[HAM] One for the prog geeks Wakeman didn't like Leslies, and more

[MarkTii at aol.com]

Yessongs was released in 1973.  At the time, Wakeman often  played a C-3, and 
always without a Leslie - he didn't like them.  Rock  Keyboard - Thirty Years 
at the Red-Hot Center, edited by Bob Doerschuk with  a forward by Keith 
Emerson, is a collection of articles that originally appeared  in Keyboard 
Magazine, with many interesting photos.  
 
The following is an excerpt taken from one of the Wakeman articles included  
(February 1979):
 
.......
 
You're using a Leslie now too.  When we last talked, you didn't  like Leslies.
 
I'm using the combination, yeah.  I don't like Leslies very much, but  I'm a 
stubborn old sort.  I've never liked Leslies, because they've always  taken 
away the basic sound of the Hammond.  For certain things, the Leslie  sound is 
important.  But until last year I hadn't found the right  combination.  Now, 
with the Leslie-and-organ-fed-direct combination, I like  it.  I give the road 
crew a free hand and they surprise me a lot; 99 times  out of 100 what they do 
is tremendous.  The Leslie was one of those.   I'd never heard a Leslie sound 
good at low volume, so they went away with little  smiles on their faces and 
came back with a Leslie that sounded good at low  volume.
 
What about the drawbar setting on the Hammond?  What do you  use?
 
I've got two basics that I always work from:
 
All the white drawbars are pulled full out and so is the 16' one, and the  
percussion is set to the second harmonic with soft decay.  That's the one  
setting that I've used for years.  It's the one that I use whenever I first  sit 
down at a Hammond. It's very easy to work off of.  I never keep the  same 
setting from the beginning of a piece to the end of a piece.  
 
The other preset, the non-percussion one, is the just the reverse.   All the 
drawbars are pulled out full.  Then I push various ones in working  backwards. 
 I do that on the opening to "Into The Hear Of The Sunrise" [on  Fragile].  
That starts with all the drawbars out, and in between  runs I play an augmented 
fourth on the lower manual of the Hammond.  The  Hammond is also heavily 
phased and echoed, and you move the 8', 4', and 2'  drawbars in alternatively.  
The 16' stays out all the time.  I think  that you have to keep playing with the 
drawbars constantly or it gets  stale.  It's like playing a Polymoog and just 
using one preset all  night.  It'd get boring and unimaginative.  
 
 
.......

 
Elsewhere in the excerpt, Wakeman talks about "simplifying" his setup and  
"cutting down" on equipment:
 
What equipment did you use on Yes's Tormato [yes, "TORMATO"]  tour?
 
. . . Instead of seeing how much we can put on stage, we're seeing how  
little we can put onstage.  That meant finding instruments that could do  two jobs 
instead of one.  So, first of all, I hid all of my amplification  under the 
stage.  I used Moog Synamps.  Then I took only the Hammond  C-3, the Polymoog, 
the Sequential Circuits Prophet, two Birotrons [WHAT?], two  Minimoogs, a 
Yamaha CP-30 electronic piano [his words], an RMI Keyboard  Computer, and a grand 
piano.  That was it, besides the obvious gadgets like  some Sequential Circuits 
sequencers and things.  The object was to cut down  and make the show a 
little more visible to the audience.  If they can't see  anything because there's 
three tons of junk onstage [WELL, WITH THE C-3, the  Yamaha CP-30, and the 
grand piano, I bet he was pretty close to 3 tons], they  can't enjoy it.  The 
Keyboard Computer took away the need to carry the  Mander Pipe Organ this time. . 
. .
 
 
.......

 
NOW, THAT'S WHAT I CALL TRAVELING LIGHT!
 
In the Mellotron Book, Wakeman talks about taking 3 Mellotrons on tour -  one 
for use onstage, another as backup, and a third was always being rotated in  
and out with the other ones for repairs.  
 
Mark
 
HAPPY NEW YEAR