Bob Gulledge and the Mighty Wurlitzer organ at Carytown’s Byrd Theatre (Photo by Jay Paul)
At age 93, The Byrd Theatre’s Wurlitzer organ seems to possess a mind of its own. “It’s entitled to be temperamental,” says Bob Gulledge, who has operated the organ’s console for 25 years. “It’s complicated, and the idea that they could make something like that work in 1928 is incredible.”
Gulledge is the 13th in a succession of organists who have summoned music celebratory, commemorative and memorial from the Mighty Wurlitzer. He ascended to the bench in 1996, following Lin Lunde.
Gulledge’s connection to the Wurlitzer dates to 1965, when with a youth group from Bon Air Baptist Church he came to see “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” He was fascinated by the theater’s baroque opulence, but the organ played by the well-known Eddie Weaver — then four years into his 20-year Byrd tenure — made a lasting impression.
“The first thing I heard was the roar of those big bass notes rolling across the floor,” he recalls, pausing as though hearing them still. “And Eddie brought that console over the rail, and he had my attention. By the time it was over I was like, ‘I gotta do that.’ ”
Weaver played in Richmond for 50 years, first in 1937 at the Loew’s theater (now the Dominion Energy Center), and also accompanying on a small Hammond the fashion shows and events at the Miller & Rhoads Tearoom. That’s where, after persistent queries, he took Gulledge in as a student, until one morning when Weaver told his pupil to meet him at The Byrd. Thus began Gulledge’s relationship with the theater’s Wurlitzer.
This past year, during the pandemic shutdown, Gulledge has played the organ for small groups, for anniversaries and friends. He’s performed for two people and for 20, and he hopes in the weeks ahead to play for 50 to 75 in a theater that can hold 1,500.
The Byrd’s Mighty Wurlitzer is one of fewer than 40 surviving instruments in their original installation from the more than 2,000 made by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company from 1914-42. The organ was intended to operate as a “one-man orchestra” for accompanying silent movies.
Gulledge explains that the organ is more than its four keyboards. Behind the wicker basket-like decoration above the theater’s proscenium are four chambers that house the organ’s music-making machinery. “Nothing’s coming out of a speaker,” he says. “It’s a mechanical gizmo that shakes that tambourine” and also operates the trumpet, saxophone, drums, xylophone, mandolin, bells, car horn, bird whistle, tuned sleigh bells and other instruments found in rooms above the movie screen.
They’re all real instruments, including a rare Browne & Buckwell harp that sits in the right balcony above the organ. That instrument doesn’t play, however, and may never have — even when delivered from Grace Street by the Corley Music Co., Richmond’s Wurlitzer dealer.
From the console, instructions are transmitted to the relay room and various valves and magnets. Circuits that open and close translate the commands to the pipes and the instruments. “Maybe eight things have to happen for the signal to travel, and it’s instantaneous,” Gulledge says. “There’s never a delay.”
Not original is the spinning disco ball attached to the top of the console. “I inherited it,” he says. “People expect to see it now as part of their experience.”
The organ is a sensitive antique instrument requiring near-constant care. About a dozen years ago, the organ died mid-performance. Gulledge switched off the instrument and turned to the audience announcing, “We’re done. There’s no money. I can’t fix this without leather, glue, gussets, felt.” He took up a collection in the lobby after the show, netting $600 in a popcorn bucket.
“Kids put in their change, one fellow put in $60,” Gulledge recalls. Within two weeks the organ received repairs and has played ever since.
This began a dedicated revenue stream, the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ Fund, to keep the instrument in showtime condition. “Every key now plays,” Gulledge says. “Only two years ago it was every third note. … Now, it’s totally restored to the condition that the factory delivered it.”
Today, The Byrd’s organ is one of the component parts of the city that makes Richmond Richmond.
Children run down before a matinee to peer over the rail to see that the console is there. Actor Ethan Hawke, when in town filming “The Good Lord Bird,” held several events at The Byrd and insisted the organ play for all of them. When Victoria Price, daughter of actor Vincent, visited The Byrd during a Poe Museum series of screenings, she, too, was enthralled by the Wurlitzer. “She took pictures of the works and posted them on Facebook like a kid,” Gulledge says.
Nils Westergard’s portrait of Bob Gulledge at the Mighty Wurlitzer (Photo courtesy The Byrd Theatre)
Another admirer of the Mighty Wurlitzer is Richmond-based muralist and artist Nils Westergard, who moved to Richmond in 2010 from Falls Church to attend Virginia Commonwealth University. He soon learned about The Byrd’s organ and witnessed the rise of the console from the orchestra pit with surprise and delight.
“I distinctly remember just how intense and apparent the admiration and pride was from the audience as he went back down,” Westergard says. “What a wild and lovely contraption. I have had friends visit from overseas, and I always take them to The Byrd on a night Bob is playing. They are always confused and then delighted!”
Gulledge is likewise a fan of Westergard’s work. Last year, after seeing the artist on a lift working on a mural behind The Byrd Theatre, he emailed him about creating an artistic interpretation of The Byrd and the organ. Within minutes, Westergard emailed a reply: “I’ve been waiting for you. What took you so long?”
Westergard recently completed a set of 40-by-60-inch paintings of Gulledge and the organ, created from a complicated set of hand-cut stencils. His process is documented in a YouTube video.
“There are 202 tabs [on the organ console],” Westergard explains, “and every letter on every tab needs to be cut out of paper on every layer, so four times — which is 808 tabs.” The full-color paintings are also a departure for the artist, who usually works in greyscale. “[It] was just an all-around doozy, especially at this scale.”
Gulledge marvels at the finished artwork, which depicts him from above, in silhouetted profile, against the dazzling, space shuttle arrangement of the keys.
The paintings are being sold for $5,000 each, with all proceeds to benefit the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ Fund. If interested, contact info@byrdtheatre.org.
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