Orpheum organ puts a new spin on Christmas music, from Mariah Carey to 'Charlie Brown'

Grammy-winning Memphis music producer and engineer Matt Ross-Spang has worked with such artists as John Prine, Al Green and the Drive-By Truckers.

But capturing the building-sized sound of the almost hundred-year-old Wurlitzer organ at the historic Orpheum theater presented a unique challenge even for a veteran of rap, rock, country and soul.

“It is actually a very hard instrument to record," said Ross-Spang, 36. “It’s built into the walls of the Orpheum. If you think of an acoustic guitar, the Orpheum itself, in a way, is the body of the guitar.

“It’s a different sort of beast,” he continued. "The thing is, it’s pumping tons of air through these pipes, so it’s got this very loud, windy noise. It goes from completely ‘sub’ sub-bass — frequencies you’d love to hear on hip-hop and dance records — to very high highs.” In other words, the musician at the console of the Wurlitzer "has got basically a full orchestra at his hands and feet.”

But Ross-Spang — like most Memphis musicians — loves a challenge. So, yes, of course, he did successfully record the so-called "Mighty Wurlitzer," which means he also recorded the artistry of the man with the aforementioned full orchestra at his extremities, namely, Tony Thomas, the Orpheum's "house organist."

The just-in-time-for-the-holidays result of this collaboration is now available on green-colored vinyl sheathed within a mostly red album cover. The LP is titled "A Very Mighty Christmas," and it showcases Thomas' arrangements of 11 seasonal selections, ranging from the "Coventry Carol" of the 16th century to Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which dates to 1994. In between are carols, hymns, orchestral pieces and selections from the classic score composed by Vince Guaraldi for "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

The album, limited to 500 copies, represents the first time the Orpheum Wurlitzer, which dates to 1928, has been captured on record. The record is available for purchase at orpheumgiftshop.com. It also can be bought at the theater Dec. 21, when Thomas performs its selections and other compositions during a 7 p.m. holiday concert titled "Wurlitzer Wonderland."

"I know I have too many flaws," Thomas said, with characteristic modesty, "but I know that I can make music that can make people happy, and that's my gig. The album and this organ are just trying to bring joy to the listener."

The idea for the album was hatched in 2020, after the 1928 Wurlitzer — one of the last of its kind still in operation in the country — was returned to service following two years of painstaking restoration by the J.L. Weiler company of Chicago. (The $500,000 restoration cost dwarfed the instrument's original $19,000 price tag.)

Impressed by the powerful sound of the revitalized Wurlitzer, reporter Christopher Blank of WKNO-FM 91.1 suggested an album. Orpheum public relations director Kristin Bennett seconded that emotion, as did Orpheum Theatre Group chief operating officer Dacquiri Baptiste. The result, three years later, is "A Very Mighty Christmas," recorded over three days this past July.

“I like to say this is a Memphis music labor of love,” said Bennett, pointing out that the LP was pressed at Memphis Record Pressing, with veteran mixer Jeff Powell overseeing the vinyl mastering, and that local artist Kerri Mahoney designed the album package. “The Wurlitzer is such an iconic piece of not only Orpheum history but Memphis history that it seemed important to make it a Memphis project.”

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Thomas, 77, has been a professional musician since childhood; his credits include sessions at Sun in 1987 with the superstar Irish rock band U2. He also is something of a Wurlitzer historian (as was his Orpheum organ colleague, Vincent Astor, who died Jan. 16). He points out that the Wurlitzer was developed not as a concert instrument per se but to accompany silent films in the movie palaces of the 1920s. Thus, it was intended "to be dramatic and really imitate the sound of a pit orchestra. It’s what was called a ‘unit orchestra,’ to do the job a full orchestra could do. It's sonically thrilling.”

Powered by air (or "wind," in organ parlance) and electricity, an “electropneumatic” system animates the organ, at the direction of the musician at the console, which includes the keyboards and various pedals, knobs, levers and so on.

The music comes from two organ "chambers" that are located at balcony level in the Orpheum and hidden behind gauzy red curtains on either side of the stage. A basement “blower room” delivers the wind that is necessary to operate the components within the large, crowded, high-ceiling chambers. These components include wind chests and pipes of all sizes, along with snare drums, marimba, glockenspiel, sleigh bells, castanets, wood blocks — what organists call a “toy counter” of percussion instruments.

To determine the best way to reproduce the effect of this colossal one-man "unit orchestra," Thomas played music while Ross-Spang roamed the levels of the Orpheum "until I found the sweet spot," Ross-Spang said. He placed strategic microphones in several locations, but the album essentially relies on the sound that was captured by a mike placed in that spot, a few rows back of the railing in the center of the upper "Grand Tier" level of the auditorium. The resulting album presents each performance "live," with no composites or overdubs.

"I'm very pleased with it, and I had a complete blast doing it," said Ross-Spang, who said his recently opened Crosstown Concourse recording studio, Southern Grooves, is frequently visited by Thomas, who plays and tunes the in-house piano. "And it's good for Tony to get some love, he deserves it."

Thomas, for his part, thinks the Wurlitzer deserves some love, too. "It's an amazing piece of early 20th-century technology, in pristine condition," he said. "There's nothing like it in today's music."

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Tony Thomas and the Orpheum's Mighty Wurlitzer

New album: "A Very Mighty Christmas" available at orpheumgiftshop.com.

Concert: "Wurlitzer Wonderland" at 7 p.m. Dec. 21 at the Orpheum, 203 S. Main. Tony Thomas and guests, including Dr. Jay Cox and Curtis Jones, will perform numbers from "A Very Mighty Christmas" and other selections. Tickets: $10. Visit orpheum-memphis.com.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Christmas in Memphis: The story behind Orpheum's new holiday album