Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

“Stomp”: First Recording of a Clavinet?

Someone posted a short list of “clavinet-fueled songs” that, of course, included “Up on Cripple Creek” by The Band.  One commenter quibbled that the song should have been #1 on the list, “not only because it is better but because it was first” – but was it?

The Clavinet is “an electrically amplified clavichord that was manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany from 1964 to the early 1980s.  Hohner produced seven models over the years, designated I, II, L, C, D6, E7 and Duo.  Its distinctive bright staccato sound has appeared particularly in funk, disco, rock, and reggae songs” (Wiki).

Hohner Clavinet D6

Hohner Clavinet D6

Two other clavinet commenters indignantly asked, “No Terry Adams?”  My point, exactly.  One NRBQ song previously featured on this blog that makes great use of the clavinet – “I Say Gooday Goodnite” – was recorded October 9, 1969 vs. “Up on Cripple Creek,” a Capitol 45 that was released October 17, 1969.  Okay, victor goes to The Band.

Netherlands

20 June 1969

But wait:  NRBQ’s first single, “Stomp” had been released April, 25, 1969 – six months earlier – while even the second single, “C’mon Everybody” (released July 29th) came out almost three months before “Cripple Creek.”  Both songs feature Hohner’s new play toy and had, in fact, been recorded December 1968.  Check out the driving “Stomp” – particularly the ending, with the clavinet’s percussive punch on the final chord:

Steve Ferguson wrote both sides of NRBQ’s debut 45

“Stomp” would ‘bubble under” at #122

But is that really the earliest use of a clavinet on a popular recording?  I’m a bit skeptical.  Here’s an illuminating quote from the October 5, 2012 edition of The New Statesmen – in a piece entitled “In Praise of the Clavinet:  It’s 40 Years Since Stevie Wonder Showed Off the Otherworldly Range of This Keyboard“:

In 1964 the first clavinet was produced, based on the venerable clavichord, an instrument with a 400-year pedigree that used blades called “tangents” to strike the strings.  Clavichords were impractically quiet and a clavinet got round this by replacing the tangents with hammers that plunged down on to a string when a key was depressed.  That string was pressed into a metal strip, or “anvil”, which made the string vibrate.  The vibration reached magnetic pickups for a sound that could be fully amplified.

Not only did it produce a magical percussive twang across five octaves of 60 keys, but it was also dynamic, meaning notes could be sustained and pressed with lesser or greater force to vary volume and attack.  The high notes were bright, the middle range punchy yet mellow and low notes had a visceral growl.  Following a few false starts Hohner made the clavinet C in 1968, the keyboard Wonder used during his golden years.  After a left turn with the L – triangular with reverse-colour keys and now as rare as a mountain leopard – in 1971 they introduced the more durable D6, the keyboard hundreds of bands relied on for the next 10 years.

Stevie Wonder rightly gets credit for his body of work on the clavinet, yet it’s frustrating that another world-class clavinet innovator – Terry Adams – gets nary a mention.  This needs to stop.

That small assemblage of “clavinet-fueled songs” sure could use a companion list of other towering moments in clavinet history — such a list would at least include “Free Ride” by The Edgar Winter Group;  “Me and the Boys” by NRBQ; and  “Attractive Girl” by The Termites, notable for being a rocksteady-era recording out of Jamaica.

By the way, that debut album from The Termites, Do the Rock Steady, (which includes “Attractive Girl”) was issued in 1967 on Studio One, according to Discogs — is this the new record holder for earliest clavinet recording?

Possibly the first clavinet credit on a 45

June 1969

Stax Clavinet 45

Funny to note the existence of Clavinet.com, The Hohner Clavinet and Pianet Resource Homepage – “dedicated to the preservation of the funkiest instrument known to man.”

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2022 Clavinet Update

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  • Thanks also to Jim Kimsey, who offered “Six O’Clock” by (NRBQ fan) John Sebastian & The Lovin’ Spoonful – a single that was released April 1967.

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Billboard

April 5, 1969

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13 Responses

  1. One of the earliest recordings of the Clavinet is probably Don Sebesky’s Water Brother from the album The Distant Galaxy (1968).

  2. Terry Adams is the Clavinet Virtuoso, but you all have missed the earliest song—
    Six O’clock by The Lovin’ Spoonful, the second of 4 singles they released in 1967!

    1. Fantastic! I love that tune, can’t believe it didn’t occur to me. It’s the opening Clavinet riff that captivates. Congratulations, Jim: “Six O’Clock” is now tied with “Attractive Girl” by The Termites as earliest clavinet recordings, both done in 1967. I should have put a link in the “Stomp”/NRBQ piece to an update I did a year later on the clavinet, here’s the link: http://www.zeroto180.org/?cat=1306.
      Thanks again for helping to further pop music history, Jim.

  3. I’ll bet Terry A. heard the tune and that’s when he went after his own clav… I have no corroboration on this though. He was and remains a big Lovin’ Spoonful/J. Sebastion fan. Would love to hear TA talk about his clav ‘history.’

    1. for sure, and well that plus there not being a whole lot of choice in portable keyboards at the time. Vox and Farfisa organs. Pianets, Wurly, Rhodes.

      The Clavinet could fit in like a keyboard version of the Telecaster.

  4. I played a clavinet while recording with our group, the Peppermint Trolley Company (1967-68). We cut our hit single, ‘Baby You Come Rollin’ Across my Mind’ in November of 1967 for Acta. The record broke in May and June of 1968. I played the instrument through a fender amp with the tremolo prominent. I used it throughout our eponymously titled LP. In the Seventies, recording with the bands, Bones, and the Faragher Brothers, I would return to the ax occasionally, playing more in the R&B style pioneered by Stevie Wonder and Billie Preston.

  5. The Beat Goes On, from Booker T and the MGs album Doin’ Our Thing,
    was released in 1968.
    I Thank You, by Sam and Dave was released in January of 1968.

    1. oh yeah, Booker T makes ‘The Beat Goes On’ way, way funkier. Cheers on posting. Never heard this before!

    1. GREAT list thnx a lot. Check also Peter Frampton’s 2nd solo album Framptons Camel, heavily influenced it seems by Steve Wonders Talking Book.

  6. The first clavinet on a record is by Dieter Reith. The first models in 1965 were delivered with a demo 7″. Side A contains a classical piece played by inventor Ernst Zacharias, side B a “swinging medley” by the Dieter Reith Quartet.

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