The Zombies' Hohner Pianet

This picture of Rod Argent and his Pianet (the C model, I think) was recently posted on the Zombies' Instagram account.  The caption claims that this was the 1964 session at Decca when "She's Not There" was recorded, although I'm a bit skeptical of this.  A second post (with this picture and various others) shows Chris White with his Gibson bass, which he got after the "She's Not There" session.  In this video, he explains that he used a homemade bass on "She's Not There."

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Fleetwood Mac's "Spare Me a Little of Your Love"

Recently, the Reelin' in the Years archive uploaded a video of Fleetwood Mac performing "Spare Me a Little of Your Love," from the same 1975 concert that I've posted about before (specifically "Station Man" and "Rhiannon").  Christine McVie plays organ for roughly the first half of the song but then switches to Hohner Pianet N:

Manfred Mann's "The One in the Middle"

I recently listened to Manfred Mann's Live at the BBC 64-66 and remembered that there's Hohner Pianet in "The One in the Middle" (although it's actually not in the live version on the album).  I'd figured out the part almost five years ago, and I finally wrote it out in notation last week.  It's basically just this ostinato figure (played an octaver lower than written):

There are some small differences at the beginning of the song (where, after a two-measure introduction, this figure is absent for the first two measures of the first verse) and in the instrumental section (where the figure continues throughout instead of the rests in measures seven, eight, fifteen, and sixteen).  The figure in the ninth measure is repeated a number of times as a coda until the song resolves.

This part (played as written, not an octave lower) is also doubled on guitar, which is usually more prominent than the Pianet.

Pianet N

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Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon"

I recently watched some Fleetwood Mac videos on YouTube, and among the recommended videos was a live version of "Rhiannon" from the same 1975 performance as "Station Man," which I posted about last year.  Although she's not shown very much in the video, Christine McVie is playing a Hohner Pianet N.

(Just as a warning:  during the guitar solo, there are some really fast edits, which can be a bit unsettling.)

I'm pretty sure the studio recording of "Rhiannon" doesn't have Pianet, though.  It sounds like a Fender Rhodes to me.

Clavinet I

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Clavinet I

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Combo Pianet

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Pianet L

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Pianet M

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Electric Light Orchestra's Clavinet

A number of years ago, I found this picture dated August 1978 that shows Richard Tandy and his keyboard rig in Electric Light Orchestra, including a Clavinet D6 at the bottom:

As the watermark indicates, I got this from Getty Images, although when I went to look for it again in order to link to it, I found that it had disappeared from the website.

I'm pretty sure the other keyboards here are a Yamaha C7 grand piano (specifically listed in the liner notes for A New World Record), a Yamaha CS-80, and a Mellotron M-400.  An-other picture from a different angle (also gone from the Getty Images website) shows a Wurlitzer EP200 and a Moog Polymoog, the edge of whose keys can be seen under the Clavinet here.

Twice recently, I listened to a box set titled The Classic Albums Collection, which contains the original eleven ELO albums plus some bonus tracks, to find what songs feature Clavinet.  I'm assuming that every instance is the D6 model.

There's Clavinet in:

• "Showdown"
• "Laredo Tornado"
• "Waterfall"
• "Evil Woman"
• "Mission (A World Record)"
• "So Fine"
• "Last Train to London"

It may also be in "On the Run" and "Sorrow about to Fall" (although I suspect that "Sorrow about to Fall" features an-other keyboard trying to sound like the Clavinet).

I also re-watched the concert DVD Out of the Blue - Live at Wembley, a performance from 1978.  The keyboard set up is much the same as that in the picture above, but Tandy plays Clavinet only in "Do Ya."

I notated the Clavinet part in the choruses of "Evil Woman" (although there's the standard disclaimer that I may have something wrong):

For years, I was under the mistaken impression that this part was played on guitar, although I also thought that the tone didn't quite sound like a guitar.  I have to credit this Instagram post for setting me straight.

[For what it's worth:  I also run a blog focused solely on Electric Light Orchestra.]

"God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen"

 

Months ago, I was playing what little I know of the Hohner Pianet solo at the end of the Zombies' "Indication," vaguely remembered some connection between it and "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,"* and came up with a Zombie-influenced arrangement of the latter.  The Pianet with tremolo effect and Vox Continental accompaniment are directly from "Indication," but I also included an A minor to F major modulation, like in "I Love You," and some of the other chord changes are a bit like those in "Nothing's Changed."

While thinking about the lyrics, I realized that, to some degree, the lines "For Jesus Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day / To save us all from Satan's pow'r while we were gone astray" echo part of Romans 5:8:  "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

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*In Claes Johansen's Hung up on a Dream (page 149), Rod Argent explains that the Zombies used to do a version of Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me To Do," ending with an improvisation based on "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" to which he sang along and that "Indication" was an attempt at doing this same sort of thing.  In the version of "Indication" on Live at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London (from many years later), Argent quotes "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" in his solo.