Shamanzarek

Jessica has the distinction of being the rare instrumental that still gets significant radio play. An amazing achievement. Dickey's singing/writing/playing contributions drove the band's rise to their highest level of commercial success in the mid-70s.

Band life only. Never knew there was such a thing as home life.

For low prices check out AliExpress. $1271.90 for a Yamaha C7. $454.25 for a Nord Stage 4 88.

Brian's career has really taken off with acclaim from Downbeat mag and others. In 2017 he subbed for me at a Doors tribute concert in New Jersey.

I do like the Stage 3 Compact. One thing I would like to have in the Nord organ section is Filter, Envelope, and Modulation control like it has in the Sample/Synth section. My lowly Casio WK from about 20 years ago does this and it adds so much versatility in creating different types of organ sounds. Since the Casio was marketed to the novice market very few of its users even know about this capability. I have looked for other keyboards with this hidden feature and haven't found it anywhere else at any price.

There is a drawbar setting I really liked but it caused my C-3 to glitch every so often. That setting is 088000000.

Lack of foldback in the upper octave of Hammond spinet organs wasn't likely known to be an issue at the time. On the chorus of AWSOP Fisher plays the same chords in the top two octaves which intentionally or not has the effect of compensating for lack of foldback creating a fuller sound. Both hands in the upper octaves can be seen very briefly here. Can be better seen on much later live versions when he played a Hammond console: In this instrumental mix the notes with Percussion sounding can be heard more distinctly. The Percussion seems to be most prominent in the same part of the verse each time around and mostly not heard in the rest of the song.

The Korg Nautilus is a favorite for Symphonic Metal. Synthonia sells Nautilus sound packs optimized for metal. https://www.synthonia.com/marketplace/korg-nautilus-series-nightwish-cover-pack-detail

Instant Karma-John Lennon Mr. Moon-The Coachmen Mr. Moonlight-The Beatles I'll Follow the Sun-The Beatles Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon-Paul Revere and the Raiders Waiting for the Sun-The Doors Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In-The 5th Dimension Earth and Sun and Moon-Midnight Oil California Sun-The Rivieras Walking on the Sun-Smash Mouth

"Hush" by Deep Purple from 1968 is the iconic version of that song. Joe South wrote it for Billy Joe Royal whose version was a top 5 hit in Europe but only made about top 50 in the US. Many others have covered the song but Deep Purple's version is the only version that still gets heard. When I first heard Billy Joe Royal's version in 1967 the Na-Na-Na-Na bit reminded me of the part just before the last verse in The Beatles "A Day in the Life".

Listen to live versions. There are some of Eric playing with J.J. Cale, Steve Winwood, and others. Clapton often did his songs quite different from the recording in concert.

Creedence Clearwater could do a cover and make it their own. Their versions of "I Put a Spell on You" and "Suzy Q" outdid the originals. "I heard it Through the Grapevine" was so different from Gladys Knight and Marvin Gaye's versions that it became a major hit again. George Thorogood made a career out of covering old blues and country songs and having hits with them.

It wasn't mine. I had a 200A.

My Wurlie didn't have an extended pedal cable when I let it go but who knows where it was between 1983 and the early 90s.

zxcvnm098, maybe you got my old Wurlitzer. It was last known to be in the Santa Ana/Costa Mesa area of Orange County in the early 80s.

Ken Rich makes a second bag to hold the legs and damper pedal. I had an Anvil Forge case for mine in the late 70s. It wasn't up tp ATA standards but was a lighter material, possibly fiberboard. It had a lid held on by straps rather than butterfly latches and the lid slipped completely off. Inside there was foam padding and a tray with padding on the bottom that sat over the keys holding the legs and pedal. I could lift it myself to place on a dolly or carry short distances but it had an uncomfortable metal handle that was hard on the hands. It did the job and I have never seen another like it.

The Casio WK-7600 is worth consideration. It has been in production for about 10 years but is still listed as available from the major dealers. The WK-7600 has 76 keys plus a dedicated ToneWheel organ section with 9 sliders for full range drawbar settings. This is a feature only a few Casio's and practically no other brands have in this price range. The Sample section sounds have a good amount of editing capability such as filter cutoff, envelope, modulation, and multiple effects to make your own storable presets. You can store preset performance setups like splits/layers and transpositions. It has a 17 track sequencer with external audio recording storable on SD cards, This keyboard can cover just about any sound category. While they are still available new I have seen used ones for between $200-300. Another Casio that can cover a lot of territory is the XW-P1. In addition to the Tonewheel organ and Sample sections it has a VA Synth section with Monosynth and Polysynth modes. This model does not have internal speakers and is only available with a 61-note keyboard. It was discontinued a couple of years after only a few years in production but can be found used. These and most other Casio keyboards can run on batteries.

When the Mellotron first became available it was marketed as a home keyboard that a novice could play due to the pre-recorded accompaniment patterns on the left-hand keys. The thing was expensive so it wasn't something the average person would buy to play at home. Mike Pinder of The Moody Blues replaced those left-hand patterns with additional instrument sounds. He was friends with John Lennon and told him he should check it out. All four Beatles bought Mellotrons.

The Mellotron name was derived as an abbreviation of Melody Electronics. Of course, the original design concept goes back to keyboards first built by Harry Chamberlin in the 1950s. The Chamberlin company was a small operation in Southern California with many of their customers being Hollywood recording studios. The company may have kept a low profile due to Musicians Union opposition to an instrument that was perceived as capable of replacing real orchestra musicians. Not knowing that the design was patented the company that became Mellotronics, Ltd. produced their first model in about 1963 based on Chamberlin instruments brought to England by a Chamberlin employee.

I don't mind the Roland lever for pitchbend but I don't like how they later combined it with modulation probably to reduce parts count. On earlier Roland synths there was a separate button for modulation. This still was not ideal as you had to preset the maximum modulation amount with a slider and then it would either immediately go to the preset amount or there was a delay function so that it eased into the preset amount over a preset time range. I prefer on-the-fly modulation amount control with the ability to leave in place which is better done with a non-sprung wheel. Korg joysticks can simultaneously control pitchbend and modulation amount but always spring back to center. Same with the Oberheim paddles. One thing I like about Roland is you could set an ultra-wide pitchbend range which was great for dramatic effects (i.e. the bend into the Jupiter 8 solo on Tears for Fears' Head Over Heels). Most Synths have a maximum of an octave bend range.

Of the modern polysynths the new Prophet 10 is tempting but lacks a few basic synth functions that I consider important so for more versatility and fatter/lusher sound I would go for the OB-X8. For a vintage polysynth that lacks almost nothing in synth function the Roland Jupiter 6 is my number one choice. With multi-mode filter and extended pitch-range oscillators it is capable of sounds that no other vintage polysynth can do as well. These days nobody would think of using an analog synth for piano sounds but the Jupiter 6 can do a pretty convincing grand piano. It can also do sparkly chime/bell/bowed string sounds that were the best until FM and Sampling came along. System 80 makes the Jove Eurorack filter which recreates the Jupiter 6 filter with some additional features.

I am currently working on this for one of my bands. After checking out some live versions it seems to me the most important thing is to have two guitars. If the band already had two guitars I would do the Clav part but we don't so I am going to play second guitar. The main riff is at times played in octaves and there are significant chordal guitar parts underpinning lines especially in the middle section. I know not every keyboard player doubles on guitar but this seems like the best way for me. I checked out some live versions by people who were on the original recording and they sometimes have two guitars as well as keys. Joe Walsh does a version with one guitar and it sounds like the keys doubling bass take the guitar melodic line while Joe plays chords in the middle section. The first one here has Don Felder with second guitar and keys while the second is Joe Walsh on guitar with horns and keys. The third is Joe with Ringo with all parts more than covered. The last video is Joe with second guitar trading lead occasionally.

I remember seeing the Raspberries on Don Kirshner in 1974. I was very impressed at the time by the orchestral sound the got using two ARP keyboards. They apparently replaced the Mellotrons with the ARP's by 1974. Starting at about 9:30:

I am always apprehensive about taking one-off gigs but usually accept them. I rarely ever write anything down but I had a one-off gig a few weeks ago where I had to learn three sets of classic rock and some country. I did make a few notes and spent three weeks going over the material. One thing about these gigs is you never know what songs are actually going to get played so I spend the most time on the more difficult songs and figure I can wing the country and blues stuff. So we get there around 5:00 but things don't go according to schedule and we actually start playing a little after 9. Then we have to be out of the room at 10 sharp. I spent all this time going over about thirty songs and ended up playing about eight of them. At least the pay was more than I expected in cash and included dinner.

I first took notice of Lee Michaels when I got his Carnival of Life album in 1968. Recorded in 1967 it was pretty heavy for the time with prominent Hendrix-inspired guitar and drums. There is a lot of fat sounding Hammond that I assumed was played by Lee. In a Keyboard magazine interview years later he said he mostly sang on that record and much of the organ was played by Gary Davis nephew of Richard "Groove" Holmes. Here is a blog that contains some interesting history about Michaels. https://upvhq.blogspot.com/2023/06/lee-michaels-carnival-of-life-1968-us.html Michaels often shared bills with the Steve Miller Band at many of the legendary San Francisco music venues as early as 1967. Lee guested on "Going to Mexico" from Miller's Number 5 album.