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) and jukeboxes.
Over time Wurlitzer changed to producing only its 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 raging 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.
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; for example, the show Happy Days prominently featured a Wurlitzer model 1015.The Waylon Jennings song "Wurlitzer Prize (I Don't Wanna Get Over You)" is about a man pouring an endless stream of coins into a jukebox in order to hear sad songs that remind him of his lost love.
Replica jukeboxes bearing the Wurlitzer name are still available. More recent models are able to play CDs. They are available to view at: http://www.deutsche-wurlitzerusa.com/
Band organs
Band organ models once produced by Wurlitzer include #103 (Flying Horses Carousel, Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, USA), #104, #146A, #146B, #153 (Antique Carousel, Canobie Lake Park, Salem, New Hampshire, USA), #157 (King Arthur's Carrousel, Disneyland Park, Anaheim, California, USA), and #165 (Glen Echo Park Dentzel Carousel, Glen Echo, Maryland, USA). Some orchestrions made by the company can be found at Clark's Trading Post, Lincoln, New Hampshire, USA. The company's patents, trademarks and assets were acquired by the Baldwin Company.
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 4/58 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 Fox Theatres in Saint Louis, Missouri and Detroit, Michigan; Shea's Theater in Buffalo, 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, and the Paramount Theater in Cedar Rapids, IA. 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 keyboard, 80 rank (sets of pipes) 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 & 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). [link] and there is smaller but comparable society in the UK, the Cinema Organ Society. [link]
Wurlitzers in Britain
There were a number of Wurlitzers in Britain in the period before the Second World War (1939-45). The first was a very small 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 Ballroom at the tower in Blackpool, and at the Granada cinema in Tooting. British concert organist Reginald Dixon was well known for his performances on the Blackpool organ. The last new Wurlitzer to be installed in the UK was at the Opera House, Blackpool, in 1935 to the design of Horace Finch. The Trocadero Wurlitzer, was the largest organ ever to be shipped to the UK [link], installed in 1930 in time for the grand opening of the 3,400-seater Trocadero Cinema at Elephant and Castle, London. The [Cinema Organ Society] has an extensive list of British cinema organs [link].The Blackpool Opera House Wurlitzer was installed in 1939; it was the Empress Ballroom that received an organ in 1935, enlarged from the original Tower Wurlitzer. The Granada, Kingston also received a Wurlitzer in or around 1939 but most of this came from an earlier intallation in Edinburgh.
Electric pianos
From 1955 - 1982 the company also produced the highly regarded Wurlitzer electric piano series, an electrically amplified piano variant. See the Wurlitzer electric piano page at Wikipedia for more information.Trivia
- A Wurlitzer jukebox is prominently featured in the 2006 movie V for Vendetta in V's hideout.
External links
- [Pinballrebel.com], Wurlitzer jukebox information, videos, and museum with photos and descriptions.
- [Blackpool Tower Ballroom and organ]
- [The Paramount Theatre, Cedar Rapids, IA]
- Deutsche-Wurlitzer USA [Official Website]
- [American Theatre Organ Society]
- [Cinema Organ Society]
- [Dickinson Theatre Organ Society]
- [Gameroom Show], Gameroom juke-box related website
- [Wurlitzer Electric Piano Archives]
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