Percy Vickery cinema organ cha-cha-cha arrangement

Percy Vickery passed away just before Christmas having achieved his 90th this year. He was a cinema organist from the 1930s, playing at Edmonton and the Christie organ at Waltham Cross. This was his signature tune whilst arising out of the floor and returning underground . . .

Sadly Percy finally fell ill just the day before he was due to come to Hammerwood to play "The Beast" for a YouTube recording session and this video picturing his home organ is here in his memory. I always felt that he was such an inspiration to all us youngsters . . . He continued playing recitals right through to this year, telling me at the age of 90 that he'd done one in the summer for the "old people" near Bournemouth where he used to live.

He wanted his organ to come to Hammerwood. During the 2nd World War, he worked on developing radar and after the war he used surplus valves to start making his own "toaster" as electronic organs became known. The toaster inhabited this console made out of old television casework. In the 1980s he started replacing valve circuitry with transistors and ICs.

It's fiendishly complicated and has a three manual specification with a floating manual and 2nd touch on the bottom manual as well as the pistons. So not only is it complex technologically but also to play.

It uses analogue technology, no digital pre-recorded sounds, and Percy's recordings show how well it can sound if one knows how to register it correctly . . . In listening to his recordings, it's difficult to believe that one isn't listening to a Wurlitzer. . .

He was a founder member of the EOCS - Electronic Organ Constructors' Society and anyone constructing a home practice organ using conventional electronics or computer programmes such as Hauptwerk or MidiTzer will find other members' experience helpful - so please do join - we'd love to see you and possibly hear the results of your efforts . . .

Meanwhile is anyone interested in doing a cinema organ recital at Hammerwood on this instrument? Is anyone interested in coming to such a concert?

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Percy
• Vickery
• cinema
• organ
• Christie
• Waltham
• Cross
• Wurlitzer
• Regal
• Edmonton

[latribe]

Hi! THANKS! Will amend the title!

[kb7dqh]

Am I to assume this instrument is already at Hammerwood? As a "one of a kind" it certainly deserves a home there. Yes, it definitely is faithfully reproducing that "theatre" organ sound...

Around 35 years ago, there was a "Pizza and Pipes" resturant I visited as a child, the seating area of which completely surrounded a Wurlitzer theater organ! Words really can't describe that dining experience, as all the mechanicals and pipes were visible behind plexiglas at the table level.

[latribe]

It's arriving tomorrow. I played it over at Percy' home a week or two back before the snow and it will need work on it. I think there is a diagnostic mode which bypasses the beehive suppression circuits and suspect that it's in that mode . . .

It's analogue and has limitations, of which Percy was aware and which he bypassed by a supreme knowledge of registration and the purpose of including each tone as he built it. So it will be a challenge for another organist to pick up . . .

[wurli239]

Very nice sound to the organ and nice playing, but, just to point out the medley is a TANGO and not a CHA CHA.

[kb7dqh]

A "toaster", eh? Named for good reason... Grew up around a (Br)"valve" (US)"tube" organ, some flavor of Baldwin as I recall... Sat idle most of the time, a victim of poor-quality components. My first experience with troubleshoot and repair of a staggeringly massive piece of electronics...Four tubes per note, a couple dozen or so in the "stop box" and another half-dozen in the audio PA. Would heat that room completely on a mildly chilly day!