Comments on: Don Leslie birthday

Don Leslie birthday

Waslijn — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:01:50 -0800

One hundred years ago Don Leslie was born. Leslie invented the Leslie speaker that made the Hammond organ famous. Listen to Svoogaloo by Sven Hammond Soul and the Organ grinder's swing by Jimmy Smith and my favorite Billy's Bag by Billy Preston.

On Dutch radio it was Happy Leslie day today. And Rundfunk recorded a mixtape with lots of Hammond organ songs and Leslie speakers.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:26:32 -0800

Awesome, thank you.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:26:56 -0800

Sven appears to know that although roses on your piano is good, "tulips on your organ" is even better!

By: lantius

lantius — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:27:36 -0800

No wonder the sound has so much body.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:42:52 -0800

Sven is great, but he's cheating a bit – he has a bassist.

By: mazola

mazola — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:59:24 -0800

t ^h i _s i ^s g _o o^d ! _!!

By: mazola

mazola — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:00:28 -0800

I mean, a post about the leslie speaker is good. It's not good that Don Leslie died. . and all that

By: Brainy

Brainy — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:08:22 -0800

Even though it's been years since I was in a surf band, seeing the words Leslie makes me instantly think "Farfisa" and I get a bolt of joy.

By: rocket88

rocket88 — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:23:08 -0800

For his solo on Zeppelin's Good Times Bad Times, Jimmy Page played his telecaster through Leslie speakers. It's definitely a unique sound.

By: Ber

Ber — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:27:02 -0800

That gorgeous ping at the beginning of Pink Floyd's classic Echoes is a grand piano being played through a Leslie. The extremely filthy bass guitar sound John Paul Jones got on Zeppelin's Heartbreaker was also achieved with a Leslie.

By: hal9k

hal9k — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:30:27 -0800

Everyone who loves the sound of a leslie should have to lift one into an Econoline van every night for a year. Extra credit: with a B3 organ.

By: hal9k

hal9k — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:33:07 -0800

The extremely filthy bass guitar sound John Paul Jones got on Zeppelin's Heartbreaker was also achieved with a Leslie. Just a guess: were Plant's vocals leslied in (Hats Off To) Roy Harper?

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:35:41 -0800

The thing I love about the Leslie (aside from the sound, of course, which is awesome) is how fuckin' weird the thing looks. You look at this old concert footage from the 60s and 70s, there's all these hard-rockin' bands blowing up their drumkits and snarling about the war and saying Fuck You to the man, and all the while there's like a little Victorian hope chest squatting on the stage amid the brambles of black wires and dull metal speakers, amps and monitors, axes and aces. What the hell is that thing? It looks like it should have a doily and a tablelamp on it, like your grandma should have a dish of inedible hard candy sitting on it. It can't be a speaker, it has no front. Just those little slits along the top. That doesn't look like rock and roll. Which makes the Leslie the most rock and roll of all.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:41:22 -0800

Coincidentally, just minutes ago I ordered a rotary electrical connector from Mercotac. I'm planning on making a rotating speaker, and when I mentioned that to the engineer there, he said that Don Leslie was his uncle. They sell these parts mainly for wind-powered generators now, and the company is a spin-off from his uncle's work. I mentioned that in my experience the Leslie speaker always gets an enthusiastic positive reaction whenever it's mentioned.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:41:23 -0800

Everyone who loves the sound of a leslie should have to lift one into an Econoline van every night for a year. Extra credit: with a B3 organ. Been there more than you know.

By: FishBike

FishBike — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:01:59 -0800

We had an Electrohome organ when I was growing up, and it had a Leslie speaker inside it. Normally I could only hear it, but even then I could tell it was somehow mechanical in nature. I did once get a chance to see it, though, when my dad had the organ partly disassembled to fix something. It was such a weird-looking mechanism, like something your imagination invents during strange childhood dreams, before you know how anything really works.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:10:48 -0800

The Vibratone. The Earl of Whirl.

By: cccorlew

cccorlew — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:12:58 -0800

Give the Leslie Some Lovin'

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:19:22 -0800

Deep Purple's "Hey Joe".

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:29:05 -0800

Everyone who loves the sound of a leslie should have to lift one into an Econoline van every night for a year. Extra credit: with a B3 organ. posted by hal9k Without the Leslie, your electronic organ sounds a lot like your alarm clock. Sorry if they are heavy.

By: mazola

mazola — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:07:34 -0800

Everyone who loves the sound of a leslie should have to lift one into an Econoline van every night for a year. Extra credit: with a B3 organ. posted by hal9k I've done my rock'n'roll duty. Extra extra credit if you had to load/unload said B3 into a practice space that was on the third floor of a building with no elevator.

By: theredpen

theredpen — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:18:54 -0800

Is this something Tony Banks used before he completely squandered his amazing talent with post-Gabriel Genesis [spits]? I love this sound -- thanks for this post to honor its origin.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:41:18 -0800

Born To Be Wild, Steppenwolf. The bass is run through a Leslie, as well as the organ. Near the end, you can hear the speed selection change.

By: nj_subgenius

nj_subgenius — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:10:45 -0800

I'd have to believe Procol Harum did that too. Magnificent effect, no evidence.

By: Benny Andajetz

Benny Andajetz — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:23:56 -0800

just minutes ago I ordered a rotary electrical connector from Mercotac. I'm planning on making a rotating speaker, and when I mentioned that to the engineer there, he said that Don Leslie was his uncle. They sell these parts mainly for wind-powered generators now, and the company is a spin-off from his uncle's work. They are called slip rings, and have been used for signage for many years. One of the largest manufacturers, IIRC, is Moog (formerly Litton) in Blacksburg, VA.

By: mikelieman

mikelieman — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:31:49 -0800

I just saw Al Kooper a couple of weekends ago...

By: Sailormom

Sailormom — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:37:04 -0800

Everyone who loves the sound of a leslie should have to lift one into an Econoline van every night for a year. Extra credit: with a B3 organ. posted by hal9k I lasted about a summer of loading/unloading both for a friend. The B3 sat in his mother's basement for years and he decided to take it on the road. Good times.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:35:01 -0800

Electromechanical instruments are my favorite examples that human engineering is not evolutionary. "I know, we'll take a mechanical oscillator idea developed for radio, slow them down to audible frequencies, put a half-dozen in a piano case, and use additive synthesis to get a few octaves, and pipe the result through a spinning loudspeaker. Brilliant!"

By: Pressed Rat

Pressed Rat — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:44:14 -0800

Lee Michael's Stormy Monday. Enough said...

By: DeltaZ113

DeltaZ113 — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:27:55 -0800

By: DeltaZ113

DeltaZ113 — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:30:36 -0800

To explain the doppler effect for my physics class in high school, I tried to build a leslie speaker. I found a website that sold replacement parts of the top horn and glued it to a portable record player. I placed a speaker underneath it for the sound. I spent all night working on it and brought it to class the next day without trying it. I played two octaves (440 and 880) at three of the speeds (33, 45 and 78). It worked like a charm and even I was incredibly amazed at the sound. As far as I'm concerned, Don Leslie is a genius.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:23:27 -0800

Which makes the Leslie the most rock and roll of all. This is true. Leslies are how you create the awesome piano effect at the start of Pink Floyd's Echoes.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:48:53 -0800

...slip rings, and have been used for signage for many years. One of the largest manufacturers, IIRC, is Moog (formerly Litton) in Blacksburg, VA. posted by Benny Andajetz Why is a Mercotac rotating connector superior to a slip ring? I don't know where this fits in the product line, it's not used in the classic designs. It has a liquid mercury bearing, as did old lighthouses, on a somewhat grander scale. The smaller, two-conductor, unit is relatively cheaper. I was told that is because that one was mass produced in Japan for musical purposes.

By: theartandsound

theartandsound — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:17:27 -0800

The use of a Leslie speaker was instrumental in producing a number of key effects in The Beatles' oeuvre. This is probably the most famous example. Their producer George Martin fed John Lennon's vocals through a Leslie to create the effect of him singing from a high mountaintop. (SLYT)