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Where Did Keith Emerson's Organ Go?

toddalin

toddalin

AK Subscriber
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The other day I had the desire to hear ELP do Fanfare for the Common Man. There is a version on YouTube recorded in Montreal in 1977 with Keith on the Yamaha Electone Organ that I had heard a few times and like.


So I go to Youtube looking for this and find a version from the 1997 tour at the Tollwood festival. Here Keith is playing a "Stage Hammond" (B3 chopped for easy moving). If you listen the Hammond something seems to be "missing." I couldn't even listen to the whole piece before finding the Montreal recording and switching over.


I've been trying to figure out if this is a problem:

1) in the Hammond. The 9 rows of key contacts under each key can get dirty/worn preventing the sound from getting though. But I would think that this is hardly likely as this same Hammond was used for the 1997 world tour and Keith would have noticed it and said something.

2) in that Keith has gotten lazy in 20 years and is no longer completely pressing the keys so that some contacts don't "make." Possible, because the band's energy level has certainly diminished in 20 years.

3) The recording process used in 1997 is way inferior to that from 1977. Maybe the digital is all it's cracked up to be? Can the sampling rate be missing stuff?

4) The transfer to YouTube was done differently.

So I brought up up Hoedown from the 1997 tour and 24 years earlier. In these the difference is really obvious. Here is 1997 Tour in Argentina


And from 1973 in Milan.


So, where did the music go?
 
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He's not getting any younger. Maybe as simple as arthritis setting in making it more difficult for him to play ?
 
Reading the header, I'd assumed they went into the skip behind the venue after he destroyed them during the show.
The crew brought another smasher organ in the for the next show.
Just a guess, dunno.
 
zebra03 said:
This will make you forget all about Keith's organ .

Click to expand...

I don't think so Z! Emerson was the mastermind behind ELP, just listen to some "Nice" from the 60's. Besides that, ELP's early stuff was far superior then their "Works" days in the late 70's and I even saw them in concert on that tour.
 
I'm not referring to the Hammond itself.

I'm talking about the Hammond's sound. It looks like Keith does a lot of playing that I'm just not hearing on 1997 World Tour, but that I do hear in the older versions.

To me it's kind of like when you listen to something at twice speed, but instead of a tape being speeded up where the pitch increases as in the old analog days, half the information is removed but the pitch remains the same, as in the new digital stuff.

BTW, I saw them twice. Once at the Long Beach Arena in 1974, then again at the Ontario Jamboree that year.

 
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Cactus Bob said:
I don't think so Z! Emerson was the mastermind behind ELP, just listen to some "Nice" from the 60's. Besides that, ELP's early stuff was far superior then their "Works" days in the late 70's and I even saw them in concert on that tour.
Click to expand...
Oh well , I gave it a shot . :D

I love the band and I love most of the off shoots too .
 
Been an ELP fan since way back and saw them at Saratoga when I was in high school. It could just be the mix. I've got some albums, Laura Nyro for example, that are very satisfying, but the digital version loses certain things, like some mic track got turned down or turned off. They have that played-too-fast quality, but the speed is fine.
 
. . . and then in '78 came Love Beach :bigok:

Reviewer Michael Bloom from Rolling Stone said that "Love Beach isn't simply bad, it's downright pathetic. Stale and full of ennui, this album makes washing the dishes seem a more creative act by comparison".


ELP_Love_Beach_cover.jpg
 
Cactus Bob said:
. . . and then in '78 came Love Beach :bigok:

Reviewer Michael Bloom from Rolling Stone said that "Love Beach isn't simply bad, it's downright pathetic. Stale and full of ennui, this album makes washing the dishes seem a more creative act by comparison".


ELP_Love_Beach_cover.jpg
Click to expand...

...but it appears that KE was able to bring his organ to the photoshoot.

(what a lame LP cover, makes the BeeGee covers of the era -- which inspired this ELP cover methinks -- mildly tolerable)
 
He's playing a digital organ in the first part of the 1997 recording, and odds are, the B3 sounds you're hearing later are actually the proper sounds of the instrument.
I don't think that Keith Emerson would tour with a Hammond with bad key contacts-they're very easy to push. Adding more weight to the key wouldn't do much (in my experience).

Analog v. digital has something to do with it, but I'd wager that 99% of the differences are caused by different electronics, mics, and engineering choices.
 
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