An electronic organ. The Hammond Clock Co. was founded in Chicago in 1928 by the engineer Laurens Hammond (b Evanston, IL, 11 Jan 1895; d Cornwall, CT, 1 July 1973). From 1933 he developed the Hammond organ with the engineer John Marshall Hanert and patented it in 1934; the company began manufacture of the instrument in 1935. It was an immediate success – Henry Ford and George Gershwin were early purchasers – and by the late 1930s the company was producing about 200 instruments a month. The company, which became the Hammond Instrument Co. in 1937 and the Hammond Organ Co. in 1953, also produced the Novachord (1939–42), an unusual electronic organ, and the Solovox, a monophonic three-octave piano attachment (1940–50). About two million Hammond organs in many different models had been built by the 1980s, the firm having retained its leading position in the market; since the early 1970s the emphasis has been on home organs, although models designed for use in church, theatres and concert halls are also produced. In 1980 Hammond bought the Electro Music Co. (manufacturer of the Leslie loudspeakers) from CBS Musical Instruments; both were sold to the Australian Noel Crabbe in 1985, who sold Hammond to Suzuki in 1988. The company, renamed Hammond Suzuki USA, was based in Lombard, near Chicago, and later in nearby Addison. In 1992 it repurchased Electro Music.
Although its sound quality differed in some respects from that of a pipe organ (the chief difference is that its overtone series is not the natural one), the Hammond organ was purchased by some 1750 churches in the first three years of its manufacture (a third of all sales). From 1936 until 1938 the company fought a legal battle with the Federal Trade Commission for the right to call the instrument an organ; somewhat exaggerated claims made in early publicity were also involved. Although the case was decided against the company, the Hammond firm was allowed to continue to call its instrument an ‘organ’ and soon afterwards a blind test was held in Chicago in which experts failed to distinguish between a Hammond and a pipe organ in a third of the examples played to them.
In early models of the Hammond organ the sounds were generated by an electromagnetic system in which 91 (later 96) rotating metal tone-wheels were driven by a stable synchronous motor. The original Hammond organ Model A has two five-octave manuals and a two-octave pedalboard, variation and precise control of timbre being effected by a system of drawbars – two for the pedals and two sets of nine each for the manuals. During this period the company pioneered several other features of electronic organ design that are still common, including a ‘spinet’ organ in 1949 and a one-manual ‘chord organ’ around 1952. A feature of most Hammond organs is the external Leslie loudspeaker, which affects the sound like a tremulant stop on a pipe organ.
From the mid-1960s to 1974 the electromagnetic tone-wheels were gradually superseded by electronic oscillators, which were developed while electronic organs were manufactured for the Everett Piano Co. (South Haven, Michigan), after Hammond bought the company from Wurlitzer in 1962 (it was sold to Yamaha in 1971). Advances in electronic technology around 1970 made possible several new features that are now widespread: rhythm and ‘walking bass’ units, arpeggiators, memories, and a choice of chord systems. Larger models (as well as some made by other companies) electronically mimic the ‘key click’ that forms a distinctive element of the sound of the original Hammond tone-wheel organ. In the early 1980s Hammond introduced microcomputer organs; current models, like Hammond Suzuki's digital pianos (produced since 1992), are based on sampled timbres. Most models (including sound modules without keyboards) continue to feature Hammond's unique system of drawbars, which are also found on similar instruments from other manufacturers.
The first Hammond organs were popularized by such musicians as Fats Waller and Jimmy Smith, and a distinctive Hammond style of ‘swinging’ staccato playing (due to a lack of control over attack in the early models) soon became known. Since the 1960s the instrument has been included in many concert works, notably Kagel's Tremens (1963–5) and Stockhausen's Momente (1962–72). At about the same time it was also adopted by rock musicians, including Keith Emerson. A recent jazz soloist is Barbara Denner lein.
W. Baggally: ‘The Hammond Organ: a New Electro-Acoustic Musical Instrument’, Wireless World, xli (1937), 134–6
E.F. Relf: ‘The Electronic Organ’, MT, lxxviii (1937), 347–8
H. Westerby: ‘Electronic Organs’, ibid., 151–2
H. Westerby: ‘More on Electronic Organs’, ibid., 348–9
S. Irwin: Dictionary of Hammond Organ Stops (New York, 1939, enlarged 4/1970)
J. Schillinger: The Schillinger System of Musical Composition, ii (New York, 1946/R), 1549–54 [on the Hammond organ and the Novachord]
R.L. Eby: Electronic Organs: a Complete Catalogue, Textbook and Manual (Wheaton, IL, 1953), 96–140 [on the Hammond organ], 189–92 [on the Novachord]
R.H. Dorf: ‘Organ for One-Finger Artists’, Audio Engineering, xxxvii/9 (1953), 19–21, 68 only [on the Hammond chord organ]
R.H. Dorf: Electronic Musical Instruments (Mineola, NY, 1954, 2/1958), 25–45, 119–27, 142–52 [rev. version of articles orig. pubd in Radio-Electronics, 1950–52]
H.E. Anderson: Electronic Organ Handbook (Indianapolis, IN, 1960), 97–151
N.H. Crowhurst: Electronic Organs (Indianapolis, IN, 1960, 3/1975), 53–65
A. Douglas: The Electronic Musical Instruments Manual: a Guide to Theory and Design (London, 5/1968), 261–78
T.L. Rhea: The Evolution of Electronic Musical Instruments in the United States (diss., George Peabody College, 1972), 146–50; rev. as ‘The Hammond Organ’, Contemporary Keyboard, iii (1977), no.5, p.47 only; no.6, p.47 only; repr. in The Art of Electronic Music, ed. T. Darter and G. Armbruster (New York, 1984), 8–9
O. Ochse: The History of the Organ in the United States (Bloomington, IN, 1975), 370–73
D. Crombie: ‘The Hammond Story’, Sound International, no.29 (1980), 24; rev. in Rock Hardware: the Instruments, Equipment and Technology of Rock, ed. T. Bacon (Poole, 1981), 88–91
P. Forrest: The A–Z of Analogue Synthesisers, i: A–M (Crediton, 1994, 2/1998), 164–81
H.B. Aldridge: ‘“Music's Most Glorious Voice”: the Hammond Organ’, Journal of American Culture, xix/3 (1996), 1–8
M. Vail: Keyboard Presents the Hammond Organ: Beauty in the B (San Francisco, 1997)
HUGH DAVIES