The
KEN GRIFFIN Celebration
10 28 07
Overview of the
6th annual Ken Griffin Celebration presented
by the
North Suburban
Home Organ Society
in Woburn, MA.
Eric Larson, Kurt Armsden, organists for the event
To
say that the sixth annual Ken Griffin Celebration was a success is an
understatement. This was the biggest and best attended event that the
NSHOS has produced for the last twenty years. It is very gratifying to
see that there is still a tremendous interest in the pops electronic organ
music scene. In fact, electronic music is very big today, but the majority
of it now takes place on modern MIDI equipment. Indeed it is safe to say
that probably 95% of the sometimes very elaborate music that you hear
on TV shows and in movies is all electronically produced on MIDI equipment.
However the beginning of all of this was the electronic organ.
Ken Griffin was fortunate. He was at the
right place at the right time. His simple, direct playing style on the
Hammond organ was different from anything heard previously, and he played
all of the popular songs of his day. His uncanny ability to play in a
direct, singing style made him an overnight success, and he thus did more
than anyone else to popularize the electronic organ, a trend which continued
into the 1980s until the modern MIDI keyboards became available.
We were indeed fortunate for this, the 6th
annual Ken Griffin Celebration, to have Ken Griffin's own Hammond available.
Kurt Armsden had purchased the instrument from Ken's relatives, and kindly
made it available to us. We had much in the way of technical difficulties
at first to get everything working correctly, but we were successful in
time for the concert. Keep in mind that this Hammond was made sometime
between 1937 and 1939 and it is at least 68 years old, a very old age
for any electronic device. Our biggest problem was the original A20 speaker
cabinet and also the main cable from the console to the speaker cabinet.
Dried and brittle insulation on some of the conductors in the cable necessitated
running external wires along the outside of the cable and soldering them
to the proper terminals in the plug and socket at the ends of the cable.
A second problem concerned the power supply
in the original A20 speaker cabinet. As some of you may know, these early
Hammond organs depend on the power supply in the speaker cabinet to supply
the DC voltage to the preamplifier in the console. The loss of this power
supply thus prevented the instrument from functioning. Fortunately, we
were able to locate a newer Hammond HR40 speaker cabinet which worked
to perfection and also sounded absolutely terrific, proving, as many have
said, that the HR40 was the best speaker cabinet Hammond ever made. From
the piteous crackling anemic wavering of the early A20 to the thundering
bass and glorious sound that an instrument should have, the HR40 made
the day as far as Ken's Hammond was concerned. [A new main cable is on
order now.]
We must also give
credit to several other folks who made significant contributions of effort
to make this event happen. Margaret Pratt, the NSHOS vice president, designed
and printed all of the programs for the event. She also, essentially single-handedly
set up the room, moving many tables and dozens of chairs and arranging
them for the audience. In addition to that, she produced gift boxes for
the raffle, purchased many of the food items which we used and then set
each of the tables. From obtaining industrial-sized boxes of crackers
and cookies to several cases of bottled water, Peggy did the work of three
people by herself. Many times whenever any group stages a large event
such as this, people who attend do not always realize all of the behind-the-scenes
efforts that go into making it possible, work which is often accomplished
by just a few extremely dedicated individuals.
Another person who must be singled out for
credit is Ann Domina, who was principally in charge of refreshments and
who spent a large portion of the concert time in the kitchen setting things
up and arranging the various cakes, cookies and other items on trays and
plates, brewing coffee, handling soft drinks and otherwise making sure
that our refreshment intermission went off smoothly. Then we must also
give credit to our treasurer, Ed Surette who faithfully manned the ticket
and raffle sales table and who simultaneously dealt with dues from existing
members, payments from new members, ticket sales, updating the membership
list and all of the other necessary clerical work. To all of you who made
this event so special, we say THANK YOU!
Click
here to see some pictures from the event. More will be added to these
pages soon.
