ERIC LORD - TWO New CDs: Organ Showcase & Regal Harrogate (Wurlitzer & Compton)

This listing is for TWO Organ CDs at a special price (works out at £7.45 each, with less postage).

These are listed separately at £8.95 each if you only want one.

ERIC LORD’S ORGAN SHOWCASE

2011 release recalling the BBC Organ Broadcasts of Days Gone By…

A 1989 recording featuring the Former Manchester Odeon Wurlitzer in The Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Recorded in April 1989, shortly before he died.

Compiled and introduced by Alan Ashton.

Released: 2011.

Running Time: 39.06.

Code: OK21.

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).

Life is Nothing Without Music / La Mer / Clair de Lune / Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams

Kisses in the Dark / Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life

Always

When the Organ Played at Twilight / Somewhere a Voice is Calling

Try a Little Tenderness / The Very Thought of You

My Heart and I

Love Walked In / Our Love is Here To Stay / Dream a Little Dream of Me

When Day is Done / Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (reprise)

SLEEVE NOTES:

Eric Lord, or ‘Lord’ Eric as I sometimes called him when presenting him at concerts, had an easy recognisable style of playing. His idol was the late Jesse Crawford, the American organist who was well known for his unique style of playing. Eric would say that as a young man he had spent hours mastering the art of playing glissandos with smooth swell pedal control and melodic feeling. I well remember Eric saying to me, “It isn’t music if it doesn’t come from here,” his hand, patting his heart.

One day in April, 1989 after he had retired from his own retail electronic organ business in Urmston, Manchester, Eric arranged for a practice session on the ex-Odeon Manchester Wurlitzer, which at that time was residing in the Free Trade Hall in the City. It’s uncertain after all these years what the purpose of this session was. Maybe an LP or possibly inserts for his popular Organ Showcase programme on BBC, Radio Lancashire. In any event what you will hear now is an attempt to recreate those wonderful days when organ music filled the airwaves on a daily basis, to which programmes Eric was a regular contributor.

We entered the Hall, the console was situated on the balcony to the prompt side of the stage, Eric began playing, the reels of the recorder were turning and gorgeous sounds rolled round an otherwise empty hall.

Sadly the LP never materialised and I believe this must be the last time Eric played or recorded a theatre pipe organ. It was shortly after this event that Eric’s health rapidly deteriorated and he passed away in a nursing home shortly after playing an electronic organ, entertaining fellow patients with his daily mini concert.

My personal memories of Eric are of sadness and gratitude. Every one who admired the lush flowing melodies this quiet gentleman could coax out of any organ, either a small electronic model or a large theatre pipe organ, particularly a Wurlitzer, will be thankful we have on record his lovely music.

...Frank Varley.

ERIC LORD AT THE REGAL CINEMA, HARROGATE

2011 release of recordings made in 1966 featuring the 3-manual, 6-rank Compton organ in The Regal, Harrogate. Recorded at an Organ Club Concert in 1966.

The producer wishes to crave the indulgence of the listener to accept that at organ club concerts in the 1960s, the audience were not always aware of the proximity of the microphones.

Released: 2011.

Running Time: 46.09.

Code: OK19.

Scottish Medley: Scotland the Brave / Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ / Comin’ Thro’ the Rye / Road to the Isles / Keep Right on to the End of the Road / Piper’s Lament / Black Eyes / Estrellita / Darktown Strutters Ball / My Blue Heaven / Sophisticated Lady / Solitude / Alexander’s Ragtime Band / The World is Waiting for the Sunrise / Tiger Rag

Light Cavalry / South Rampart Street Parade / The Pied Piper / Dear Love, My Love / Anchors Aweigh / El Cumbanchero / Always / ’Deed I Do / You’re the Cream in My Coffee / When I’m Calling You / The Mounties Song / Memories of You / Winter Wonderland / The Sunshine of Your Smile / Patricia / Smoke Gets in Your Eyes / The World is Waiting for the Sunrise / Summertime / Rhapsody in Blue

SLEEVE NOTES:

Back in those wonderful days when a number of local BBC Radio Stations vied with the London based programme THE ORGANIST ENTERTAINS for popularity and listening figures amongst organ music enthusiasts, if you happened to live in the North West of the Country you had a choice, BBC Radio Manchester/Leeds and Blackburn. Some lucky people could receive all three programmes. As Arthur Askey would have said, “Happy Days”.

Over at BBC Radio Blackburn the quietly spoken, former cinema organist and later organ Music Shop owner ERIC LORD presented his bi-weekly programme ORGAN SHOWCASE. Throughout those years we often shared recordings for our respective programmes. Eric was a most generous man and in his later years when called upon to play in concert, no matter if it were a theatre or electronic organ, he would invariably acknowledge the first round of applause with “you’re so kind to a very old man” and then always continued with a note perfect, faultlessly registered programme of a kind that perhaps only he and the late Cinema Organ Society founder Hubert Selby were capable of performing... for both artists loved with a passion the famous style created by Jesse Crawford. In my latter years at BBC Radio Manchester I was fortunate enough to be able to present organ concerts with an audience, at the Playhouse Theatre, Hulme which then housed BBC Theatre organ No.3. As far as I was concerned, to include Eric was a must, and that April 1983 session heard the former Empress Ballroom, Blackpool Wurlitzer being played for thirty glorious minutes to an enraptured audience. That session was released back in the days of cassettes (remember those?) on the Audicord label, coupled with some recordings that Eric had made on electronics. Compared with many of his colleagues of those times, Eric’s commercial recordings were thin on the ground, but here’s an opportunity to relive one of his musically mellifluous live organ concerts made at an organ club meeting at the Regal Cinema, Harrogate in 1966. The organ is a 3-manual, 6-rank Compton with a Melotone unit and illuminated console.

...Alan Ashton (Presenter ORGAN1st Radio - OrganRadio.com).

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.

The scans/photos are the item you get, I don't use images from other sellers. I scan them all at hi-res.

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