Wurlitzer

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The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, is an American company, formerly a producer of stringed instruments, woodwind, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes.

Over time Wurlitzer changed to producing only organs and jukeboxes, but it no longer produces either. The factory, in the same complex as that of the Eugene DeKleist company (another maker of band organs and orchestrions, acquired by Wurlitzer), is in North Tonawanda, New York, USA. The building is now home to a wide array of tenants ranging from an indoor batting cage to private apartments to various light industrial and commercial businesses. The building's current owner is in the midst of a vast restoration project and has recently replaced the original Wurlitzer sign with a new one.

Deutsche Wurlitzer, owner of the Wurlitzer Jukebox and Vending Electronics trademark, was acquired by the Gibson Guitar Corporation.

A Wurlitzer label on a pipe organ.
A Wurlitzer label on a pipe organ.
Wurlitzer 3500 Juke-box (1971)
Wurlitzer 3500 Juke-box (1971)

Contents

[edit] Jukeboxes

The Wurlitzer was the iconic jukebox of the Rock 'n' Roll era, to the extent that Wurlitzer came in some places to be a generic name for any jukebox. The Wurlitzer is often used to invoke the period in films and television.

Replica jukeboxes bearing the Wurlitzer name are still available. The more recent models are able to play CDs, as well as brand new special edition units also with iPod connectivity. These full and smaller sized replica jukeboxes, now owned by the Gibson Guitar Corporation, are available to view at: http://www.deutsche-wurlitzerusa.com/ (click on the ear)

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[edit] Band organs

Band organ models once produced by Wurlitzer include:

Some orchestrions made by the company can be found at Clark's Trading Post, Lincoln, New Hampshire, USA, the Music Hall, Nevada City, Montana, USA, and the Jasper Sanfilippo collection at Victorian Palace, Barrington Hills, Illinois, USA. The company's patents, trademarks and assets were acquired by the Baldwin Piano Company with their purchase of the keyboard division of Wurlitzer in 1988.

Chaminade High School, in Mineola, New York, is currently the only high school in the USA to have one in their school. It was bought from an adult movie theater.

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.


[edit] Theatre organs

Perhaps the most famous instruments Wurlitzer built were its pipe organs (from 1914 until around 1940), which were installed in theaters, homes, churches, and other public places. "The Mighty Wurlitzer" theatre organ was designed, originally by Robert Hope-Jones, as a "one man orchestra" to accompany silent movies. In all, Wurlitzer built over 2,200 pipe organs (and indeed more theatre organs than the rest of the theatre organ manufacturers combined); the largest one originally built was the 4 keyboard / 58 rank (set of pipes) instrument at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The Music Hall instrument is actually a concert instrument, capable of playing classical as well as non-classical repertoire. It was the only Wurlitzer installation still in use that has dual identical, but independent consoles.

Other large Wurlitzer organs still in their original locations include the Chicago Theater in Chicago Illinois (the oldest); Byrd Theater in Richmond, Virginia; Fox Theatre in Saint Louis, Missouri; Fox Theatre in Detroit, Michigan; Shea's Theater in Buffalo, New York; Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie, New York, Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda, New York; the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee; the Alabama Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama; Coleman Theatre in Miami, Oklahoma; the Denver Paramount Theatre in Denver, Colorado; the Paramount Theater in Cedar Rapids, IA, the Egyptian Theatre in Coos Bay, Oregon and the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Washington, The Plaza Theatre, El Paso Texas, the Rose Theater (originally Riviera)and the Orpheum Theater in Downtown Omaha, Nebraska. Smaller instruments in the UK exist in their original installations, such as the Gaumont State Cinema, Kilburn and the Blackpool Tower Ballroom in the UK. These instruments are still being played several times a week.

Much larger, and more versatile, theatre organs have been built in the last 20 years by well-heeled private enthusiasts, the largest being the magnificent 5/80 organ at the Sanfilippo Estate in Barrington, IL. Other examples include the San Sylmar, CA Nethercutt Collection 4/77, the Organ Stop Pizza, Mesa, AZ 4/78, and the John Dickinson High School Wilmington, DE 3/66 mostly W.W. Kimball. These were built by a combination of older organs, and new pipework to achieve results.

New digital recreations of these instruments have also reached technological peaks in the last few years. Companies such as Walker Theatre Organs, Allen Organ Company and Rodgers Instruments have utilized high-level, digital sampling of original pipe organ sounds to incorporate into their electronic instruments, resulting in very close duplications of these original musical wonders.

In the 1950s, the American Association of Theater Organ Enthusiats (AATOE) was formed to save and preserve theater organs that still remained. (There were other builders as well, including The John Compton Organ Co. LTD, Hill Norman and Beard, W.W. Kimball Company, M.P. Moller, Inc., Robert Morton Organ Company, George Kilgen and Sons, Marr and Colton Organ Company, the Bartola Musical Instrument Company (Barton Organ Company), and the Wicks Organ Company.) The AATOE is now know as the American Theater Organ Society (ATOS).[1] and there is smaller but comparable society in the UK, the Cinema Organ Society.[2]

[edit] Wurlitzers in Britain

The Trocadero Wurlitzer, Elephant and Castle, London (detail)
The Trocadero Wurlitzer, Elephant and Castle, London (detail)

There were a number of Wurlitzers in Britain in the period before the Second World War (1939-45). The first was a very small, six rank instrument installed at the Picture House, Walsall in the West Midlands. Before being exported to UK the organ had already seen some service in another cinema in Cleveland, Ohio USA.
This organ is now located in the Congregational Church, Beer, South Devon, UK
http://www.beer-congregational-church.org.uk a delightful small fishing village on the south coast. Unfortunately the percussion and toy counter division was removed and "lost" when the organ was installed in this church, since it was not considered necessary for church purposes. While this is understandable it was of course a short-sighted policy for such a historic instrument, and was also very sad.
Before the instrument was bought by the church it had been in a private residence, Dormston House Sedgely, Staffordshire after its removal from the cinema. It became available when that owner decided it was not big enough for his home needs!
From a player's point of view the instrument is in exceptionally good condition, apart from a few annoying squeaks and cyphers! It is the hidden inner workings which now demand much attention.
The Church is very conscious of the fact that it owns a musical ancient monument, so it is naturally keen to restore the Wurlitzer to its original condition and to preserve it for the generations to come.
To do this will cost several thousand pounds, so it hopes to stage a few fundraising events in order to raise the money.
Many Wurlitzers were in the larger cinemas and broadcasts were made by the BBC on a regular basis. The more famous of these organs were at the Empire Cinema in London, The Tower Ballroom Blackpool and at the Granada cinema in Tooting - which is currently undergoing a lengthy restoration.[3] It was recently played in public for the first time in 33 years. British organist Reginald Dixon was well known for his performances and broadcasts on the Blackpool organ.

The Trocadero Elephant and Castle Wurlitzer, was the largest organ ever to be shipped to the UK,[4] installed in 1930 in time for the grand opening of the 3,400-seater Cinema. Organist Quintin Maclean is always associated with the instrument. This was closely followed in size by the Paramount/ODEONS at Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle. The Cinema Organ Society[5] has an extensive list of British cinema organs.[6]

The Blackpool Opera House organ was the last new Wurlitzer to be installed in the UK in 1939 and was designed by Horace Finch. The Granada, Kingston also received a Wurlitzer in or around 1939, but most of this came from an earlier installation in Edinburgh. This was the last Wurlitzer installation to be opened and Reginald Dixon was at the console.

The Worthing Assembly hall houses the biggest Wurlitzer organ console in Europe, this console was installed in 1981 after being brought from Blackpool. This organ was originally built in the late 1890s and was re-conditioned and brought back up to service in the 1960s, it was then bought by the national organ trust in the 1980s and installed in Worthing in 1981, the organ has been slowly upgraded to an electric air pump system, programmable pre-sets and a full pipe system.

Many of these organs have survived and are installed in private homes, Town Halls, Concert Halls and Ballrooms all over the country. The largest fully functioning Wurlitzer in Britain today is the four-manual organ in the Gaumont State Cinema in Kilburn, London (now a bingo hall).[7].

[edit] Electric pianos

Main article: Wurlitzer electric piano

From 1955 - 1982 the company also produced the highly regarded Wurlitzer electric piano series, an electrically amplified piano variant.

[edit] Electric guitars

The Wurlitzer brand was applied to several lines of electric guitars during the 1960s. The first family of solid body electric guitars and basses were manufactured by the Holman Company of Neodosha, KS, from late 1965 until 1967. Models included the Cougar, Wildcat and Gemini, all of which had different body shapes. The majority of the Kansas made instruments were guitars, with only a handful of basses being manufactured.

The second family of guitars debuted in 1967, and were manufactured in Italy by the Welson company, and were semi-hollow in construction.

[edit] Wurlitzers in popular culture

  • A Wurlitzer jukebox is prominently featured in the 2005 movie V for Vendetta in V's hideout.
  • Singer-songwriter Tori Amos used Wurlitzer electric pianos on her albums "Strange Little Girls" and "Scarlet's Walk" and toured with them during her "Strange Little Tour" in 2001 and "On Scarlet's Walk" tour in 2002 and 2003.
  • The Waylon Jennings song The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don't Want to Get Over You) is about an endless stream of coins being fed into the jukebox to play sad songs for the coin dropper's lost love.
  • In John Betjeman's documentary Metro-land (1973), Len Rawle performs on a Wurlitzer organ from the Empire cinema in Leicester Square, which he had installed in his house in Chorleywood.
  • Wurlitzers are used in several songs on the 'As I Am' album released November 2007 by Alicia Keys.
  • A Wurlitzer Jukebox is featured in the 1986 Tom Cruise Movie, "Top Gun".
  • "Wurlitzer Jukebox" is a song on the album 'Colossal Youth' by Young Marble Giants.
  • "The One With the Wurlitzer" is a song on the 1999 self-titled album by American Football.
  • In the television series Cheers, a Wurlitzer 1015 is prominently displayed in the back of the bar behind the area where Sam and Woody work.
  • Panic At The Disco used a wurlizter piano in "Mad As Rabbits" (2008)
  • The Josh Ritter song Kathleen has "But a virgin Wurlitzer heart never once had a song" as a line

[edit] References

  1. ^ ATOS - American Theatre Organ Society
  2. ^ INDEX
  3. ^ The Tooting Project.
  4. ^ http://www.cinema-organs.org.uk/main%20pages/tech/choice.htm
  5. ^ INDEX
  6. ^ http://www.cinema-organs.org.uk/main%20pages/List%204%20web.htm
  7. ^ Juliette Soester, Willesden Local History Society (September 2000). The Gaumont State Cinema. Brent Heritage. Retrieved on 2007-11-10.

In the Josh Ritter son Kathleen, "But a virgin Wurlitzer heart never once had a song" is one of the lines

[edit] External links

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