During my first quarter at UCLA, I got dragged down to a little blues club in Santa Monica. In retrospect, it was a life-changing experience for me. I had heard the blues on the radio, sometimes on record, but I never seen anyone "play" the blues. I talked to the band afterwards, told them I wanted to learn to play the blues, and the keyboard player invited me to an open jam session he was hosting on the following Monday.

I showed up for the jam session, nervously signed myself up to play, and was soon invited on stage to find myself paired with a group of seasoned musicians -- the singer shouted "shuffle -- key of A" and the song started immediately. I was lost -- I knew the chords, but the entire feel was contrary to everything I had known to that point. I tried to draw upon every piece of inspriation from my youth. When Howard Jones failed, I turned to Ludwig Von Beethoven. No luck. My playing must have sounded incredibly strange, and I sure I was throwing the rest of the band off.

Racing through my own musical memory, I finally stumbled upon Squeeze, the quintessential 80s band, I thought, but soon realized as my hands began to move in rhythm with the song I was playing, that Squeeze were the only 80s band I knew that could play the blues.

So I got home and pulled out some old cds. Squeeze pianist Jools Holland taught me a lot about the blues that night. Enough to tell me I wanted to know more.

I found a cheap blues piano teacher in the "Daily Bruin." Took a few lessons. She taught me the pentatonic scales and I taught myself a few new riffs. My hands started to learn to play in rhythm as opposed to perfect harmony.

Armed with the basics, I returned to the blues jam, and kept on returning, every Monday night for a year. After a while, they started putting me on later in the evening, pairing me with better musicians, letting me solo ...

Less than a year later, I was in a band with three guys ten years older than me. We played together every tuesday night at a new club called 14-Below, hosting our own blues jam, and getting paid $20/man and all we could drink for the night.

I mostly kept the synth on patch A11, Acoustic Piano. On the songs that demanded an organ, I switched up to A44, Electric Organ, a patch that would make the rest of the band wince because it sounded like a caliope or circus organ. One night, the bassist turned to me and said "Fuck this crappy organ sound Chuck, you need a B-3."

IceDog, who I had known less than a year at the time, piped up from behind the drumset. "Yeah man, get a Hammond."

I knew next to nothing about the Hammond B-3 at the time, other than that it was a mythical creature, akin to a musical monster -- the famed "motor running" sound from "Born to Be Wild," and the driving instrument behind Squeeze's "Tempted." I always wondered what kind of instrument can sound so melodic and ballsy at the same time.

I had seen pictures of the B-3 ... a 400 pound monster that wouldn't look out of place in the corner of gramma's living room. This is not a gig instrument, I thought ...

... but then again, in the late 1960's, a shop called "Keyboard Products" began modifying B-3s for road use. Billy Bear, the owner of that shop, figured he could take the keyboard and guts out of a full sized B-3 and reassemble in a much smaller, more transport-friendly case. His famous "Cut-Down B-3s" were in wide use by a lot of famous bands. I even noticed that Paul Carrack was playing one in the "Tempted" video. And that was all the way over in England. The "cut-downs" were easy to transport, but they still weighed about 350 pounds.

"OK, you guys find me a B-3, I'll play it."

A week later they found me a "cut-down" for $1100. We drove out to Hollywood to try it out. My first impression was "what a piece of shit" since the thing was all beat up and chipped. Closer inspection revealed that the keyboard and buttons were still in good shape, and most of the "damage" was cosmetic.

"Just came off the road with the Cult," the seller sead proudly, "and she didn't give me a problem."

"She ." That didn't surprise me. Even before he said it I was thinking of the B-3 as a female, and I still do.

"Turn her on." Ah, turning on a Hammond B-3 is a production in itself. Two toggle switches. Flip up switch number one and hold it for 8 seconds until the tone wheel motor is in full swing. Flip up switch number two for power, hold both switches up for an additional four seconds while the tone wheel frequencies synch with the power (yes, the B-3 tunes itself to the AC/DC frequencies power current, or something like that), and then release switch number one. Ten seconds later you will begin to hear the faint rhythmic hum of the Leslie 142 amplifier and speaker.

Ah yes, the Leslie. (another female, I guess) The Leslie is half the sound of the Hammond Organ. It's a four foot tall by 2.5 foot wide by 2 foot deep speaker cabinet with a old-style tube amp mounted inside the bottom of it. The leslie has two speakers. One, the bass, rotates very slowly near the bottom of the cabinet. Two treble horns rotate at the top, making the Leslie itself look like a stacked merry-go-round with opposing turntables.

The rotation of the speakers makes the sound vibrate a bit. Hold a note down, and you can hear the sound slowly go in and out as the speakers turn. Flick a switch on the organ itself and the speakers kick into high gear, spinning as fast as fan blades. The Leslie-Fast setting is responsible for that Classic B-3 sound, the heavy vibrato, the soulful factory motor big-balls, don't-fuck-with-me growl, as well as that spiritual choir-like whirrrl often heard accompanying gospel choirs.

Yeah, a Hammond organ is not complete without a Leslie speaker cabinet.

I bought the Hammond and Leslie that day for $1100. And I'm still learning how to play it. Sure, I'm a helluva lot better on it than I was 6 years ago. So many drawbars, tone generators, simple filters -- I'm still discovering new ways for the organ to sound, new effects. In essence, I consider it the coolest synthesizer ever invented.

And yeah, we all have to lug the 350 pound organ and the 150 pound speaker to every gig, and no-one complains, because she's worth it. Just listen ... she sounds so sweet.

afterword: about a year ago, we took the B-3 into Billy Bear's shop for repairs. It was cool to meet the guy responsible for adapting one of the coolest musical instruments in the world for road use. He was a grumpy old dude with a nasty dog at his side. Asked me why the thing was in such shitty shape. I shrugged. He said he'd call when it was ready. He never called. We tried him, and got no answer. Finally, IceDog reached his mother. Seems Billy Bear fell asleep behind the wheel of his car and plowed into the back of a parked car at 60 mph. Of course, we could pick up the B-3 at the shop. The organ was in pieces. It was the last organ Billy Bear ever worked on. We got it back together, and it's worked just fine ever since.

amaebi's Recommended B-3 Artists:
Jimmy Smith
Booker T and the MG's
Richard "Groove" Holmes