(theme song) - [Walt] Coming up on Mississippi Roads, we look at pipe organs at Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church, Temple Theater in Meridian, talk with Burnley Cook about his restored organ, and look at one of the top organs in the world at First Baptist Church in Jackson.

All that coming up now on Mississippi Roads.

♪♪ Hi, welcome to Mississippi Roads.

I'm Walt Grayson.

This week, the show is about pipe organs and we're at First Baptist Church in downtown Jackson, and this is their Quimby pipe organ.

Now, pipe organs in churches are not unusual.

However, this one may be, because it's said to be one of the largest in the world.

And we'll talk a little bit more about this organ a little bit later in the show.

But let's start off down in Natchez at Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church and chat with some members of their congregation about their 1911 Moller pipe organ and how much they love its sound and its history.

(organ music) ♪♪ - We're at Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church, 607 1/2 Madison Street, Natchez, Mississippi.

And it's a beautiful day today.

♪♪ The organ drew me to this church in a sense, because the music is so melodious.

Oh, it just... just drives you!

and inspires you.

♪♪ - Of course, you know, the pipe organ has long, for centuries, been called the king of instruments, because of its massive sound and the things that it can do.

That's what has distinguished it from other instruments.

Perhaps the violin that can just play, you know, two or three notes at a time, but not great harmonies like you'll find, you know, in the pipe organ.

- It is been an integral part of the church services.

People love to hear the organ music.

The churches now have gone to the keyboard and it's not the same sound.

Something is missing there.

- We know that the pipe organ is essentially a classical instrument.

It was designed for both church services and music for orchestra as well.

And of course, that's something, you know, the contemporary styles do not have, you know, because they incorporate the drums for rhythms and things like that.

Most churches now don't use the pipe organ and they seem to want to eliminate it.

And the churches that have a strong tradition, it can, you know, offer the congregation quite a thrilling religious and spiritual experience.

♪♪ - I am the daughter of Mrs. Simpson Knight.

that was the former organist of this church.

I grew up in this church, and my grandparents, my great grandparents, so we call it our church, our home.

♪♪ - The Church is the oldest organized Black Baptist Church in the state of Mississippi.

And we are very proud of that, and we try to preserve everything that we can, historically.

The church was established-- there's a discrepancy as to the actual date.

Some say 1834, others say 1837.

They had a wood structure.

And during the fire that was in 1908, the whole block was destroyed where the church is sitting now and they rebuilt.

One of the things that the choir wanted was an organ, and the choir purchased the organ, the 1911 Moller organ, and it was built by a man named Moller, who lived in Maryland, and he had the world's largest organ factory.

The organ originally was water powered.

People had to fill the tank.

The tank was up on the roof, we can imagine, or down in the basement, we don't know.

But they had to fill it for each service.

After they finished playing, then they would drain it and there's a trough that it drained down on the side of the church and drained to the street, and it ran all the way down to Rankin Street.

In later years, they changed it over to electricity, which made it easier for the organist to play.

They had several organists during that period from 1912 when the organ was put in until roughly around 1938.

In 1938, I believe that was when Ms. Knight became the organist, and she was the organist until 1985.

- My mother was in education.

She started off as a teacher and she went on to become assistant principal.

Then she went on to become a principal.

So she had a full schedule.

She loved the organ, she loved to play it.

If you notice, there is a mirror that sits up there.

As little children, when we were growing up in this church, my mom would always look in that mirror and when we would see her looking in the mirror, we knew.

And it was almost like, you know, whatever you're doing, I'm still watching.

Now my back may be turned, and I might be playing this song, but I'm watching you, so.

- As the choir was in the back getting ready to march in, Mrs. Knight would be playing and she would use the mirror to see if we were all in place and if we were in step coming down the aisle.

She noticed all that and she would critique us on that after the service.

She was, oh, she was so gracious when she played.

♪♪ - It gets emotional for me because I love to hear the organ.

And just to sit back and listen to it, you know, it kind of brings out some emotions and it definitely does with me because I can still visualize her up there.

And it's just the tone of the music and it is breathtaking.

♪♪ - Well next, let's go to Meridian to the Temple Theater for the Performing Arts and see what it was like to watch a silent movie in a palace accompanied by nothing but the sound of their original Robert Morton pipe organ.

♪♪ - There is no theater as big and as spacious as it is in the whole state of Mississippi.

- It was like it had been untouched for 93 years.

- We got Ballroom right attached to it and 1,600 seats and we got a huge stage.

Everything you can ask for.

♪♪ - People were so starved for entertainment.

More and more people were going to see movies and stage entertainment.

It was combined, and the theaters had to get bigger and bigger.

This theater of 1600, which somewhere along the way I had read that to be called a "Movie Palace", you had to have a thousand seats or more.

So if that's accurate, this is the only Movie Palace in the whole state of Mississippi.

The theater was built by the Shriners.

The whole facility was a meeting hall for the Shriners, which is a division of the Masons.

And it was a little bit difficult for them, because it was built in 1928, which was right around the Depression and they had a hard time finishing it.

And the Saenger Theater chain, which was the preeminent theater chain in the South with their headquarters in Shreveport, they finished out the building.

They signed a long-term lease to show movies, and the Shriners, most of their meetings were in the ballroom in the back.

And if you notice throughout the building, there's Egyptian and Middle Eastern architectural accents.

Well 1928, Howard Carter had discovered King Tut's tomb, and that was the whole world rage.

And so you see some of the greatest Egyptian architecture coming out in 1928.

And that's not just here in America, but all over the world.

- In the auditorium, almost everything is original.

I would say the chandelier in theater, it's so big you can actually go in and crawl and go around it.

And that was my first project to get in there and change the light bulbs and to get it going.

- When I was a kid, I was an usher in a theater and I went on to become a projectionist.

That's really where my love for film developed.

I had a backyard theater as a kid.

You would have probably 50 kids and then their parents would show up.

So it was a lot of fun.

It really all happened when I was working for Channel 8 in Dallas as the news pilot.

I finally had retired from TV News and I was working as a steam railroad engineer for the Texas State Railroad in Palestine.

So I was clicking on Cinema Treasures and I saw this theater in Mississippi.

The Shriners had maintained it as best as they could, and I had always loved the theater organ and I actually could play then.

And so when I was here and saw it, we struck a deal and the Shriners financed it.

And I've been here for 12 years now running it as a nonprofit community theatre.

- I'm actually from India.

I came here about three years ago and I was actually an intern, and slowly I got promoted to work as an assistant manager.

And here I am.

- The theater business in India is very interesting.

And that was his dream.

And so he's been here a while and helping out.

And he's very happy to be here working in a Movie Palace.

♪♪ We have different levels.

We have local-based shows where I try to help them put on shows and then we have a lot of first run big acts coming through.

There's a theater film out in 30 days.

And so if we did not have our stage shows, we could not survive.

Stage shows are our biggest draw.

♪♪ We have every film format here in the theater, all those high-powered lamps.

We have a 40-foot screen.

We also have digital.

- Like today, we are going to do a silent movie Safety Last with Harold Lloyd.

Larry Davis is a great organist.

He's going to be playing the movie today.

We have two or three really good theater-style organs.

We brought Larry Davis from Atlanta, who is actually an ambulance driver.

He's playing for the silent movie Safety Last, which is really a great movie.

♪♪ - Well, today was an opportunity for people to have a 1920s experience and actually see movies as they were back in the 1920s: silent with organ accompaniment.

And I got to provide the accompaniment.

What I like about this instrument is it's almost completely original, as it was in 1928.

A lot of organs have been modified and changed, modernized, made easier for the organist.

For me to come here and have the opportunity to play and have the same experience that an organist had in 1924, that's a real privilege.

The organ sounds wonderful in the theater.

It's a marvelous Robert Morton.

I have enjoyed it every time I've come down here to play it.

- Most people think an organ as an organ, but a theater organ was actually designed to replace a full orchestra, to save money.

- So I think that's a wonderful experience for them.

And kids seem to like it.

And we have a lot of young people that are interested in the theater.

♪♪ - There's no magic bullet for Movie Palaces or big auditoriums.

You have to have a diverse show grouping.

We do a lot of weddings, parties, you know, whatever to pay Mississippi Power.

That's what we strive for.

- Well, the favorite part of working here is really the theater itself.

I mean, it's amazing how people are attracted to it.

It's just the prettiest theater I've ever seen.

And I'm glad to even work here.

♪♪ (audience applauds) - Well, if you like theater organs, here's another story about one.

Let's go back down to Natchez and visit with my friend Burnley Cook.

Now, Burnley got the organ from the old Baker Grand Theater, and after many, many years, not only rescued it, he resurrected it.

Burnley Cook of Natchez has many interests.

Pretty much anything he runs across, he finds some interest in.

Now, for instance, he's had a carnivorous plant garden pretty much since he was a kid.

- Well, you know, in comic books, back years ago, I haven't looked at a comic book in years, you would turn the pages, and they would have all these novelties.

But there was always the plant that eats meat, you know, the Venus flytrap.

And I would order one, and of course, it would always die.

Little did I know at that point in time that I was killing it.

To successfully grow them, you just have to understand what they need.

- [Walt] Then he's also periodically picked up and put aside and then picked up again painting.

And on and on from woodworking to this: the resurected Baker Grand Theater Organ Burnley attacked the organ on several levels, music, for one.

- My grandmother had a big player piano in her front room and I, as a kid, used to go along and start picking out tunes on the piano.

- [Walt] Burnley took to the old relic from the viewpoint of Natchez history, too.

- I think it was just more a matter of saving a piece of history.

and a piece of my childhood.

- [Walt] But his interest in the restoratino of the theater organ was in no way because Burnley was a fan of organ music.

- To be honest, I held pipe organs pretty much in contempt because I thought they were just loud blunderbusses.

My thing was pianos, and that's what I did, I played pianos.

I had no knowledge of a pipe organ whatsoever.

- [Walt]I would suspect that his interest in things on several levels probably led him to the organ for saving history, to begin with.

And then his actual delving into it to put it back in order probably started because of his interest in mechanical things.

- Yes, you kind of get obsessed about looking at the mechanics of it, and wanting to return it to the way it operated.

And most people, once you're into it, you not only want to return it to working correctly, you want to return it to looking correctly.

- [Walt] So that was the project outline for several years in Burnley Cook's garage in Natchez painstakingly restoring the Baker Grand Organ.

And also modernizing it internally where it needed it which entailed learning a whole new world of electronic mechanics.

But that knowledge is just something else for him to file away in his store house of interests.

- It is a theater organ.

It was inside the old Baker Grand Theater that was in Downtown Natchez which got demolished in 1972 and the late Bob Shumway heard that they were trying to get rid of that theater organ as part of the salvaging, So Bob saved the theater organ from being demolished and he put it into storage for 42 years.

One day, his daughter, Ruth Palor, put on FaceBook and said if anybody wants the old Baker Grand theater organ, come, please, because otherwise we're going to throw it away.

And I thought, well now wait a minute!

- [Walt] So that's how the Baker Grand theater organ took up residence in Burnley Cook's garage in Natchez.

- It's not supposed to be in here.

I keep holding out hope somehow funds will come up and there will be a place, a suitable venue that can either be constructed, put into some building that gets renovated in Natchez for everybody's enjoyment.

♪♪ My first love, still, is the piano.

But I do thoroughly enjoy...

I like theater organs.

Straight organs, it's like, okay, they're interesting enough.

But I still like the theater organs.

in fact, I have some extra ranks I'd love to add on to this that I already have the pipes for them.

- [Walt] Hmm.

So it sounds like this might not be the end of the tale of the Baker Grand theater organ in Natchez.

I mean Burnley might like to continue this project further?

- Well, I could.

I mean, it would be a lot of fun.

If I had my chance, and like I said, had the resources.

I'd redo this one all over again because even though I think I did it really well and have had no serious problems for it, I just would like to do it again because I know more and go back through it and do even more some fine detail.

- [Walt] This story could go on for years, so for now, on that note, we'll close.

♪♪ As we promised earlier in the show, we're going to take a look at one of the largest organs in the world.

Of course, this is it at First Baptist Church in Jackson.

And it was a congregation of about 4,000 people, you need a large organ to provide for your worship needs.

This organ has over 9,000 pipes and estimated to weigh over 35 tons, but its best quality is the inspiration that it provides.

♪♪ - The first time I heard this organ, I cried because we worked on it for so long.

I mean, it was very emotional for me, because this instrument.

will play and lead people in worship for many years past our lifetime.

And if it's maintained, it can just go on and on till Jesus comes.

So we pray that's what will happen.

♪♪ - I would have to say, the very first time I sat at this console, I felt at home.

Just something about it.

The way the stops were arranged, the feel of the console, but also the sounds that were created by this organ gave me the capability of creating the effect I want because there is such a wide range of color in this organ.

This organ has 155 ranks.

It's 9,079 pipes spread out from the chancel to the very back of the sanctuary and even in the ceiling of the main sanctuary.

- First Baptist Church was actually established by a group of people in 1838.

Interestingly, the city of Jackson only had a population of 529 people at the time.

In 1926, there was a group of visionary men who got together and decided to move the location to this present location that we're in here.

The church was continuing to grow.

This sanctuary itself was renovated in 1989 because of increasing membership and more people coming to worship on Sundays and just the need for more space.

The church membership now, I believe, is 4,357.

- They took it upon themselves to renovate and expand the organ, and we came out with an instrument that is world class.

It's one of the top organs in the United States and actually the world.

The organ size is determined by ranks and what a rank is is on an organ, a manual, a keyboard will have 61 notes.

Peddle board has 32.

A rank is one comeplete set of 61 or 32 notes.

And a rank would be one sound.

It might be a trumpet, it might be a flute it might be a variation thereof, or whatever.

But we were very fortunate that Richard Dean, as architect, took the organ and the organ chambers into consideradion He had a great understanding of what, eventually, would be needed for the organ Some of the pipes are 32 feet tall.

That gives you a very, very solid foundation and base.

So you have to be able to accomodate that.

Some are the size of a small pencil So with 9,000 plus pipes, you have to have quite the room.

In a room this size, it would require an organ this size to be able to accomodate congregational singing, accompanying with the choir.

It was not built large just to build a large organ.

It was built because that is what this room required - It is a stunning instrument.

We have had people who have come from different places who know about the organ, who have come to visit the church, who just wanted to walk around and see this magnificent instrument.

Some sermons are more celebrative.

Some sermons are more contemplative.

And so when the services are planned, our team gets together and kind of determines what the tone of the service is going to be.

And oftentimes the organ plays a very integral role because it can do so many different things.

It's an incredible gift.

Much architecture in places of worship like this one, the organ pipes particularly are up high which is to try to get the worshiper to look up, because our focus is always on Jesus, the Resurrected Lord.

- It's something God has given us to use .

We want to use it, but we don't want to do anything to distract anyone that comes in the santuary with it.

Fortunately the way they incorporated the pipes, it actually aids in a person's experience in the sanctuary.

- It does provide an opportunity of reverence.

our thoughts and focus towards worship.

It's a wonderful thing.

- Well, that's all the time we have for this show.

If you'd like information about anything you've seen, contact us at: and make sure you like our Mississippi Public Broadcasting Facebook page and check out our Mississippi Roads Facebook page, too.

Until next time, I'm Walt Grayson I'll be seeing you on Mississippi Roads.