Great Organ Hits is a classic album. More aptly put, it has a classic album cover. Reproduced in numerous books and on countless websites, the album pictures smiling
Eddie Layton astride a giant rocket that seems to be sprouting from his waist. In addition to inviting "great organ" jokes, the cover contains a (probably unintentional) subliminal message in the title that propriety dictates must go unmentioned in this review.
Layton was a talented musician who demonstrated organs for the Hammond company for decades, so
Great Organ Hits features the expert playing of an organist well-schooled in the variety of sounds that can be massaged out of a Hammond. A full complement of percussion instruments, guitar, and bass accompany
Layton, something missing from his later recordings of organ solos.
Great Organ Hits isn't a collection of
Layton's hits -- he had none -- but an album containing his arrangements of melodies associated with other famous organists. He pays tribute to
Ethel Smith ("Tico Tico"),
Dave "Baby" Cortez ("The Happy Organ"),
Ken Griffin ("You Can't Be True, Dear"),
Milt Herth (the whimsical "Dipsy Doodle"), and
Jesse Crawford ("The Organ Played at Twilight"), and also performs a selection of instrumental pop hits for the organ, such as
Henry Mancini's "Mr. Lucky" and
Pérez Prado's "Patricia." The music isn't nearly as outrageous as the album cover, but
Layton was one of the foremost purveyors of pop organ music, and
Great Organ Hits is one of his most instrumentally diverse albums.