Eric Lord – At The Regal Cinema, Harrogate

CD Duration: 46.09 / Year: 2011.

1966 recording featuring the 3-manual, 6-rank Compton organ in The Regal, Harrogate.
Recorded at an Organ Club Concert in 1966.

The producer wishes to crave the indulgence of the listener to accept that at organ club concerts in the 1960s, the audience were not always aware of the proximity of the microphones.

Scottish Medley: Scotland the Brave / Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ / Comin’ Thro’ the Rye / Road to the Isles / Keep Right on to the End of the Road / Piper’s Lament / Black Eyes / Estrellita / Darktown Strutters Ball / My Blue Heaven / Sophisticated Lady / Solitude / Alexander’s Ragtime Band / The World is Waiting for the Sunrise / Tiger Rag

Light Cavalry / South Rampart Street Parade / The Pied Piper / Dear Love, My Love / Anchors Aweigh / El Cumbanchero / Always / ’Deed I Do / You’re the Cream in My Coffee / When I’m Calling You / The Mounties Song / Memories of You / Winter Wonderland / The Sunshine of Your Smile / Patricia / Smoke Gets in Your Eyes / The World is Waiting for the Sunrise / Summertime / Rhapsody in Blue

SLEEVE NOTES:

Back in those wonderful days when a number of local BBC Radio Stations vied with the London based programme THE ORGANIST ENTERTAINS for popularity and listening figures amongst organ music enthusiasts, if you happened to live in the North West of the Country you had a choice, BBC Radio Manchester/Leeds and Blackburn. Some lucky people could receive all three programmes. As Arthur Askey would have said, “Happy Days”.

Over at BBC Radio Blackburn the quietly spoken, former cinema organist and later organ Music Shop owner ERIC LORD presented his bi-weekly programme ORGAN SHOWCASE. Throughout those years we often shared recordings for our respective programmes. Eric was a most generous man and in his later years when called upon to play in concert, no matter if it were a theatre or electronic organ, he would invariably acknowledge the first round of applause with “you’re so kind to a very old man” and then always continued with a note perfect, faultlessly registered programme of a kind that perhaps only he and the late Cinema Organ Society founder Hubert Selby were capable of performing… for both artists loved with a passion the famous style created by Jesse Crawford. In my latter years at BBC Radio Manchester I was fortunate enough to be able to present organ concerts with an audience, at the Playhouse Theatre, Hulme which then housed BBC Theatre organ No.3. As far as I was concerned, to include Eric was a must, and that April 1983 session heard the former Empress Ballroom, Blackpool Wurlitzer being played for thirty glorious minutes to an enraptured audience. That session was released back in the days of cassettes (remember those?) on the Audicord label, coupled with some recordings that Eric had made on electronics. Compared with many of his colleagues of those times, Eric’s commercial recordings were thin on the ground, but here’s an opportunity to relive one of his musically mellifluous live organ concerts made at an organ club meeting at the Regal Cinema, Harrogate in 1966. The organ is a 3-manual, 6-rank Compton with a Melotone unit and illuminated console.

…Alan Ashton (Presenter ORGAN1st Radio – OrganRadio.com).