Laurens Hammond, creator of the electric organ

Biography

Laurens Hammond was born on January 11 1885 in Evanston, Illinois.
His father, William Andrew, was a hard-working man and the founder of First National Bank; perhaps it was his dedication to his work that brought him to an early death when Laurens was only three years old.
After his father’s death Laurens and his mother, Idea Louise Strong Hammond, moved to France to allow Idea to continue her studies as an artist. It was here that Laurens came up with some of his first inventions.

Laurens was a gifted kid: he returned to Evanston at the age of 14 with the ability to fluently speak German and French. He had already designed many inventions including an automatic transmission device for automobiles.
Laurens studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University and graduated in 1916 with honors.

Laurens Hammond’s inventions

Mr. Hammond was chief engineer at the Gray Motor Company, a producer of marine engines, but he left the position in 1920 because of his invention of a clock driven by a silent spring, an invention that was successful enough for him to move to New York. There he continued to develop clocks, notably inventing a synchronous electric motor used in his electric clocks, but which later also influenced the creation of the phonic wheels of his Hammond organ.
In 1922 he created the Teleview, a three-dimensional film viewing system that was a precursor to the shutter glasses system.
Another of his inventions related to the world of music was the Novachord, the first polyphonic electronic synthesizer, which unfortunately did not achieve great success because of its high cost.

The invention of the Hammond organ

Despite not being a musician, Laurens Hammond was a great believer in the positive effects of music, and he worked to make fine instruments more accessible to the masses. Therefore, in 1933 he began developing an electric organ. Development began with the purchase of a used piano, which was disassembled, leaving only the keyboard as a controller to experiment with various methods of sound generation. Eventually he settled on the phonic wheel (tonewheel).
The development of the Hammond Organ was assisted by W. L. Lahey, the accountant of Laurens’ clock company and organist at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, who tested the instrument’s sound and reported his opinion to Laurens.
The high quality of the sound generator developed by Mr. Hammond is evidenced by the number of original organs still in use, a quality derived from his inventor’s extensive experience as an engineer.
Laurens filed the patent application for the Hammond Model A in January 1935, at the height of the Great Depression. Unemployment was at an all-time high, prompting the patent office to rush the paperwork, with the hope that Laurens’ company would create jobs.

The invention of the Hammond Organ was unveiled to the public in April 1935, and the first model, the Model A, was available for purchase in June of that year. Entrepreneur Henry Ford purchased two of them. The first ever Model A is housed in the Smithsonian Museum.
The organ was played live at Wind radio station. It was also widely used in U.S. military chapels during and after World War II. The soldier’s familiarity with the instrument may have contributed somewhat to the organ’s growing popularity in the postwar period.
In the 1950s several musicians began to use the Hammond organ for its distinctive sound, and in the following decade it became popular among pop music groups. In the 1950s and 1960s,the instrument was widely used in the production of “easy listening” albums. The Hammond organ’s distinctive sound became even more popular when, in the 1960s and 1970s, various rock artists such as John Lennon (Beatles), Jon Lord (Deep Purple), Brian Auger, Rick Wright (Pink Floyd), Keith Emerson (Nice, ELP), Steve Winwood (Traffic), Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum), Billy Preston, Ian McLagan and other rock musicians used it for their songs.
Today the Hammond organ is back in vogue thanks to artists such as Tony Monaco and Joey DeFrancesco, who have popularized the analog sound typical of African American music once again.

The Hammond organ was originally designed for use in churches as an alternative to the expensive and cumbersome pipe organs. Its pairing with the Leslie rotary amplifier enabled its use in musical genres such as gospel, Blues, Funk, Rock, Jazz, and many others. To this day it is one of the most fascinating and replicated sounds ever.