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, 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 recently acquired by the Gibson Guitar Corporation.

A Wurlitzer label on a pipe organ.

Wurlitzer 3500 Juke-box (1971)

1 Jukeboxes
2 Band organs
3 Theatre organs
- 3.1 Wurlitzers in Britain
4 Electric pianos
5 Trivia
6 References
7 External links

[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 will also play iPods. 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:

#103 (Flying Horses Carousel, Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, USA),
#104,
#105 (Museum Carousel, Museum of Carousel Art and History, Sandusky, Ohio, USA),
#125 (1901 Parker Carousel, Heritage Center of Dickinson County, Abilene, Kansas, USA),
#145B (Lakeside Carousel, International Market World, Auburndale, Florida, USA),
#146A (Dr. Floyd L. Moreland Carousel, Casino Pier, Seaside Heights, New Jersey, USA),
#146B (1912 Parker Carousel, Burnaby Village Museum, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada),
#148,
#150 (1906 Bartholomew Murphy Carousel, City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA),
#153 (1898 Carousel, Canobie Lake Park, Salem, New Hampshire, USA),
#155 "Monster" (Elitch Gardens Carousel, Kit Carson County Fairgrounds, Burlington, Colorado, USA),
#157 (1928 Spillman Carousel, Public Museum of Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA),
#160 "Mammoth" (modified in 1915 to a Wurlitzer Style 165, Joyland Amusement Park, Wichita, Kansas, USA),
#165 (1921 Dentzel Carousel, Glen Echo Park, Glen Echo, Maryland, USA), and
#180 (Jasper Sanfilippo collection, Victorian Palace, Barrington Hills, Illinois, USA).

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 nation to have one in their school. It was bought from a adult movie theater.

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[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 Theatres in Saint Louis, Missouri and 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 and the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Washington. 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, Mesa, AZ 4/77, 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 else 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)

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. A number 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.

Many of these organs have survived and are installed in private homes, Town Halls, Concert Halls and Ballrooms all over the country.

[edit] Electric pianos

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

[edit] Trivia

A Wurlitzer jukebox is prominently featured in the 2006 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 Wurlizer 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.