Manfred Mann Story Teller - "The One About Leslie"!

The classic and beautiful Hammond organ was in front of me, an absolutely lovely gleaming wooden Hammond C3. It was 1966 backstage at an open air festival. We had specified that this Hammond should be supplied and here it was. We should have been happy and satisfied but we were furious and angry, we were due to go on stage in 45 minutes and the organ was useless to us, it may as well not have been supplied, "Why?" you may well ask well the answer is that although the name Hammond is the brand name associated with the classic Jazz/Blues organ sound, and which most of you would instantly recognise and instantly respond to, your response, is created mainly by the rotating box and speaker device which is called 'a Leslie speaker', usually referred to as a 'Leslie' and as I stood there all those years ago, my disappointment and anger was caused by the fact that the promoter had supplied a Hammond Speaker, and not the 'Leslie' specified so carefully in the contract.

"I will not perform unless I have a Leslie", I announced, "You have not complied with the contract, unless I have a Leslie there will be no performance".

"Are you serious?", he asked, with a somewhat surprised and shocked look on his face, looking at me as if I was crazy.

"Bloody right I am", I replied angrily.

I was in fact truly angry, the speaker he'd supplied was horrible, and instead of sounding, funcky, mean and groovy, I would sound like a dreadful cheap cinema organist. Nevertheless, the look on the promoter's face when he asked me if I was serious when I said I wanted a 'Leslie', was one of someone who had looked into the ultimate pit of human degradation and evil, and who's perception of the world, previously taken for granted had forever altered for the worst.

He went off on the impossible mission which I didn't truly expect him to fulfil, certainly not in the 45 minutes available to him. We stood around, disappointed at the situation, waiting and waiting, as the earth turned around the sun, and finally the promoter once again stood in front of me, had he managed to find a 'Leslie' surely not. He looked a broken man. I said "Well did you find a Leslie?", he looked sad, a man broken in an immoral and unfair universe.

"Yes", he replied quietly. "Great, where is it?", I replied.

"Manfred" he said quietly, and then as if offering an innocent as a sacrifice to some primeval gods, he pointed to a young girl at his side and said, "Manfred, this is Lesley!"

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