From simon@alphabeck.co.uk Thu Sep 04 08:27:41 2008
Subject:Re: A Hammond that 'talks'

I find it very haunting - very similar to a vocoder, but of course much more tricky to accomplish. This may be one of the earliest examples of electronic speech synthesis! And yes - I could recognise the words that were being "sung" (with the help of subtitles) in Olivera's version of "Besame Mucho".

Anyone know more about him - when he was playing, whether he is still alive (he looks very young in those film clips), was he really blind? And above all where and how he got the sobriquet "Hill"...

Simon