Lorin Whitney
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Lorin J. Whitney (September 11, 1914 – August 29, 2007) was an American organist and recording artist who played on Christian radio programs such as the '' Haven of Rest'' in the 1930s–1950s. His organ music programs were heard on the
CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...
and
NBC Blue Network The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American Commercial broadcasting, radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the N ...
s in the 1930s. He founded the Whitney Recording Studio in
Glendale, California Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census the population was 196,543, up from ...
, in 1957, where he had a
pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...
installed. His studio organ was used for recordings by Whitney and other organists, along with furnishing accompaniment for singers. The studio accommodated large orchestras and was widely used by various entertainers to record secular music albums in the 1960s–1990s. After the studio was acquired by MCA in 1978, the MCA Whitney studio was used largely for popular music recordings.


Early years

Whitney was born on September 11, 1914, in
Madera, California Madera (Spanish language, Spanish for "Wood") is a city and county seat of Madera County, California, Madera County, California. As of the 2020 United States census, the city's population was 66,224. Located in the San Joaquin Valley, Madera i ...
, the son of David and Caroline Whitney. His father was a truck driver. Whitney became a
born again Christian Born again, or to experience the new birth, is a phrase, particularly in evangelicalism, that refers to a "spiritual rebirth", or a regeneration of the human spirit. In contrast to one's physical birth, being "born again" is distinctly and sepa ...
at age 11 while attending an
Assemblies of God The Assemblies of God (AG), officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 144 autonomous self-governing national groupings of churches that together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination."Assemblies of God". ...
church. As a youth, Whitney played trombone at church and in his high school's band in
Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...
where he also played football. He began taking piano lessons at age 14 and advanced rapidly, soon studying organ under prominent theater organist
Jesse Crawford Jesse Crawford (December 2, 1895 – May 28, 1962) was an American pianist and organist. He was well known in the 1920s as a theatre organist for silent films and as a popular recording artist. In the 1930s, he switched to the Hammond organ and b ...
. Whitney then attended
Fresno State College California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bachelo ...
for a year, before transferring to
Southern California Bible College Vanguard University of Southern California is a private Christian university in Costa Mesa, California. It was the first four-year college in Orange County. The university offers over 39 undergraduate degrees and emphases in 15 different departm ...
(now Vanguard University).


Career as an organist

As a 20-year-old college student in 1934, Whitney became organist on the '' Haven of Rest'' radio program, heard by millions on the coast-to-coast broadcast until 1958. Whitney was on other Los Angeles area stations at various times in the 1930s, including
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,
KFI KFI (640 AM) is a radio station in Los Angeles, California, owned and operated by iHeartMedia, Inc. It began operations in 1922 and became one of the first high-powered, clear-channel Class A stations. It was the first U.S. station west of Chi ...
,
KHJ (AM) KHJ (930 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station that is licensed to Los Angeles, California. Owned and operated by Relevant Radio, Inc., the station broadcasts Roman Catholic religious programming as an affiliate of the Relevant Radio network. ...
, and KGER. His organ music program on KFI was also picked up by the
NBC Blue Network The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American Commercial broadcasting, radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the N ...
. During World War II, Whitney worked nights at
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's Vega plant in Burbank, assembling wings for the Lockheed Hudson A-29 bomber, then doing the daily ''Haven of Rest'' program in the mornings with little sleep. In the 1940s, he was organist at
Youth for Christ Youth For Christ (YFC) is a worldwide Christian movement working with young people, whose main purpose is evangelism among teenagers. It began informally in New York City in 1940, when Jack Wyrtzen held evangelical Protestant rallies for teenagers ...
rallies in the Los Angeles area for ten years, along with pianist
Rudy Atwood Rudolph Atwood (December 16, 1912 – October 16, 1992) was an American Christian music pianist, known primarily for his years as accompanist on the long-running ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour'' radio program led by Charles E. Fuller from 1937 to ...
, and at
Billy Graham William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christi ...
's Los Angeles Crusade in 1949. He began making organ recordings on the
Sacred Records Sacred Records was a religious music record label founded in 1944 by Earle E. Williams. History Earle E. Williams, a minister of youth and music director in the Los Angeles area, decided to start a religious music record label in 1944 as a solutio ...
label beginning in 1945 and also had a program of organ music on the
CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...
network. Whitney later played organ at Graham's crusades between 1958–1960, as well as on the evangelist's ''
Hour of Decision The ''Hour of Decision'' was a live weekly radio broadcast produced by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. First broadcast in 1950 by the American Broadcasting Company, it was a half-hour program featuring sermons from noted evangelist Bi ...
'' radio program. Whitney played organ on a nightly half-hour radio program on a Los Angeles station, KHOF-FM, in the late 1950s–1960s. He continued to perform as a solo organist in concert appearances and as an accompanist for various singers in the 1970s.


Whitney Recording Studio

In 1957, Whitney built the Whitney Recording Studio in
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, and installed a Robert Morton
theater organ A theatre organ (also known as a theater organ, or, especially in the United Kingdom, a cinema organ) is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films, from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements o ...
he had acquired from the Fox Theatre in Redwood City, California., continued: Initially, the 1928-vintage instrument had a 3-manual console and 14 pipe ranks. Whitney expanded it wth additional
Wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...
pipes and an enlarged console, resulting in a 4-manual, 34-rank
pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...
. The organ was heard on Whitney's own radio programs, as well as used by a number of other organists to make recordings, and as backup for a number of singers. In its earlier years, the Lorin Whitney Recording Studio was predominately used to record Christian albums and radio broadcasts, such as '' Haven of Rest'', ''World Vision'', and ''The Quiet Time'', a 15-minute program of sung hymns and organ played by Whitney, along with a spoken meditation by Albert Salter. Whitney promoted the use of his studio by other radio ministries based in the Los Angeles area to produce records on his Angelus label for their listening audiences, such as the duet of John and Linnie Olson on the ''Trans World Missions'' broadcast. The studio
sound stage A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a soundproof, large structure, building, or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or ...
was large enough to accommodate a 60-piece orchestra and was used by such entertainers as
Jesse Crawford Jesse Crawford (December 2, 1895 – May 28, 1962) was an American pianist and organist. He was well known in the 1920s as a theatre organist for silent films and as a popular recording artist. In the 1930s, he switched to the Hammond organ and b ...
,
Barry White Barry Eugene Carter (September 12, 1944 – July 4, 2003), better known by his stage name Barry White, was an American singer and songwriter. A two-time Grammy Award winner known for his bass voice and romantic image, his greatest success came ...
and his 40-piece orchestra,
Aretha Franklin Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the " Queen of Soul", she has twice been placed ninth in ''Rolling Stone''s "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". With ...
, and
Pat Benatar Patricia Mae Giraldo (''née'' Andrzejewski, formerly Benatar; born January 10, 1953), known professionally as Pat Benatar, is an American rock singer and songwriter. In the United States, she has had two multi-platinum albums, five platinum alb ...
. One of the studio's first major customers was
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. Actor Tom Bosley used the studio early in his career to produce an audition tape for announcing and
voice acting Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talent ...
roles, before his casting as the familiar Howard Cunningham character on the ''
Happy Days ''Happy Days'' is an American television sitcom that aired first-run on the ABC network from January 15, 1974, to July 19, 1984, with a total of 255 half-hour episodes spanning 11 seasons. Created by Garry Marshall, it was one of the most succ ...
'' television series in the 1970s–1980s. In 1958, the studio was an early pioneer in developing a solid state
mixing console A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals from electric or electronic inst ...
. The studio's array of tape duplicating machines and multi-channel recording capabilities resulted in increasing use by
rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
performers. Whitney sold the studio to MCA in 1978, but continued his association with the studio for another five years as a consultant. By 1981, the MCA Whitney Recording Studio was producing 12 albums annually, using a 16-track recording setup, and the majority of recording work was no longer predominantly religious.


Discography

Whitney made a large number of recordings between the 1940s–1980s, many on the
Sacred Records Sacred Records was a religious music record label founded in 1944 by Earle E. Williams. History Earle E. Williams, a minister of youth and music director in the Los Angeles area, decided to start a religious music record label in 1944 as a solutio ...
,
Christian Faith Recordings Christian Faith Recordings was an American record label based in California that specialized in mainstream Christian music in the 1950s and 1960s. It was one of the most significant producers of Christian music in the United States during that t ...
, and Angelus labels, playing sacred music organ solos and as accompanist for various soloists and ensembles, such as
George Beverly Shea George Beverly Shea (February 1, 1909 – April 16, 2013) was a Canadian-born American gospel singer and hymn composer. Shea was often described as "America's beloved gospel singer"Michael Ireland, "America's 'Beloved Gospel Singer,' George Bever ...
and the Haven of Rest Quartet. Among these are: * ''Lorin Whitney plays the Hi-Fi pipe organ'' * ''Songs that touch the heart'' * ''Songs of the Christian faith'' * ''Dinner Devotionals'', volumes one and two * ''Lorin Whitney plays songs everybody loves'' * ''Lorin Whitney plays Christmas carols'' * ''Now I belong to Jesus'' * ''Lorin Whitney, pipe organ, Bud Tutmarc, Hawaiian guitar'' * ''Vere Raley with Lorin Whitney Musical Ensemble'' * ''Precious memories'' * ''Crew of the good ship grace'', Haven of Rest Quartet * ''I'd Rather Have Jesus'', George Beverly Shea, soloist * ''Unto the Hills''


Personal life

Whitney married Aimee Hill on March 17, 1937. They had a daughter, Joan, and a son, Eugene. When their son married in September 1968, at a Baptist church in
Pomona, California Pomona is a city in Los Angeles County, California. Pomona is located in the Pomona Valley, between the Inland Empire and the San Gabriel Valley. At the 2020 census, the city's population was 151,713. The main campus of California State Polyte ...
, Whitney played the wedding music. After living in Glendale, they retired to
Newport Beach Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island, Newport ...
when Whitney's studio was sold to MCA. In retirement, the couple enjoyed travel and boating. Whitney died at age 92 on August 29, 2007.


References


External links


''Quiet Time'' radio broadcast
Lorin Whitney, organist, Joseph Barclay, soloist, and Albert Salter, speaker (audio) {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitney, Lorin 1914 births 2007 deaths People from Madera, California Vanguard University alumni Male classical organists Organ improvisers Theatre organists 20th-century organists Christians from California Record producers from Los Angeles Musicians from Glendale, California 20th-century male musicians