LP "Dutch Band Organ"
By Doug Mauldin
Greetings to all: Gordy Forcier's report of a Dutch street organ in a movie which was set in Amsterdam caught my attention when he said it was an H. Mollmann organ. My own earliest exposure to Dutch street organ music was through a record album titled "Dutch Band Organ" which features an instrument with a nameplate that says "H. Mohlmann." By now I suspect that this is a private label; of all the organ-builders mentioned on this list and in the reference material I have found, I see no mention of a Mohlmann or Mollmann or any name close to those.
The album, HiFiRecord number R902, contains the following songs: Wonderful Copenhagen; Cuddle Up A Little Closer; Tennessee Waltz; Did You Ever See A Dream Walking?; Du Kannst Nicht Treu Sein [You Can't Be True, Dear]; Patricia; Que Sera, Sera; Pretty Baby; Should I?; I Get The Blues When It Rains; Blue Tango; and Under The Double Eagle. I wonder if one of these is the tune that haunts Gordy. (I've had all of them running through my head for almost thirty years!)
Earlier I submitted an inquiry about this organ (digest 95.06.21) but no additional information came to light. Perhaps now someone in our much larger audience will be able to contribute to our knowledge of this organ or of the person who arranged the music on the album.
I once heard a brief excerpt from this album in a television program. In an episode of the Benny Hill Show, a chase sequence passes an organ grinder, and the accompanying music is a sped-up playback of "Wonderful Copenhagen," the first cut on the album. At least it sounded like it. The "organ" in the sight-gag turned out to be a hand-cranked rotisserie with which the man was roasting chickens.
Regards,
Doug Mauldin University of Arkansas at Little Rock
gdmauldin@ualr.edu Department of Physics and Astronomy
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(Message sent Thu 13 Mar 1997, 13:55:35 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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