Music Before the Money

(Diagram compliments of http://clonewheel.ashbysolutions.com)

There is no other instrument in the world like a Hammond B3. You don’t turn it on, you start it up. You have to warm up the tone generators by holding a switch down, which is reminiscent of starting a ‘52 Ford 1/2 ton. Then there’s the oily smell and the whirring sound as the spinning Leslie speaker and horn cranks up to speed.

So, have synthesizers copied this sound? Well, first, like a violin or any other instrument, there is no one sound to the famous organ. The Hammond B3 organ has a myriad of tones because of the percussive attack and the tonal drawbars.

Then there is the Leslie speaker. This combination of a rotating horn and lower speaker not only has a sound of its own in rest mode, there is a Doppler effect in fast motion. The sound waves also change as the speaker and horn start to accelerate and then, afterward, the sound “floats” as the twin speakers slow down. So in a synthesizer you would have to have about 5 patches (tones), one for for each operation. And that is just for one organ tone. For every movement on the many draw bars multiply each sound by those five variables.

In 1979 Korg, an upstart synthesizer company, rose to the challenge of creating a portable B3 organ and for 30 years the world saw the Korg CX3 organ synthesizer as the heir apparent of the B3. At first the CX3 and its big brother, the BX3 (double keyboard), took the world by storm as keyboard players left their huge, back-breaking cabinet organs at home. However, even this marvel fell out of favor when digital synthesizers swept the neighborhood. As FM synths pushed the CX3 aside it sat on the sidelines with the B3. There weren’t enough purists left to care about the many tonal qualities of either.

In the late ’90’s the “retro era” began and MiniMoogs and other analogue synthesizers were suddenly in demand. The Korg CX3 was another keyboard that experienced a Renaissance but working models in good shape were hard to find. So Korg relented and began releasing an updated version of their famous keyboard, right to the wood-grain finish.

The new CX3 now uses digital technology to model the original B3 sound. In addition, new breakthroughs in digital sound modeling have allowed Korg to include hundreds of traditional Leslie speaker and amplification quirks in its repertoire. To accomplish this feat the new CX3 is designed with 91 virtual oscillators that can be used simultaneously for a dual 61-note polyphony. The sound is extremely realistic and, in addition, the keyboard can produce other sounds through MIDI technology.

The new boards are around $2,000, which is pretty good for all that punch.

One of the watershed albums of the early 1970’s was the release of Desperado by The Eagles. A band put together by Linda Ronstadt’s manager it was originally made up of Bernie Leadon, Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner. Leadon named it The Eagles as a tribute to his relationship with The Byrds. It was his country-rock influence from The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers that started the band’s ideology. They needed a drummer so Frey contacted Don Henley, a session drummer.

Desperado was a concept album like a shorter Tommy by The Who. It compared the life of rock stars to those of the old outlaws and although Tequila Sunrise and Outlaw Man were chosen as the singles, the song Desperado became a hit when their greatest hits album came out in 1976.

After Frey and Henley began taking the group toward a more rock sound Leadon and Meisner left the group and were replaced by Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit.

The album contained many soulful songs helped out in a few by Jackson Browne. Lyrics like “. . . Like graveyards full of tombstones, waitin’ for the names.” It also featured the Doolin-Dalton Gang’s exploits and the shoot-outs that led to their demise. The banjo is as haunting as Henley’s voice.

Like Sweetheart of the Rodeo this is an important country-rock album and, when you think of it, two members of The Eagles were either in The Byrds or The Flying Burrito Brothers.

“First day in August Last rain was in May
When the rainmaker came to Kansas
In the middle of a dusty day
The rainmaker said to the people
Tell me what you are prepared to pay”
The rainmaker said to the people
“Well, I’ll conjure up a rain today”

Harry Nilsson, Bill Martin: Summer, 1969

Every August 1st I think of this song and Harry Nilsson, of whom a lot of people have never heard. However, along with Gordon Lightfoot, Al Stewart and a few others, Nilsson’s music was the soundtrack for my life for almost 3 years.

My friend, Dave Dixon, was a Nilsson fanatic and had many of his albums: Aerial Ballet, Pandemonium Shadow Show and Harry. I had Nilsson Schmillson and A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. For you are are not familiar with this guy he won a Grammy for Without You in 1972 and wrote One for Three Dog Night.

We had Harry on 8-track and sang along to his songs on our road trips to the U.S., Alberta and other parts. If I sang them now few people would know the songs. but that’s just like a lot of artists. We all know the hits but not the “fillers” and many of these songs are the writes’ best works.

Rainmaker, from his album Harry, is a haunting song about a town that has been through a terrible drought and hires the services of a rainmaker to help restore their dried up crops and lives. The rainmaker uses his supernatural powers to bring rain but when he goes to get his pay the people refuse. Instead of getting angry he laughed and drove away in wagon. In that instant the people and the listener know that the rain would never stop.

” Then the people of the town heard the sound of his laughter
And they knew the rain had come to stay .

Rain rain go away
Come again another day , hey,
Rain rain go away
Come again another day, hey.”

So, for those of you who want to get in touch with a few nuggets of memory take out an old piece of vinyl or search for the lyrics of an old song. I’m not kidding. It’s like a time machine!

Cory Doctrow just finished a chilling article on the history of music file sharing that points to further gloom for the music business. He states that:

“. . .the latest record-company salvo in the copyright wars, a cozy deal with British
ISPs that will have them spying on and degrading the connections of
subscribers accused of infringing downloading.”

What Cory goes on to say is that this will not stop file sharing but will drive it further underground with private file swapping networks. In other words, the insatiable thirst of the record companies to fleece us out of everything we have is going to backfire on both them and, unfortunately, the musicians and songwriters.

Despite what the media has told us Napster was a very good idea for every one. Here’s how Napster 1.0 worked: Music lovers could download as much as they liked for a base price which worked out to around $15 a month, or the price of 1 1/2 CD’s. Cory also says “they had the fastest-growing technology in the history of the world at their disposal, 70 million internet users in 18 months, and they’d found that the average American user was willing to spend $15 a month for the service.”

So what happened. Napster was sued into oblivion and new operations sprung up to take their place. But these new guys were not as honest as Napster and now file sharing - or stealing - is breeding a new generation of music user who does not feel they have to pay for the labors of those who create music.

As I have stated before, I don’t care about the Michael Jackson-owned Beatle portfolio that makes him millions a year. But I do worry about the guys and gals who can’t get paid for what their music is worth. However, now the moguls have created an underground network of computer-savvy music enthusiasts who can get songs at will. And fewer good people are getting paid

However, what I do like is that making music, even on computers, and sharing it on venues like YouTube is broadening the industry and taking it from the hands of Sony and the other guys who still make billions by just re-releasing a bunch of ’60’s songs that they got basically for nothing. Popular music didn’t just happen. In an older blog I found a pic of an ad put out by the musician’s union in the 1920’s stating that vinyl would kill the music industry. It didn’t. It gave obscure bands and orchestras new fans.

“I think it’s time to smoke the pipes of peace and to just, you know, put away your hatchet because I think it’s a show of friendship . . . I’m very friendly with the French people I know. I know people of all nationalities.”

- Paul McCartney to the CBC before his concert for the 400th Anniversary of Quebec City

Paul McCartney is as big as they come. His songwriting, in collaboration with John Lennon and producer George Martin, changed popular music from a collection of hangers-on from the Swing Era, fading ’50’s stars, skiffle, folk and teen idols to a major force of world-changing anthems in a few records. In fact many major bands began after watching him and the other The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 or their movie A Hard Day’s Night. Well, he never disappointed the 200,000 revelers that came out to hear him.

McCartney was last in Canada with his former wife, Heather, and he delved into politics by venturing out onto the frozen ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to pet baby seals. Unfortunately, he never won too many converts to his cause and he and his wife split months later. However, he seemed to forget all this when pounding out his tunes.

The separatists who opposed his concert on grounds that Macca was one of “Les Anglais” basically used the occasion to grab some attention to spark their cause which has withered since their ill-fated attempt to break up the country in 1995. The signatories on the document of protest were mainly artists, musicians, sculptors and probably the odd mime (I’m joking). They had a revisionist view of history and want someone to blame for France bailing out on them in 1759. So the artists and musicians can blame the English (including people with names like Wong and Luchansky whom they bunch together as English) but the British won North America by default.

As for the concert McCartney came out with the big guns like Jet from his Wings days and Beatles hits Drive My Car and All My Loving. Those are great songs in any language.