The Leslie Cabinet- 500 Words with Adam P Hunt

While the name Donald Leslie may not be as well known as some people in the music world perhaps he should be.

Donald Leslie invented the Leslie speaker in order to help emulate the sound of a pipe organ when used with a Hammond Organ.

Lauren’s Hammond was an engineering student and had attended Cornell University. Hammond worked as a freelance inventor and amongst his many inventions were an early version of 3D movies, automatic transmissions, clocks, and an electric bridge table that automatically shuffled cards.

Hammond first patented his organ in 1934 and in 1940 Hammond was awarded the Franklin Institute’s John Price Weatherill Medal for discovery or invention in the physical sciences.

In 1937 Donald Leslie took it upon himself to improve what he thought were some of the shortcomings of Hammond’s original design. Leslie felt the original Hammond sound was “dull, shrill and still”.

Leslie eventually developed a speaker cabinet that featured a special rotating speaker that produced a lush, wobbling effect by means of the Doppler effect as the speaker passed by openings in the cabinet.

Hammond was none too happy about Leslie’s efforts and subsequently modified successive generations of the Hammond organ to be incompatible with Leslie’s speaker cabinets. Hammond went so far as to forbid his dealerships from selling Leslie’s speaker cabinets.

Although Leslie was thwarted in his efforts to impress Hammond, Leslie would eventually manufacture speakers for other organ companies including Wurlitzer, Conn, Thomas and Baldwin. Despite Leslie’s close association with Hammond organs he once said “I hate those damn things”.

in 1965 Leslie sold his company to CBS and for a brief period Fender produced a rotating speaker cabinet as well did Mesa Boogie.

By an ironic turn of fate after both the Hammond Corporation and Leslie were eventually bought by Suzuki Music which produces modern versions of Hammond Organs and rotating speaker cabinets.

For those who may not have the luxury of having a full load in crew at their beck and call Leslie makes portable guitar and organ specific rotating speaker emulators that are well worth checking out.

Lauren’s Hammond eventually passed on in 1973 and held pattens in multiple fields including guided missile controls, infrared light-sensing devices, gyroscopes and even his own rotating speaker cabinet assembly.

Donald Leslie would eventually pass on in 2004 but not before being inducted into the American Music Conference Hall of Fame in 2003.

The Leslie’s sound is unmistakeable, just listen to Booker T and the MG’s thick, pulsing, lush sounding organ riff on Green Onions it’s right there.

Legend has it that the late jazz great Jimmy Smith loved the sound of the Hammond B-3 organ he locked himself away in a warehouse for a year so he could master playing the instrument.

While I’ve only been able to touch briefly on this fascinating subject for more information check out http://hammondorganco.com/about-us/company-profile/ and http://www.nndb.com/people/710/000061527/