Hammond Organ

The Hammond organ is the most famous, and in many ways the paradigm, of the tonewheel organ. The Hammond organ was invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. The Hammond organ pioneered the use of sliding drawbars to create a variety of sounds, and preset keys that could store and recall different drawbar settings, long before the days of digital patches and memory banks. The Hammond organ is closely associated with the Leslie speaker with which it was usually paired. Around two million Hammond organs have been manufactured, which makes it arguably the most successful single brand of organ.