Bill Beer Hammond M-3
This month’s pick is a very special Hammond M-3 organ customized by Bill Beer….with some mysteries attached!
Bill Beer was a legendary Los Angeles-based technician who founded Keyboard Products, a shop where you could bring organs, pedals, and speaker cabinets to be customized to your specifications. One of his former customers described his shop in an online post, saying “you could get any mods you wanted, limited only by your imagination and the size of your bank roll. Bill only accepted cash.”
Like many manufacturers and technicians of the day, Beer was reclusive and secretive: he poured resin over his circuits and scraped off part numbers so no one could reverse engineer his designs. So while no one knew how he worked his magic, his customized instruments were renowned for their sound and reliability. To this day, both he and his work remain mysterious: there is very little general information available online about his organs and speaker modifications and even a photo of the man himself does not seem to exist online. But thanks to his perfectionism (“The routing of the wires is pristine. Every wire is secured with holddowns and wire ties. The layout is impressive. Bill was a master.”), many of his customized instruments still live on, including the one in our collection.
Beer pioneered the concept of the “chopped” organ. This essentially involved taking the innards of a Hammond and packing them into a radically restructured, more robust and travel-friendly road case in order to make the massive 400-pound Hammond “portable” enough for gigging musicians. (Portable being a relative term in this case, as even a “chopped” Hammond organ can still weigh in at around 250-275 pounds). This modification proved so popular that Beer created a specific “Portablize your Hammond” price sheet detailing what was included the standard conversion:
Beyond just cutting down the size of the organ, Bill Beer chops feature several signature upgrades such as rebuilt and hot-rodded preamps, built-in Leslie speed switches, spring reverb units, direct-out capabilities to run into guitar or bass amplifiers, and more!
Beer even made his own customized high power bi-amped Leslie amplifiers, often using JBL 2480 or 2482 treble drivers and the JBL K-140 or the E-140 bass speakers, which only added to what became known as the Bill Beer sound.
Beer’s chopped organs ended up revolutionizing the touring music scene starting in the 1970s and beyond. Some of his more high profile clients included such keyboard legends as Ray Manzarek of The Doors, Rick Wright of Pink Floyd and Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, among others…
Other clients who had chopped organs built by Beer include Gregg Rolie and Tom Coster of Santana, Bill Payne of Little Feat, and Dick Sims, who played with Eric Clapton.
These days, Bill Beer chops are pretty rare, and highly sought after by jazz and rock keyboardists for both their sound and reliability.
MMT is fortunate to have a Bill Beer chopped M-3 in our collection, serial number 0147:
You can see typical hallmarks of the Bill Beer organ such as the metal folding legs and handles as well as the additional control knobs and momentary Leslie switch located in the tray in front.
This silver front tray is common to Bill Beer chops. Our organ has five additional control knobs for master volume, bass and treble boost/cut, percussion boost and spring reverb. The dymo labels were likely added by Beer. Interestingly, Beer used a special font on his knobs — the squared-off zero is a signature sign of Beer’s custom knobs, vs a regular Fender knob. Many Beer chops have had at least one knob replaced by this time, but ours are all original. The red switch is for controlling the Leslies and offers momentary control when pushed left and latching when pushed right.
Our organ has fairly straightforward modifications and simple controls. Other Beer organs have additional controls across the front of the tray. For example, this organ that once belonged to Frank Zappa (which is sadly NOT in our collection) has a separate control switches for each drawbar, as well as added controls for volume, velocity, tone, modulation, and attack:
This is a photo of the rear i/o panel of our organ. The bottom left corner is the power connector. The port above it is a bit of a mystery: we aren’t actually sure what it does. The two larger ports to the right of the fuse are connectors for dual Leslies. The quarter inch jacks on the right are likly effects sends/returns and possbily individual outputs for each manual and a bass output. We aren’t actually sure because Beer only labeled these output jacks on some organs and ours doesn’t have labels.
The life of this organ before it came to us is a bit of a mystery — one we would love some help solving! According to the person we got it from, it was once owned by the band Jefferson Starship, but despite extensive research, we have been unable to definitively confirm this from any other source. Bill Beer’s records seem to be long gone and a known Beer organ list compiled by an internet collector group doesn’t mention this one (or any M-3s actually!). So while we believe our organ was Starship’s, we would certainly welcome input from anyone who might know for sure!
What we do know is that there was a Bill Beer M-3 that was part of Jefferson Starship’s touring rig from 1974 to 1976, and was played by the band’s alternating bassist/keyboardists David Frieberg and Pete Sears. Check it out in these photos dating from September 1976:
It also appears in this video of the band from circa 1975. In this video, you can see some of identifying features of the M3 such as the staggered keyboard and fewer drawbars, along with the metal legs and handles and the red Leslie switch. All of this suggests to us that it may be the same organ that’s in our collection but of course, there could be another Beer-modified M-3 out there that looks similar.
Any later photos of Jefferson Starship’s keyboard rig from around 1977 onward seem to feature a Bill Beer chopped B-3 or C-3, meaning this chopped M-3’s time with the band must have been relatively short. It’s not suprising, then, that we are having difficulty confirming the provenance of our instrument: between Bill Beer’s reclusiveness, the lack of reliable information on the internet about his instruments, and the short time that the band seems to have used one of his M-3s, there just doesn’t seem to be a lot to go on. But maybe this article will find its way to a reader who can help!
All that aside, if you’d like to hear some Jefferson Starship that likely features a Bill Beer chopped Hammond (whether it’s ours or not!), give a listen to the 2 big hits off of their 1975 “Red Octopus” album; “Miracles” and “Play On Love” and their big hit from 1979, “Jane”:
We’re always looking to fill in the gaps or update information on instruments we have. So if you have any knowledge to share on Bill Beer instruments, on Jefferson Starship or any instruments or gear in our collection, feel free to reach out to us!