Transcripts

[MUSIC PLAYING] STEPHEN SMITH: This tune is called "Over the Waves," a song almost synonymous with organ grinders and carnivals. Steve Beck of Houston, Texas is cranking the television-sized instrument in his Saint Paul Hotel room, which is outfitted with just the right things to make an organ grinders Nirvana, there's a blender for margaritas, and five beautifully decorated antique organs.

SPEAKER: There are barrel organs that were made in Germany about the turn of the century.

STEPHEN SMITH: And the barrel organ is probably what most people, when they think of an organ grinder that's what they think of.

SPEAKER: Right. Oftentimes these are referred to as monkey organs, because generally an organ grinder would have one of these little organs on the street and oftentimes with a monkey.

STEPHEN SMITH: Beck and her partner collect and refurbish street organs and mechanical music boxes for a living. They hope to sell some of their wares to the estimated 700 organ grinders and automatic musical instrument collectors meeting here in Saint Paul.

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Another kind of instrument shown here at the convention is an air-powered calliope, which sits in the bed of a red and white pickup truck and gets its juice from an electric generator.

HARVEY ROEHL: My name is Harvey Roehl. And my wife Marion and I just drove out from Vestal, New York.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, Harvey, what is this machine?

HARVEY ROEHL: Well, this machine we brought with us is what I call a calliope and what circus fans call a calliope. You know, calliopES or calliopES were traditionally steam-operated machines that date back from before the Civil War. And on the Mississippi riverboats and in circuses, steam calliopes were common.

STEPHEN SMITH: 63-year-old Harvey Roehl says he was drawn to mechanical instruments because of his mechanical nature. He wears a plastic pocket liner in his shirt with an assortment of pens, pencils, and a small screwdriver. This calliope was built by an Iowa company in 1930 and traveled for a time with the Ringling Brothers Circus. As Harvey Roehl plays the keyboard, strangers passing the Downtown parking lot stop and smile.

HARVEY ROEHL: I say it's all happy music. You know, there's no doleful stuff played on one of these things. They were made to make noise for circuses and carnivals and attract attention. And that's exactly what they do.

STEPHEN SMITH: And you wear earplugs when you play?

HARVEY ROEHL: Well. yeah, at my advanced age, my doctor says you better be careful. You can knock off your ear lobes pretty quick or whatever is in there to make you hear.

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STEPHEN SMITH: 44-year-old Angelo Rulli of Saint Paul is helping to organize this convention. His mechanical pipe organ is about the size of a kitchen cabinet. It plays music punched into a book of cards, much like the scroll of a player piano. There is a stuffed monkey atop Rulli's street organ. He says, very few people still work with live animals. At one time, Rulli says, the immigrants who churned out mechanical music on neighborhood street corners were about the only musicians available to poor and working class people.

ANGELO RULLI: In fact, until this century, music was for the elite. It was for the privileged classes. And we certainly saw ample evidence of that in the movie Amadeus. Mozart never wrote for my ancestors for sure.

STEPHEN SMITH: Even today with Mozart for the masses on radio and records, mechanical organs still make music that's simple and encouraging.

ANGELO RULLI: Because these instruments had no other purpose to be on Earth except to bring pleasure, and the pleasure for me comes personally because it's so soothing for me. The sound is certainly for me, and I suspect for many others, a remembrance of the first time at the carnival, the first merry go round ride, that kind of moment in life which was happy.

STEPHEN SMITH: Angelo Rulli and his street organ at the International Music Box Society and Automated Musical Instrument Collectors Convention in Saint Paul. This is Stephen Smith reporting.

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