Close To You
Engineered, Produced and Jacket Design by Dean Brown
Drum Accompaniment by Danny Szasz
Dean Brown Productions
From the back cover: "GENE ROBERSON... RIDES THE MIGHTY WURLITZER" is an appropriate title for this new album!
Recorded on the 22 rank Wurlitzer Pipe Organ in the famed Joe Koons Motorcycle Shop, Gene escorts his listeners down the musical highway of familiar favorites, both old and new.
Though still in his early twenties, Gene Roberson is no newcomer to the thousands who have attended his church and theatre organ concerts. Easily bridging the generation gap, each week he packs over 50 students into his organ workshop at Laguna Hills Leisure World... one of the largest retirement communities in the nation.
Equally at home with his own generation, he directs the youth choir and is staff organist at the First Brethren Church of Long Beach, California. Recently his Sunday evening Bach organ concert was sponsored by the college department of his church and was hailed as a successful "youth Happening". To Gene church music is a valid ministry and is perhaps one of the most effective means of attracting the community to Christ.
While maintaining an active church and concert schedule, Gene also finds time to surf at the San Clemente beach near his home, do his famous gourmet cooking for his friends and oversee his own Conn Organ studio in Dana Point.
After the enthusiastic acceptance of his first organ album, "O Happy Day", Gene has wanted to produce a "fun album" played on a genuine theatre pipe organ. So here it is! The living, breathing, roaring Wurlitzer Pipe Organ with its youthful rider at the controls! Clear the track! "GENE
ROBERSON...) ... RIDES THE MIGHTY WURLITZER!"
Gene Roberson, P.O. Box 333, Dana Point, California 92629
Dean Brown Productions
From the back cover: "GENE ROBERSON... RIDES THE MIGHTY WURLITZER" is an appropriate title for this new album!
Recorded on the 22 rank Wurlitzer Pipe Organ in the famed Joe Koons Motorcycle Shop, Gene escorts his listeners down the musical highway of familiar favorites, both old and new.
Though still in his early twenties, Gene Roberson is no newcomer to the thousands who have attended his church and theatre organ concerts. Easily bridging the generation gap, each week he packs over 50 students into his organ workshop at Laguna Hills Leisure World... one of the largest retirement communities in the nation.
Equally at home with his own generation, he directs the youth choir and is staff organist at the First Brethren Church of Long Beach, California. Recently his Sunday evening Bach organ concert was sponsored by the college department of his church and was hailed as a successful "youth Happening". To Gene church music is a valid ministry and is perhaps one of the most effective means of attracting the community to Christ.
While maintaining an active church and concert schedule, Gene also finds time to surf at the San Clemente beach near his home, do his famous gourmet cooking for his friends and oversee his own Conn Organ studio in Dana Point.
After the enthusiastic acceptance of his first organ album, "O Happy Day", Gene has wanted to produce a "fun album" played on a genuine theatre pipe organ. So here it is! The living, breathing, roaring Wurlitzer Pipe Organ with its youthful rider at the controls! Clear the track! "GENE
ROBERSON...) ... RIDES THE MIGHTY WURLITZER!"
Gene Roberson, P.O. Box 333, Dana Point, California 92629
Also from the back cover: ABOUT THE ORGAN – "You must be kidding!," is the usual reaction most people make when hearing about the Joe Koons pipe organ for the first time. But he isn't kidding! As you walk into the Joe Koons Motorcycle Shop in Long Beach, California, the first thing you see is the gleaming mahogany console of a 3-manual Wurlitzer Pipe Organ sitting on its raised platform in the corner. At the far end of this room filled with motorcycles and tool-covered work benches are the pipe chambers filled with 22 ranks of pipes taken from at least 3 different theatre pipe organs.
For 42 years Joe Koons has been in the motorcycle business... originally an Indian Motorcycle dealership, he now specializes in B.M. W., B.S.A. and Suzuki. But though motorcycles are his business, pipe organs are his love! And love it must be, for Joe spent over 3 1/2 years, often 20 hours a day, installing this monster instrument in his shop. The new console contains the latest in solid-state switching and relays designed by Jack Rauton who took over 30 miles of wire and 4 months to build. Ross Farmer then spent 6 months adding 29 additional stops to the new 3-manual console that replaced the original 2-manual.
Though still active in his motorcycle business, Joe Koons spends endless hours tuning the more than 1600 pipes and in the maintenance needed to keep this great organ in mint condition. Because of this care and the extreme quietness of its working parts, we were able to record this album "close up". In fact, one of the mics is actually inside one of the pipe chambers.
As you listen to this album you will not only hear but will actually feel the organ breathe and live. At times you almost imagine you are in the pipe chambers surrounded by pipes. Joe Koons" love and tender care has brought this mighty Wurlitzer back to life... the Wurlitzer rides again!
For 42 years Joe Koons has been in the motorcycle business... originally an Indian Motorcycle dealership, he now specializes in B.M. W., B.S.A. and Suzuki. But though motorcycles are his business, pipe organs are his love! And love it must be, for Joe spent over 3 1/2 years, often 20 hours a day, installing this monster instrument in his shop. The new console contains the latest in solid-state switching and relays designed by Jack Rauton who took over 30 miles of wire and 4 months to build. Ross Farmer then spent 6 months adding 29 additional stops to the new 3-manual console that replaced the original 2-manual.
Though still active in his motorcycle business, Joe Koons spends endless hours tuning the more than 1600 pipes and in the maintenance needed to keep this great organ in mint condition. Because of this care and the extreme quietness of its working parts, we were able to record this album "close up". In fact, one of the mics is actually inside one of the pipe chambers.
As you listen to this album you will not only hear but will actually feel the organ breathe and live. At times you almost imagine you are in the pipe chambers surrounded by pipes. Joe Koons" love and tender care has brought this mighty Wurlitzer back to life... the Wurlitzer rides again!
The Most Beautiful Girl In The World
The Summer Knows
Put Your Hand In The Hand
Liza
Somewhere My Love (Dedicated to my friends at Laguna Hills Leisure World)
Close To You
Maria
Here's That Rainy Day
One Note Samba
Only A Rose
Cry Me A River
There was indeed a motorcycle shop in Long Beach, California with a pipe organ built in to it. Joe Koons' Suzuki-BMW-Vespa Motorcycles as it was known when I worked there in 1980.
ReplyDeletePipe organs were one of Joe's passions. This one, a 3/34 Wurlitzer was out of an old movie theater as I recall.