Hammond Organs
Jon Hammond has successfully created a career based on his musical talents and his passion for the music industry! As a musician Jon has performed with many legendary players and as a clinician and product artist he has introduced many innovative products to music stores and their customers over...
Russ Turner opened his own organ repair company in the early 1960s in the early days of the home organ boom. He worked with all of the organ dealers in and around the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly four decades. During this time he also repaired other electronic products with a focus on radios,...
Jay Valle began working in the organ industry in the 1950s and has witnessed some rather amazing changes. He was part of the organ boom of the 1960s and 70s that brought the instrument into shopping malls as an impulse item. Jay has watched the change in technology, which has greatly benefited the...
Sam Keeney loved playing music! He had a road organ he hauled to performances nights and on weekends. Starting in the late 1950s, his day job was music retailing. In 1970 he bought a store in Spry, Pennsylvania, and renamed it Sam Keeney Piano and Organ Company. Over the years he pioneered product...
David Leed was born in 1937 in the United Kingdom and spent the war years and most of his childhood in Australia. His love of music started when he was a young boy learning to play the cornet in his local Salvation Army. After returning to London and finishing school David played the cornet in...
Jimmy Gibbs opened the very first crate containing a Hammond B-3 in the United Kingdom in the 1950s. Several years later, at the height of the Cold War, Jimmy brought the famous organ to Moscow, the first person to do so in history. He found that “music can speak every language and that no one ever...
Gerald “Wig” Wiggins was a world renowned composer, arranger and jazz keyboardist. As an early pioneer in playing jazz on the Hammond B-3 organ, Wig had a strong interest in new and inventive sounds. His creatively can be heard in hundreds of recordings and motion pictures beginning in the 1930s....
Bruce Mitchell is a veteran of the Canadian piano and organ industry dating back to 1966 when he was hired as the Hammond Organ sales rep for Canada. Bruce has since been deeply involved with Kurzweil Music and Young Chang as well as the Musical Instrument Association of Canada (MIAC). During his...
Russell Lindquist joined his uncle’s piano store in Iowa in his early 20s, and soon discovered his love of the business. He especially loved selling. Russell opened a Hammond Organ dealership in Houston, Texas, during the boom of the B-3 and the home organ era. Over the years he created several...
Manji Suzuki had a deep passion for the music industry. He is the founder and president of Suzuki Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company in Hamamatsu, Japan. The company began as a harmonica maker and over the years has developed innovative instruments such as a full line of wood harmonicas for...