Re: Rascals .jpg photo

[Steve Beach <swbeach@worldchat.com>]

Sal, thank you for clarifying about Felix's early live stage rig.  I never
had the opportunity to see the Rascals live in their "hayday".  But I agree
with Felix having been "one bad-ass on the B-3 live".  
It seems a lot of the guys I admired in those days were Hammondists, who for
some reason or another chose to play the bass rather than opt for a bass
player. Steve Winwood (in Traffic), Doug Riley (Dr. Music), Smitty
(Motherlode)...musician's musicians really all did it.  Do you think it was
their way of paying tribute to all the great jazz trios of the era whom
included guys they also admired?  I know that there wasn't a clear line
between the organ jazz and lounge bands of that time.  The B-3 was just so
revered, it didn't matter what kind of music it was.

Steve B.
    
At 10:08 AM 02/09/96 -0400, you wrote:
>In a message dated 96-08-25 22:49:13 EDT, Steve Beach wrote:
>
>>m
>>
>>Hey Steve, while your talking to Felix....would you ask him if his B3 was
>>modified in any way to allow him to get lots of volume from the bass pedals?
>>The Rascals stage rig from that era looked pretty typical for the time, but
>>when I listen to "Mickey's Monkey" from the Collections album, I can't
>>imagine that much bottom end coming from one 122 stuck in the middle of the
>>stage.  Or was his bass coming from those 2-15" Fender Showmans that I saw
>>in some other pictures of the Rascals at the time?  Huh, huh? Could you ask?
>>Please?
>
>David Chertock responds:
>
>>Recordings are colored by the mics chosen, the mixing process, and how 
>>the engineer chooses to EQ. This may be a factor in what you hear. 
>
>Agreed, but I think Steve Beach meant the Rascals early live organ sound, not
>the recordings.  I can't think of one Rascals recording that has organ bass.
> They used a studio bass player(s), or perhaps Gene Cornish played bass on
>the the early albums.  Felix can be heard playing a few pedals way back in
>the mix in a few tunes.
>
>I can answer Steve's question about Felix's early live set-up: One of Felix's
>tricks back in the club days was to boost the organ's bass by micing the bass
>only from the Leslie to a bass amp on stage.  A cheap high Z mic was mounted
>INSIDE the MIDDLE compartment of a Leslie and plugged into a Showman amp and
>Dual Showman bottom. That may seem crazy now on paper, but it worked and
>sounded excellent.  I don't know if Felix invented this technique, but I knew
>another band with close ties to the Rascals that used this technique for
>organ bass as well.  
>
>This was before (c. 1964) anyone tried splitting the lower manual and pedals
>off to a dedicated bass amp, and long before complete club sound systems with
>individual instrument sound reinforcement.  It was just the thing to help
>keep up with the "Voice of the Theater" (Altec A7's) driven by a 100 watt
>Bogen amplifier and 4 channel mixer, and the "Buchanan Hammer" (ElectroVoice
>664 microphone), which was about the best anyone had back then.  The Shure
>"Vocal Smasher" (horror of horrors) hadn't surfaced yet.
>
>Felix had to be one bad-ass on the B-3 live in those early days.  Does anyone
>know of live recordings of the Rascals from the club days or on live TV
>shows??  Their live sound had to be much different than the records.
>
>Sa
>