[organ music]   - Well, I'm called   the house organist, but...

It's more of a   house music lover.

It's always been the role of the house organist to provide, music for a wide variety of events that can happen in a theater.

In the days of when this was installed, the organist accompanied silent movies, and would usually play a solo feature sometime during an evening's entertainment.

And, there would be vocalists, usually vocalists could sing a solo with the organ.

That was a traditional form of entertainment.

But nowadays, here at the Theatre, people get married in the Theatre, so I might be playing a wedding ceremony, or people might have dinner onstage.

I mean, there's all sorts of creative things that we do here at the Theatre.

And, if someone needs background music, well this is a big, loud musical ensemble that can also be a very subtle, quiet musical ensemble.

So, it can be used in a lot of different ways.

The Wurlitzer Company   characterized these   as unit orchestras.

They really didn't--   you hardly ever saw the term   "Wurlitzer organ."

Perhaps if they had   built one for a church,   but a unit orchestra was   a different kind of animal   than your typical church organ.

It was designed to replicate   the sound of an orchestra   that played popular   music in theaters.

So, you have a lot of   sounds that by themselves   are a little bit unusual.

And then, rather than trying   to build a careful, sculpted sound that one would get in a church or a concert organ, this is more of an orchestra.

So, you have very individual tone qualities.

[organ music] - I was the house organist for a very long time, from about 1976 until 1987.

Now, I'm Tony's alternate at the organ.

However, I have bragging rights on this.

During a meeting with Brett Batterson I said, we were talking about the restoration of this organ, okay.

And I said here's what you need, and handed him the first donation.

And The Orpheum ran with it, and here we are.

It was installed to take the   place of a nine-piece orchestra   for matinees and   many other shows,   so that an orchestra would   not have to be employed   all the time.

And, it was also   used for solo work   and for other sorts   of entertainment.

This organ's been lucky.

It's been used a lot since silent movies went away.

So, it's very lucky to still be in its original theater and have been heard by a great variety of Memphians all through its history.

A theater with an organ   in it takes one person   to make a show.

Any time we were trying to   impress somebody while raising   money to renovate the   Theatre for the first time,   if I was around   you had a show.

I could sail up out of the pit,   and playing beautiful music.

And, people were impressed,   and all it took was one person,   'cause the organ   is part-and-parcel.

It's built into the building.

It's just as much a part of   the building as the chandeliers   or the movie projectors.

It's really Tony's skill, Tony Thomas's skill as an organist, and his artistry, that has made the organ sound as good as it has sounded for the last few years when he's been organist.

Because he had to work around a lot of things that weren't operating.

- When the organ left Memphis, approximately a third of the ranks,   notes for pipes or other   infrastructure relating to   the ranks or sets of pipes,   were what   were called dead notes.

You would play a key,   and so certain notes   just would not play.

So, the hardware had really   come to its stopping point,   and then the relay system,   which is the electrical control   of it, finally just gave out.

In fact, our historian   and other organist,   Vincent Astor, was doing   a program where the thing   finally just quit.

It wouldn't play.

So, things were pretty   much at a standstill.

And we had lots of what are called wind leaks, 'cause all of these pipes are making their sound from wind, which is generated by a large blower in the basement of the Theatre.

And, you could hear rushing wind coming out of the pipe chambers, all these places that had leaks.

So, all of these mechanical problems had to be addressed, to where we got all the parts of the unit orchestra playing again, had all the pitch registers, and all of them attractive, and essentially noiseless.

No pipe organ is totally noiseless, but for an instrument like this, which is built using very high wind pressures, that's how you get the big volume out of all 739 pipes, is that extra wind pressure gives you more weight in the room.

So, it was night and day.

To get it back, have every sound working and in its proper position was like a dream come true.

[organ music]