Donald Leslie

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Donald Leslie ( Donald James Leslie or Don Leslie ; born April 13, 1911 in Danville , Illinois ; † September 2, 2004 in Altadena , California ) developed and produced the Leslie loudspeaker named after him , a rotary loudspeaker that expanded the sound of the Hammond organ and established in popular music .

Leslie experimented early on with additional devices and speakers to improve the almost sinusoidal sound of the Hammond organ. He had experience as an electronics technician that he was able to gain in previous jobs. Among other things, he worked in a radio repair shop and in the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC during World War II .

When Leslie presented his handcrafted organ speaker to the organ maker Hammond in 1940, the company rejected it. Then Leslie decided to manufacture the speakers in his own company, Electro Music, Pasadena . The Leslie loudspeaker had its commercial breakthrough when it was used in pop and rock music of the 1960s and 1970s. It was not until the 1980s that Hammond officially endorsed Leslie's products . Today the successor company Hammond Suzuki USA builds its own rotor loudspeakers with the brand name Leslie.

Leslie was inducted into the American Music Conference Hall of Fame in 2003.

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personal data
SURNAME Leslie, Donald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leslie, Donald James; Leslie, Don
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American inventor
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Danville (Illinois)
DATE OF DEATH September 2, 2004
Place of death Altadena