SOUNDS: Rare machine ensures Wurlitzer sound can be heard for years to come.

Local News

July 6, 2009

By Neale Gulley<br><a href="mailto:neale.gulley@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Neale</a> The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Mon Jul 06, 2009, 12:33 AM EDT

TOWN OF TONAWANDA — A retired 42-year Napa Autoparts worker recently became, as a hobby, conductor for what may be the world’s oldest band.

The outfit, like other similar players still scattered across the country, is bellows-blown and powered by a crankshaft.

And though it sometimes consists of about three trombones, 16 flutes, as many violins and orchestra bells, 15 trumpets, a bass and a snare drum, the whole ensemble would fit easily into the back of a pickup and sounds as good as it did in 1925 providing it’s properly oiled.

It’s Rudolph Wurlitzer’s famous automatic band organ, and Douglas Hershberger is rolling his way into the director’s chair to usher a new generation of Wurlitzer’s legacy in North Tonawanda.

He is one of the few known operators of the only known machine still capable of producing perfect copies of the perforated paper music the great band organs need to function.

There are other ways to produce the rolls discontinued by Wurlitzer in 1945, but not with the kind of original quality Hershberger achieves using his 100-year-old machine — once housed in the factory — and a trove of about 2,500 original Wurlitzer “master” rolls, each about 200 feet of ancient oaktag and accounting for just one song apiece.

The smaller rolled paper cartridges he produces are made by combining tunes from several master rolls (many of which are nearly 100 years old) to make custom song lists for owners of the nation’s remaining band organs.

“What we make here are band organ rolls — all of them that were made in the United States were made here in North Tonawanda by about five different companies. The best known of which, being Wurlitzer, stopped making them in 1945,” he said.

Hershberger taught himself how to operate the machine since it was obtained by the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum several years ago and has for about three years been selling his original reproductions out of a display shop housed inside the museum at 180 Thompson St.

The reproductions are capable of making the old band organs sing exactly as they were intended — with the same kind of mechanical and musical precision as the classic wooden carrousels the city is famous for, and for which the band organs played a central part.

Now housed at the museum for which he is a trustee, the musical copy machine appeals to collectors and connoisseurs far and wide as a source for reproducing the old paper rolls the classic organs use to play carnival-like melodies redolent of a bygone era, when the circus or carnival was a cutting edge mainstay of entertainment for the masses.

The requests have been coming in faster than Hershberger can fill them.

“You may not recognize a band organ if you were leaning up against one but you’d know the music,” said Hershberger, a dedicated music reproduction specialist and also a trustee at the museum . “It’s carnival music, merry-go-round music, circus music,” he said.

Text Only

Local News

Municipalities take wait-and-see approach on SPCA funding
The City and Town of Lockport are each withholding payments to the Niagara SPCA, while other Eastern Niagara County towns are taking a wait-and-see approach.

February 7, 2012 1 Photo 2 Stories
Rocky II
Friends of Deputy Craig Beiter of the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department plan a benefit on Feb. 26 to raise money to buy and train a new dog for the K-9 Unit.
Beiter’s German shepherd, Deputy Rocky, was killed while on duty in December, and the sheriff’s department is close to getting a replacement.

February 6, 2012 1 Photo 2 Stories
Basket Factory closes
The Basket Factory has gone out of business.
The owners, Julie Thompson Riegle and Dawn Thompson, made the difficult decision last Monday and put the sign on the door Tuesday.

February 6, 2012
No snow is no problem
Unseasonably warm weather didn’t keep Roy-Hart Winterfest from being a fun day for the families who came out to Roy-Hart Elementary School on Saturday.
More than 500 people attended the third annual festivities, which Gasport Lions Club officials said was a big increase from last year. The halls of Roy-Hart Elementary were filled with vendors, programs and movement as excited children rushed from one activity to another.

February 6, 2012
Shovel-ready park has perks
At first glance, the big, orange road sign announcing vacant property on Lockport Road as a “shovel ready certified” building site seems a bit gratuitous.
To companies looking for new places to launch a business, it’s not. The sign in their eyes is a welcome mat, for in three words a community pronounced itself ready, willing and able to make a deal quickly.

February 3, 2012 1 Photo
Roy-Hart to play the big stage
A group of local students will be performing this month at Kleinhans Music Hall just before a BPO concert.
The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra will welcome the Royalton-Hartland High School Mixed Chorus as part of the BPO’s Community Spotlight program on Feb. 19 at Kleinhans in Buffalo. The chorus will perform under the direction of Carolyn Unitas Roos and accompanied by Janice McKinney.

February 3, 2012
Former NFTA cop sentenced
A former Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority police officer will spend six years on probation for sending a sexually explicit photo to a teenage girl, a girl he later had a sexual encounter with.
In addition, John W. Ingham will spend 25 weekends in the service of the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office Work Program. Ingham was sentenced Thursday by State Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch, Sr. Ingham will also register as a sex offender.

February 3, 2012
Speakers address SPCA contract
Animal rescue volunteers want the City of Lockport to hit the SPCA of Niagara where it hurts — in the pocketbook — and help force reform of the troubled animal welfare organization.
Volunteers from multiple small, private rescue groups, and the SPCA itself, descended on the Common Council Wednesday to talk about the city’s ongoing involvement with SPCA.

February 2, 2012 4 Photos
Liberty Tire cited for 'multiple' violations
The City of Lockport will require Liberty Tire Recycling to obtain an operating permit in order to avoid being declared a hazard.

February 2, 2012
Instant millionaire
Paul Schneider had just gotten off the phone with his girlfriend when he called her back with some breaking news.
“She was teasing me and said, ‘so you hung up the phone with me to scratch your scratch offs?’” Schneider said. “And I said, ‘It’s a good thing I did because I won a million dollars.’”

February 1, 2012 1 Photo
More Local News Headlines

Local News

Search Results

SOUNDS: Rare machine ensures Wurlitzer sound can be heard for years to come.

Site Map

Contact Us