Thank you Kayla, for pointing me towards a theater organ site that’s given me another US organist to consider – Marjorie Meinert. A big-timer on US radio and TV in the 40s and 50s, at the height of her career she appeared on 5 radio shows and 5 TV shows weekly. Here she is on YouTube in Ken Griffin’s TV show 67 Melody Lane, in 1954 (I think), playing Flight of the Bumble Bee. The dialog is stilted, the scenario contrived, but Marjorie plays with charm and zip.
She was a child prodigy, with her first broadcast performance on the piano at age 7 – and appears to have been a consummate professional all her life, touring coast-to-coast as well as fitting in the TV and radio shows plus recordings and live gigs. She died at the age of 88 in 2009. She recorded for RCA, and hooray for the internet, I see that all 10 tracks from her Organ Fireworks! album are available as MP3 downloads from Amazon – where you can sneak a preview listen.
