Lowrey organ

The Lowrey organ is an electronic organ named for its developer, Frederick C. Lowrey (1871-1955), a Chicago-based industrialist and entrepreneur.[2] Lowrey's first commercially successful full-sized electronic organ, the Model S Spinet or Berkshire, came to market in 1955, the year of his death.[1] Lowrey had earlier developed an attachment for a piano, adding electronic organ stops on 60 notes while keeping the piano functionality, called the Organo, first marketed in 1949[3] as a very successful competitor to the Hammond Solovox.

A Lowrey Royale SU500 / Palladium 630 organ (high end model)
Lowrey Holiday Deluxe Model LSL (1961) has a built-in Leslie speaker.[1]
Lowrey C500 Celebration electronic organ (1977)
Lowrey Genie 44 electronic organ (1970s)

During the 1960s and 1970s, Lowrey was the largest manufacturer of electronic organs in the world.[2] In 1989, the Lowrey Organ Company produced its 1,000,000th organ.[4] Up until 2011, modern Lowrey organs were built in LaGrange Park, Illinois. In 2011, it was announced that production of a few models was to be moved to Indonesia.

History and notable users

History

Frederick Lowrey experimented with electronic organ design, trying different methods of tone generation, from 1918 until the early 1940s, when he fixed on the Eccles-Jordan circuit, a very stable flip-flop oscillator, which became a Lowrey hallmark. The Lowrey organ differed from its main competitor, the Hammond organ (which also bears the name of its Chicago-based inventor), in relying from its inception on all-electronic tone generation,[1] whereas Hammond used electromechanical tonewheels until 1975.[5] Lowrey led Hammond in the development of automatic accompaniment features; in 1968, automatic rhythm was added, and in 1970 the Genie model added automatic left hand and pedal. While originally intended for the home entertainment market, Lowrey also produced theatre organs and a full 2-manual with pedal church organ.[1]

Notable users

Lowreys were also used by some rock groups in the 1960s and 1970s. Garth Hudson, the keyboardist of The Band, played a Lowrey Festival organ on many of the group's most notable songs.[6] Its sound can be heard prominently on the 1968 recording of "Chest Fever", which begins with a Bach-inspired prelude/intro.[7] The Lowrey Organ is one of several organs on The Beatles' 1967 song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album), helping create a fairground atmosphere.[8] Furthermore, a Lowrey DSO Heritage organ was used to produce the classic opening for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".[9] The Lowrey Organ and its built-in drum patterns are also heard on the million-seller single, "Why Can't We Live Together" by Timmy Thomas. A Lowrey featured in the synthesizer-like background sound on The Who song "Baba O'Riley" but not on a "marimba repeat" setting - it was processed through an EMS synthesizer on a repeated envelope setting. The band's Pete Townshend produced later versions of the song using different organs and an ARP2500 synthesizer [10]

Mike Ratledge of Soft Machine switched from a Vox Continental to a Lowrey Holiday Deluxe[1] sometime between late 1966 and early 1967, and used it from then on, adding a fuzzbox and plugging it into a Marshall stack. To prevent feedback in the silences between notes (consequence of playing at a very high volume), Ratledge invented a style of his own avoiding the between-note gaps by soloing in legato. Mike Oldfield made use of the instrument quite extensively on his Tubular Bells album, and on several later albums as well. The Gotye song State of the Art was written to showcase the sounds of the Lowrey Cotillion model D-575.[11]

Later Models

From 1966 to 1971, Lowrey also produced combo organs for Gibson while the guitar manufacturer was owned by parent company Chicago Musical Instruments. The most popular of these was first introduced in 1966 as the Kalamazoo K-101, but was renamed the Gibson G-101 shortly thereafter. The Gibson branded organs' design and circuitry were similarly based on Lowrey's own "T-1" and "T-2" models, as well as their "TLO-R" and "Holiday" spinet models. However, they had several additional features that made their sound distinctive from other Lowrey models, including "Repeat", "Glide", and "Trumpet Wow-wow" effects.

In the late 1970s, selling features of Lowrey home organs included Magic Genie Chords, Track III Rhythm and the Automatic Organ Computer.[12]

In the 1980s, Lowrey launched the MicroGenie series of portable organs with built-in speakers, some of which could run on batteries. They including the MicroGenie V60, V100/101, V105, V120, V125 and MicroGenie Pro V600 (which was programmable and had MIDI capability).

Purchase by Kawai

In 1988, Lowrey was purchased by Kawai. [13]

On October 5, 2018, Vice-President of Lowery Division of Kawai America Corp., Seijiro Imamura, announces that Lowery Organ production would cease in January 2019. [14]

See also

References
  1. Frank Pugno, Bil Curry (2005-11-03). "LOWREY ORGANS". Electronic Organs (theatreorgans.com/hammond/keng/kenhtml/electronicorgans.htm). VintageHammond.Com.
    "In 1956, the Glide, a foot switch located on the left side of the expression pedal, was introduced, permitting the effects of a Hawaiian guitar “glide”, the smear of a trombone, the glissando of singing strings and the effect of a calliope. The Glide dropped the pitch of the organ about a semi-tone and cancelled the vibrato. / In 1961, Lowrey’s first home organ with a built-in Leslie speaker appeared as the Holiday Deluxe Model LSL. Automatic Orchestra Control, later renamed Automatic Organ Computer, came on the scene in 1963. / Fig. 2 – Holiday Deluxe Model LSL"
  2. Girardot, Jan (2007). "Organ Tradenames". Musical Instrument Technicians Association. Archived from the original on 2007-07-04. Retrieved 2019-08-11.
  3. Davies, Hugh. "Organo". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
  4. "Music Trades". 1989-07-01. Archived from the original on September 3, 2009. Retrieved 2008-07-20.
  5. Spark, Rod. "The History Of The Hammond". Sound On Sound. Sound on Sound Cambridge UK. Archived from the original on 8 June 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
  6. Doerschuk, Bob (December 1983). "Garth Hudson: Legendary Organist with '60s Supergroup 'The Band'". Keyboard Magazine.
  7. Johnson, Brian D. (July 22, 2002). "Garth Hudson (Profile)". Maclean's.
  8. Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books.
  9. Babiuk, Andy (2001). Beatles Gear. San Francisco: BackBeat Books.
  10. "Lowrey Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 organ: Baba O'Riley/Won't Get Fooled Again 'synthesizer' sound". Whotabs. 27 August 2005. Retrieved 14 September 2010.
  11. "Planet Gear: Gotye on the Lowrey Cotillion organ and Making Mirrors". Drowned in Sound. 4 January 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  12. "Lowrey New Model Premiere organ advertisement (1977)". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  13. http://www.kawai-global.com/company/history/
  14. https://lowreyorgan.uk/an-end-of-an-era-for-lowrey-organs/
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