I can tell the difference, Scott. Unless there are nine key contacts per key all hittin' at slightly different times, anyone who has actually sat a Hammond tonewheel organ night after night likely doesn't know what to listen for.

As for the notion that there were no electric keyboards available in the 50's -- Ray Charles was a pioneer with his use of the Wurlitzer electric piano. Matter of history that Ray formed his first "Combination" by paring down a bigband to just drums, bass, his Wurlitzer piano, plus one sax, one trumpet and one trombone. When Ray finally came up with a voicing that worked with those horns along with that piano, Quincy Jones wrote in is bio that Ray came running across the street and quite excitedly dragged Quincy up to Ray's apartment to hear what Ray called his, "Combo" -- a word that became part of the vocabulary to describe the smaller groups that today are called "bands" -- At that time, in order to call yourself a band, you'd better have had about seventeen pieces. What'd I Say? But I digress, sorry. Just Hit the Road, Jack 'n Gimmie Money, Honey, That's What I Like.

I think that most pianists of that era couldn't adapt nor relate to a different instrument than their beloved acoustic pianos, which makes a whole lotta sense if you ever owned *any* of the early analog electric and electronic keboards, one has to adapt to them as they cannot adapt to you. Not recommended to try grabbin' big handfuls of 13b9 chords on the old Wurlitzer reeds...

Wurlitzer electric piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano, Hohner Clavinet, Hammond organs of several different types and flavors, these were likely the mainstay instruments that were to become well used by at least the early 60's. The Soul and R&B acts lead the way, though, it took a little longer time for the white rock and roll acts to get on that bandwagon. Some blind cat (Ronny Milsap) who toured with Elvis used to use the Wurly and then the Rhodes, BTW.

MOTOWN, however, was a different story as concerns not only the use but the actual definition of what to do with those kind of keyboards. You Heard That Through the Grapevine, baby.


--Mac

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