Who is Jerry Hill

I played trombone from my late teens, and when drafted in the Army in 1957 I took basic at Ft. Benning GA, and played in the Drum & Bugle Corp.

After Basic,  we were shipped to Germany in Europe and I played trombone in the 3rd. Division Army Band.  After discharge there wasn’t much incentive to play by myself, so I gave it up.  I taught myself to play the organ using the Hal Leonard Pointer System, and after several months I was playing at Bars and Supper Clubs around the suburbs of Detroit.
I always kept my day job as a Corporate Rep, but playing the organ was the fun part.  Today you won’t find an organist playing anywhere… or at least I can’t find one. 

Where i live in Las Vegas, there is a population of over 2 million, and there is not one bar that has an organ player.  Back in the 70’s almost every bar or restaurant had an organ or piano.  It’s kind of sad you don’t see that anymore.  Oh well…    life moves on.

You know what’s sad though…when I was selling Lowreys in the late 60’s through to the early 80’s, it was an honest business that nobody got hurt.  The prices were fair, the markup was very reasonable and fair too.
If I sold a spinet to a family with a couple of children that were going to take lessons, and a couple of years later the father would stop by the store to tell me the kids had lost interest and the organ is just sitting there getting dusty, and asked was there any help I could give him.
My response was “we’ll pick it up and take it on consignment.  If it sells, we take a 10% commission, and the rest is his.”  That way the customer might get back 50-60% of what was paid, and we were both happy.
Not so today.  When an elderly person spends 60K or more for a organ, and dies a year later, when the dealer is asked if they will take it on consignment by a family member, most will say “we have an agreement with Lowrey that prevents that.”  That’s complete B.S.  They have their own used inventory they took on trade and you’re on your own.  I won’t go into details at this time, but in the future I’ll explain your options.  In fairness there are some honest Lowrey dealers.  The ones I’m talking about are Mom and Pop Strip Mall operations that last about two years before pulling out when their customers wise up to where they’re really coming from.

Note from Admin – Jerry sold Lowreys for 20 years, so his knowledge and inside information is widely accepted as accurate within the USA Market Place.

Jerry has uploaded a number of videos to his youtube channel Organwiz1

Jerry has a way of setting up the registrations to sound just like an original recording, below is “Lil Darlin” just listen to it and you’ll be hard pressed to distinguish it from the original Duke Ellington Version.

Here are other great tracks recorded by Jerry
Tangerine

Limehouse blues

Holiday For Strings

Makin Whoopie

Moonglow

 Never Stop Loving You

Seems Like Old Times

The Best Things In Life Are Free

Surrey With The Fringe On Top

Many more of Jerry playing the Stardust can be found here