History of the Laurens Hammond and Don Leslie

The Story of the Hammond Organ

The Hammond organ was invented by a French watchmaker named Laurence Hammond. He had a variety of inventions and projects underway, and he came up with the idea of creating a mechanical tone wheel generator. This generator could produce tones using:

• Little cogs with spacers
• Spinning through an electric current
• Generating sound along the way

Essentially, he created the first synthesizer. In the 1930s, Hammond intended for his organs to be standalone units.

The Innovation of Don Leslie

Then entered Don Leslie, who loved the organ sound but desired more movement and intriguing possibilities. He invented a speaker featuring:

• A rotating horn
• A rotating bass speaker

This allowed the organ to be played with added dynamism. Over the years, Hammond and Leslie had many disagreements, as Laurence Hammond was hesitant to let Don use his speakers with the Hammond organ. He kept changing the inputs and outputs, making it difficult for Leslie to use them. Ultimately, the two eventually became friends, but it took considerable time.

My Hammond Organ

I found my Hammond on eBay, which is quite standard for these instruments. It's a 1963 (possibly 1962) C3 with red caps inside instead of white caps. The:

• White caps are an older type of capacitor with slightly different components.

My Hammond is a workhorse organ. It's not a beautiful studio piece; in fact, it's chopped in half for easier transportation. There's a line where it separates, allowing for the top half to be lifted off.

This design makes it somewhat portable instead of weighing an absolute ton. It's been in and out of more vans than I can remember, so it genuinely does its job well.

While there are organs that sound smoother and silkier, this isn't one of them. This is a true touring workhorse organ.