FARFISA ORGAN
Farfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy. The Farfisa brand name is commonly associated with a series of compact electronic organs, and later, a series of multi-timbral synthesizers. Farfisa also made radios, televisions, and other electronic items. (More from Wikipedia)
The linchpin for the sound of the Invisible Eyes is the Farfisa Organ, a quintessential 1960’s rock instrument; the Hammond Organ and the Vox Organ were also popular back then, but the Farfisa is the one that people think of it seems. It’s probably that odd name (the company is Italian). Bomp!’s Greg Shaw named one of his record labels, Voxx after the Vox Organ; that was the label for 1960’s reissues and the true 1960’s revivalists.
According to Wikipedia, the Farfisa Organ first showed up in the music of Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, who had a big hit in 1965 with “Wooly Bully”. The song is about lead singer Domingo Samudio’s cat; I was 14 when the song came out, and there was a rumor among the kids I hung out with that a “wooly bully” was a vagina. Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs were one of the early “Tex-Mex” bands that brought Latin rhythms to rock and roll. I don’t remember where exactly (or why I still remember it so well after all this time, for that matter) – there really weren’t a lot of news outlets for rock news and trivia in the mid-1960’s – but I have never forgotten something that I read once about this band: “Sam the Sham has been changing Pharaohs [bandmembers] the way other people change their shirts”. They had one more big hit, a really clever novelty song called “Li’l Red Riding Hood”; I have been hearing that one on a TV commercial lately.
In 1966, the Farfisa Organ was even more prominent in the hit song “Double Shot (of My Baby’s Love)” by the Swingin’ Medallions (who were from South Carolina). That lovely organ that you hear in Percy Sledge’s immortal 1966 hit “When a Man Loves a Woman” is a Farfisa, and Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone was playing one at his landmark Woodstock performance in 1969. Richard Wright’s Farfisa Organ was a key element on many of the early Pink Floyd albums, particularly The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Ummagumma, but also including The Dark Side of the Moon. Elton John was able to get a different sound entirely from a Farfisa Organ on his hit “Crocodile Rock”.
But that's not what the Farfisa Organ sounds like the way that Janet Hurt plays it as a member of the Invisible Eyes. A Farfisa in her hands doesn’t have a sweet innocent sound at all; it is much more in-your-face and intimidating. She also has some fine moments on a piano – or at least what sounds like a piano; that could still be the Farfisa for all I know.
(December 2012)
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Items: Farfisa Organ
