The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

One thing I like almost as much as phonographs is reed organ music. The reed-organ is an instrument with an interesting history to it; it's very common to find them today in bad condition but from about the 1870s to the 1930s they were the keyboard of choice in rural American houses, in churches too poor for a pipe-organ, in foreign countries where a piano might not hold its tune, on the battlefield in the equipage of a military chaplain, saloons too far from the road to carry a piano to, in the backwater picture-houses accompanying silent movies as a stand-in for the unobtainable Wurlitzer.

The oldest confirmed recording I've found online of one is this 1903 J. W. Myers recording of "Jesus, Lover of my Soul." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snNUC31iaP0. This is a Columbia cylinder and the organ does not sound very good, really--quite wavery and not played with any real musicianship (though it is played competently.)

1929--a reed organ appears on the Supertone recording of "Where the Gates Swing Outward Never." The choral group, the Old Southern Sacred Singers, recorded for Brunswick as well; I have a copy of "Onward, Christian Soldiers"/"Going Down the Valley One by One," and on that last track, the pump organ and the lyrics themselves contribute to a Southern-gothic feel that reminds me of the 1955 horror film Night of the Hunter. "Going Down the Valley One by One" is one of the most evocative, interesting tracks in my collection--feels like it was found in a background for a Flannery O'Connor novel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDWa-o_ceYc

Dr. Artis Wodehouse played accompaniment on her 1887 Mason & Hamlin organ for the Fisk Jubilee Singers' soprano, Marti Newland, in 2015, leading to this excellent recording--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL-xkZZ6O80


And there is a pump organ in the background of "A Warning to Boys," by Vernon Dalhart--I am convinced it was being used here for comic effect, just like the mawkish origins of Dan W. Quinn's "Parody on the Widow's Plea for her Son." To be honest, with Dalhart's reputation, I think this was done as a joke--but that's just my suspicion. Maybe if the pump organ was seen as a joke even back then, this might explain why not many are played nowadays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uqoRAJ0tl0

Anyway these things aren't super common anymore in playing condition--most have ended up scrapped, "shabby chic," or burned for firewood, just like the phonographs we collect. But they are absolutely capable instruments capable of more than dreary old hymns of the "Little House on the Prairie" variety. I have an 1892 model, small type with eleven stops, but it's quite a lot of fun to play. I've tried marches & similar pieces on it & it worked fine; you don't have to play it in a miserable half-asleep style if you don't want to. A great way to hear a lot of 19th-century music that phonograph records don't really show up for.

Anybody else find reed organs featured in the background of old records?

I think they are the "organs" that, with pianos, accompany Dan Beddoe in certain records on Rainbow. Not "old" recordings, but old music--you do know that Dvorak's "Bagatelles" were originally scored for string trio and harmonium, right?

Charles,

I am not aware of any recorded reed organ music in particular, but I have to believe that Homer Rodeheaver records certainly must have a few notes worth.

Your mention of reed organs brings fond memories to mind of my friend, (now departed), Dana Traub. Dana was also a phonograph collector whom some of you may have known. On many antiquing trips, we would come across a reed parlor organ. Dana would instantly walk over to it and begin playing, (if the organ was able...). He got the stink eye from many antique shop owners for that, but he didn't care one bit. My favorite, was the time we both visited the "The Little Brown Church in the Dell". Yes, there really is a Little Brown church that's referred to in the song. Once again, he marched right up to the altar and began playing the organ. Naturally, he played "The Little Brown Church in the Dell". His performance was better received there, than at the antique shops.

Getting back a little closer to the topic, have you ever heard an Aeolian Orchestrelle? Now there's a reed organ!!

UPDATE: Thanks to Bob C. for reminding me of the proper title, "The Church in the Wildwood"

Great topic! I love 'serious' organ music and in general reed organs are a pale second for me, but I love them too (I've had several large ones over the years, and still have no less than 4 fold-up travelling examples, the 2 latest of which are actually from the 1950s and in modern concert pitch).

Here in the UK there are lots of examples of reed organs on 78s. Until electrical recording arrived, they often substituted for pipe organs and the labels sometimes misleadingly state "grand organ".

I uploaded an early reed organ record just the other day - though fairly unexciting musically! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccWmGbmYERk

I particularly love it when reed organs appear on 1920s jazz records - here some more examples I have:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RMP03kt1DM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63yOucy9W5M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxROaXWIzKY (also search on my channel for other Texas Blues Destroyers sides - they recorded the same two sides, slightly different performances, for three different record labels).

A fellow gramophone and phonograph collector living near me has a number of self playing instruments, including an Aeolian Orchestrelle. He is also a good organist, and has a fully working cinema organ installed in what used to be the garage.
He and his wife are generous hosts, and their musical soirees are always memorable occasions.
A few miles further up the road is another Orchestrelle which has been out of action for years, having suffered water damage. It's existence is well known to local enthusiasts, so it is more likely to be restored than scrapped.

... and I enjoyed those examples you gave, VanEpsFan, many thanks!

Over here in the UK we had some large reed organs with pedalboards that served in place of pipe organs for organists' practice or in smaller churches (I dare say some in the States were similar?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI1LEcTxZIs
Some even with a 32 ft. rank! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56jB7A2ON9w

Here is the Loring & Blake that I salvaged. It's very heavy but is still considered a "small" reed organ. I consider it typical of a second-tier organ made by small manufacturers in the 1890s, before the quality decline in 1894. I traded 5 records for it at 44 cents each so this is my two dollar organ.
@JerryVan, Dana sounds like he was a real character.

There is a large Aeolian Vocalion reed organ with a faux pipework facade, hidden in the crypt of St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Charleston, SC. Being located in Charleston the cathedral floods on the regular, and the organ probably has been damaged. I'm not sure if it is still there. It is about the size of an Orchestrelle but I do not believe it has a self-playing mechanism; however, it does have (if memory serves) a full pedalboard. 2MP organs (two manuals & a pedalboard) are hard to find in the reed variety. It is a fascinating instrument & I have always wanted to play it and see if it was still serviceable. Probably not, but hey. A man can dream.

@Orchorsol, thank you especially for the links to the Texas Blues Destroyers. I know that after the invention of the Hammond electric organ, there was a lot of jazz, blues, R&B, soul, and other genres which relied on electronic organ--it's interesting to see that a mechanical/acoustic instrument was worked into some of these earlier tracks.
As for serious organ music, I do like pipe organ as well, and theater-organ (the commonly found Jesse Crawford 78s aren't exactly exciting but they are a cheap introduction to hearing what a theater-organ sounded like. Crawford wasn't exactly Sidney Torch though--Torch was amazing.) However, I see reed organs not as a pale imitation of the pipe organ, but as their own instruments. I've played pipe-organ before and a reed-organ is completely different in feel and expression.
The two 1950s ones in modern pitch sound like good things to have in a collection!

@drh, I'm aware of Dvorak writing for them--the "harmonium" in Bohemia at that time was a pressure instrument, where the foot-pedals puffs the air through the reeds. An "American organ" or "reed organ" proper has a large bellows to build vacuum, and pulls air through that way. There was a major advantage to the harmonium system used on instruments like the Mustel Percussion Harmonium, which would tap the reed & start it vibrating right before the air went through--brightening the sound considerably.

French composers would write for "orgue sans pedal" and those pieces work on harmonium or standard pump organ alike. Now I'll have to look for those Dan Beddoe records on YT.

@Orchorsol again--There are examples of those large 2-manual organs being played on YouTube; Rodney Jantzi has some Canadian-built organs restored and they rival a lot of poorly constructed electrics of today!


Charles F.

Well, I should have listened again before posting earlier. The accompaniment on the Rainbow records I have is hard to hear, buried as a dim presence deep below the vocals and involving not only organ but also piano playing in unison. Putting on headphones on my "good" system and taking another listen, however, I think the organs are actually organs of the pipe persuasion, not harmoniums. More likely, the same organ singular throughout. Sorry for what was probably a hobo bovine (i.e., a bum steer!).

I'll add in passing that the performances on the one I just sampled, in which Homer Rodeheaver joins Dan Beddoe, are painfully uninflected and, aside from the unusual coupling of organ and piano, the arrangements, vocal and instrumental alike, are about as unimaginative and unembellished as possible.