ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From: Ray Thursby, Sept. 2004
The organ that provided George Wright with the console for his Pasadena
installation and Dick Simonton with the bulk of his 4-36 residence job was
#2035, originally shipped in 1929 to the "Famous Players" studio in
Hollywood for installation on a sound stage. As one of three special
"studio" instruments (20th Century-Fox and Warner Bros./radio station KFWB
had the other two), it was well-unified (enough to require oversized
stoprails) and had many refinements to make it quiet in operation. The other
two organs were 18-rank jobs (with similar but not identical stoplists)
while #2035 had 19 ranks.
The organ was shipped to radio station KCBS (San Francisco) in 1942. Dick
Simonton bought it in 1953.
It seems clear that Simonton intended to enlarge the organ from the very
beginning. I have a copy of a proposed stoplist (for 26 ranks) drawn for
Simonton by organist Gordon Kibbee in July, 1953. The spec. bears the
notation "3 rail [console]."
The story was given out that Jess Crawford did the final stoplist for this
organ. I've heard three versions of that story from three different reliable
sources: One was that Jess did the spec. on his own, another person told me
Crawford simplified a Kibbee plan that required more stopkeys than could be
fitted, and the third said the end result was Gordon's spec. possibly
augmented with some suggestions from Crawford..
Clearly, the three-manual original console was not part of the plans -- even
as a source of parts for the larger one -- so passing it along to GW made
sense. Again, there have been various stories told about the relationship
between Simonton and Wright...since neither is around to verify the true
story, it's best to stick to the undeniable fact that Simonton did buy the
organ, and GW did end up with the console (but not the relays) and the
Chrysoglott/Vibraphone.