There was this black guy from St. Louis named John Redd. In the 1940s he moved to Los Angeles, stuck a turban on his head and started passing himself off to whitebread America as an exotic musician from India named Korla Pandit.

This new thing called television was just being invented. Those being simpler times he got himself a TV show that consisted entirely of him gazing inscrutably into the camera while he played his organ, never uttering a word or cracking a smile. His work was also nationally syndicated via short films that were much like his TV show .

Unfortunately Mr. Pandit lost the syndication gig because of a contract dispute. The syndicator hired Liberace to replace him, which launched Liberace on the road to flamboyant stardom. If things had worked out differently there might be a Korla Pandit museum in Las Vegas today.

Special thanks to Doctor Cyclops for cluing me in to Mr. Pandit.