MIKE HALL & KEITH BECKINGHAM - TWO New Organ CDs Hammond A100 / Compton Theatre
This listing is for TWO Organ CDs at a special price (works out at £7.45 each, with cheaper P&P).
These are listed separately at £8.95 each if you only want one.
MIKE HALL - That Old Hammond Sound
Mike Hall turns back the clock with sounds of the sixties.
Played on a Hammond A-100 organ with a Leslie 145 cabinet.
Recorded live at the Sela Bar in Leeds.
You can listen to some snippets at: https://on.soundcloud.com/16WAf
Released: 2011.
Running Time: 63.51.
Code: OK24.
This CD was released on the OK Rollem Productions label (aka "Old Century Sounds").
This was a small independent record label run by Ken Mellor, who produced short-run CDs of various organ recordings.
Ken retired in 2023 and this is a REPACKAGED version of that release (The tracks are the same).
The organ featured is the Hammond A-100 which is coupled with a Leslie 145 cabinet. For an instrument that is fast approaching fifty years of age, the setting in a cellar bar was a perfect location for Mike to create those drawbar sounds that all followers of the jazz organ have come to know and love.
The Sela Bar is a long running live music venue right in the heart of Leeds. For more information about forthcoming artists and groups, check out the events calendar at www.selabar.com.
Donkey Serenade
Our Love is Here to Stay
Moonglow
Java
Deep Purple
Birth of the Blues
Laura
I Wanna Be Like You
S'Wonderful
Blue Moon
I'm in the Mood for Love
I'm Just Wild About Harry
Mr. Wonderful
I Got Rhythm / Fascinating Rhythm
Over the Rainbow
What a Wonderful World
Brazil / I Love You and Don't You Forget It
Satin Doll
A Foggy Day
Caravan
SLEEVE NOTES:
Coming from a musical family had an early influence on Mike Hall. Tuition as a youngster soon led him into the world of organs and where better to start than at the Granada Theatre in his home town of Grantham, where at the age of twelve he was holding down a position as resident organist.
The next six years were a mix of pipe organ and electronic as playing engagements at organ clubs and societies took him to many places around the Midlands. It was during these formative years that Mike developed his love of the Hammond organ and as the Swinging Sixties came to an end, he was to have tuition from that doyen of the electronic organ, Jerry Allen. Even today Mike holds his name in high esteem, whose lessons were to provide the cornerstone for a young versatile organist to build upon and whose influence is still evident forty years later.
It was during these early years on Hammond organs that led Mike into his first job as a demonstrator, following a meeting with the designer of the Sharma speaker cabinet. His playing venues now took him around Britain with the odd trip into Europe thrown in for good measure. But other expanding organ manufacturers with exciting sounds to offer sought his skills and by the time he linked up with Elka in 1978, he had already represented Lowrey, Roland and the Dutch based company Riha. Home organ sales were booming at this time, not only in Britain, but in America too, where Mike toured coast to coast and frequently appeared on radio and television.
Back home in Britain, Mike first featured on the BBC’s ‘Organist Entertains’ in 1975 with tapes submitted by himself, hardly surprising with his involvement in tape recording from an early age. Over the years he has created his own archive, including some rare recordings of himself at the organs in the Granada cinemas at Tooting, Mansfield and Grantham. He has also recorded each concert performance since the early days of high quality portable cassette recorders, now of course superseded by the ultra high quality digital recorder.
With the arrival of the new century there had been many changes on the home organ scene. Once familiar names had fallen by the wayside or diversified into other products. Mike’s lifestyle has changed too. DVD production and a link with the Orla organ company now take up much of his time. And yet whenever the chance comes along, he can’t resist that ‘old Hammond sound’.
...Ken Mellor.
KEITH BECKINGHAM - Any Other Business
Recorded & released in 2015 at the Town Hall Ossett Compton Christie (following the Annual General Meeting of the Theatre Organ Club).
Released: 2015.
Running Time: 55.31.
Code: OK38.
This CD was released on the OK Rollem Productions label (aka "Old Century Sounds").
This was a small independent record label run by Ken Mellor, who produced short-run CDs of various organ recordings.
Ken retired in 2023 and this is a REPACKAGED version of that release (The tracks are the same).
SHOWBOAT SELECTION: Only Make Believe / Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man O’ Mine / Bill, Why Do I Love You / Ol’ Man River
WALTZING THROUGH EUROPE: Tulips from Amsterdam / Vienna, City of My Dreams / Wunderbar / Under the Bridges of Paris / Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen
We’ll Gather Lilacs
MEMORIES OF MATT MONRO & EDMUND HOCKRIDGE: Portrait of My Love / From Russia with Love / Hey There / If I Loved You
ROMANCE IN THE AIR: Guilty / Time After Time / I’m Old Fashioned / You’re My Everything / Be My Love
SOUTH PACIFIC SELECTION: Bali Ha’i / I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair / There is Nothing Like a Dame / This Nearly Was Mine / Some Enchanted Evening / I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy
This is My Lovely Day
TWO LOVELY GIRLS: The Girl from Ipanema / Sweet Georgia Brown
For All We Know
JACKIE BROWN TRIBUTE: John Brown’s Body / Great Day / Among My Souvenirs / Speak Low / If I Had You / Sweet September / Falling in Love with Love / Lover / The Song is You
We’ll Meet Again (With Audience Participation).
This CD was released on the OK Rollem Productions label (aka "Old Century Sounds").
This was a small independent record label run by Ken Mellor, who produced short-run CDs of various organ recordings.
Ken retired in 2023 and this is a REPACKAGED version of that release (The tracks are the same).
SLEEVE NOTES:
It had been a good number of years since I had heard Keith play a theatre organ, so attending the Theatre Organ Club’s Annual General Meeting at Ossett was an enjoyable occasion, not only leading to the issue of this CD, but a chance to meet again after a lapse of 29 years, when we collaborated in producing a cassette (remember those?). This featured the former Empress Ballroom Wurlitzer when it was installed in the BBC Playhouse Theatre, Manchester on one side and two Hammond models on the other. The cassette was marketed under the now ‘cheesy’ sounding title of, “Two Sides of Keith Beckingham”.
Keith is equally at home on both pipes and electronics and of course he worked for Hammond for 26 years in the UK, Europe and around the world. As an example, whilst responsible for European marketing he had a territory which stretched from Helsinki in the north to Athens in the south, recalled in his selection, ‘Waltzing Through Europe’. Nevertheless, he began his career at the consoles of many cinema organs and appropriately, one of the first was at the ABC/Regal at Beckenham, which at that time could add Kent to it’s postal address.
He commenced broadcasting in 1968 from that revered and ornate shrine to the age of the talkies, the Granada, Tooting, London and followed this with broadcasts from other Granada cinemas at Harrow, Clapham Junction and Kingston upon Thames. With such an illustrious quartet of Wurlitzer organs to build one’s future career upon, it may well have led to Keith’s now almost unique style of what some have come to refer to as a ‘ballad’ technique which explores the melody and harmony in an almost impish way before returning to the main musical content, be it a popular song or something more dignified by composers who have long been out of fashion. All in all a refreshing change to some of the ‘bouncy’ interpretations now to be found in a seemingly ever growing repertoire of theatre organists.
Keith’s tribute to that fine organist, Jackie Brown, is an ideal illustration of his ‘modus operandi’ as he pays homage to a player who he readily admits gave him much inspiration in his formative years. To parody the final tune. I hope we do meet again.
…Ken Mellor (OK Rollem Productions).
I run MSS Studios (aka ORGAN1st) and have specialised in mail-order organ & keyboard recordings since 1996. I have been selling used recordings since 2020.
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