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Used Organs & Spinning Speakers: A Mega Cool & True Story by Dan Bailey OK, I don't go on Facebook much, but I really wanted to share this really cool story wit...h you all. A few years back some old family friends with the last name of Dietrich contacted me about an old Hammond organ that had belonged to their mother. They were looking to move the large organ out of her house to make room. They asked if we could use it at our youth center, the Journey Cafe, but it wasn't really something that we would use there. They said that the organ wasn't functioning and asked if I'd just want to take it away. I agreed & my helper, Nate, and I took the behemoth organ home (much to the chagrin of my family...). At this point, I literally didn't know anything about the organ. But after a little research, I found that it was an A100 built in 1960. The A100 was the home version of the famed Hammond B3, the classic sound heard in southern gospel music. The B3 was popularized by players like Jimmy Smith, Booker T. Jones, Felix Cavaliere, Greg Allman, Rod Argent, and Greg Rolie. So, I began work on the A100. I downloaded electronic schematics & searched YouTube for any help I could find. After several weeks of working on the organ, I finally got it going. This 60-year-old gem was alive again and indeed sounded a lot like the much-lauded B3! I enjoyed the A100 and was very thankful that Mrs. Dietrich's family had passed the organ on to me. But it was still missing something vital to that classic B3 sound -- a Leslie rotating speaker, which projects the organ's sound in an amazing & unique way. The Leslie unit is complex device that creates the warbling, Doppler-effect sound so characteristic of the classic B3 gospel sound. This is accomplished in the Leslie through a complex system of speakers, motors, and spinning mechanisms powered by a vacuum tube amplifier, and all housed in a large, wooden cabinet. Leslie speakers are very expensive. Vintage models range from $1200 on up and the few Leslie models that are still made today retail for $3000+. So, if you know me, you know that's way out of my budget. Here's where the story gets really amazing. About five years had passed since I was given the A100 by Mrs. Dietrich's family. I was still dreaming of getting a Leslie to make my Hammond organ sound complete, but it didn't look good due to the high costs and my tightwad attitude. Then, the other day I was looking on Facebook Marketplace and I noticed a gentleman selling a vintage spinet model L100 Hammond organ and a Leslie 145 speaker in a town just a few miles away. The price was relatively low (at least 50% lower than normal). I sheepishly sent him a note: I'm interested in your organ units... (I wasn't sure how buying a pretty expensive Leslie and another organ was gonna fly in the Bailey house...) I didn't hear from the seller for a while, so I just looked on his Facebook to see what he was into. I noticed a lot of Christian-related posts and saw that he had a gospel music duet. I thought, Wow, cool! He's a Christian like me! A little while later, he contacted me and said, Since I am not able to make the organ work, I would be willing to give you the Leslie if you would still take the organ. Amazingly, he was offering me the whole package for free if I'd just take it out of his house. I quickly hooked up my trailer and went over to the gentleman's house. We immediately hit it off and shared a lot of stories about music and the Christian faith. He told me that he'd bought the organ & Leslie in 1970 for $3000 when he was part of the local rock group The Marauders. He had played such classic 60s music on it as The Doors' 1967 hit Light My Fire, and Iron Butterfly's monster 1968 record "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. He also said he tried (but failed) to play Rick Wakeman's blistering organ solo from Roundabout, Yes's groundbreaking hit from 1971. The organ & Leslie had sat for years just collecting dust, and he wanted to move them out to make more room for the modern equipment that his gospel duet uses. So the broken organ and functioning Leslie were graciously given to me last Monday (April 27, 2020). Here's the kicker-- the last name of man who gave me the Leslie speaker for free is also Dietrich! (I told the story about the A100 to Mr. Dietrich, but he didn't know any Dietrichs from my area. So, for all intents & purposes, these two Dietrichs are unrelated.) What are the odds that I get the coolest Hammond organ in the world for free from a nice lady named Dietrich, and a few years later I get the perfect companion Leslie speaker for free from a man with the same last name of Dietrich??? C'mon! Folks, you can't make this stuff up! This is what I firmly believe: God set this whole thing up & gave me a huge blessing. I really enjoy music, making music, exploring sounds, and tinkering with old equipment. God knows all this and He wanted to bless me. He did & it's mega! But God did it in a way that only He could orchestrate. Simply getting this incredible vintage musical equipment free of charge is huge blessing for me, but being given these items from seemingly unrelated people with the same last name, too: absolutely amazing! You may say, Dan, you're nuts! Stuff like that happens all the time. Well, if I am nuts, I'm nuts for God! The organs & the speaker aren't really all that important in the grand scheme of things. They're simply a conduit for me to tell you this amazing story of God's love & His greatest gift. The organs & speaker are really cool gifts from God, but we can't take anything with us when we die. The greatest gift of God is His Son, Jesus Christ. He left Heaven and came to this earth for one purpose: to die in our place and pay for the debt of our lifetime of sin. No one in history is like Jesus Christ: no one ever lived the perfect life that He lived, no one ever performed the miracles that He performed, and no one ever died in your place and rose from the dead as He died and rose again for you. Folks, contrary to popular beliefs today, you are not a cosmic mistake or an advanced ape: God made you masterfully & uniquely. You're not the random results of some ancient space explosion. You were made amazingly by God and you were made to be with Him eternally & to enjoy Heaven forever. But we messed it up & tried to be our own gods. That's how sin entered into the human condition. But in order to be in God's presence forever, we need to be perfect and blameless - something that's humanly impossible. And that's why Jesus came: to pay the price that we could never pay ourselves by shedding His blood for us. That's God's greatest gift to you. We're all going to come face-to-face with our Creator some day. You have to ask yourself, How's that gonna go for me??? I pray that by faith you accept the greatest gift of God: Jesus. I pray that someday when you stand before your Creator, Jesus will be by your side saying, I fully paid for his/her admission. The other option is to go it alone, and you've gotta know that's not a good way to go out... So, friends, I hope this true story blessed you. And yes, I'm am nuts. But I'm nuts on the fact that God saved me from myself through the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I'm nuts for you and want to see you free from the burden of sin and in Heaven someday. You might know that I left my archaeology career to dedicate my life to working with young people & telling them about Jesus. These are now my passions. If you ever want to talk about any of this or if you have any questions about this, please hit me up. I'm really easy to find. You can contact me on Facebook, and I'm in the phone book, too. Heck, I'm still in the same house I was in 1965. Love you all, Dan Bailey May 5, 2020 See more

A great job by Taylor & Ada on this great Lauren Daigle song.

What we let into our hearts impacts every other area of our lives. Build a tribe around your kids. It’s a critical step in parenting your child’s heart. #intentionalparenting #mentors @parentCue HomeWord.com

You can get your pool party tickets starting tomorrow!!!! don't miss the fun!!