Music Innovators— The History of the Wurlitzer Electric Piano
The "Wurli" pictured here, at the time of this writing, was advertised for sale as "brand new" for $1300 at this vintage instrument website. It is unusual to see one of these beauties with ALL original parts, including the original metal music stand. (Usually the music stand, and often the original sustain pedal—also shown here—are long gone.)
Editors Note: The purpose of printing the following article on the history of the Wurlitzer electric piano is to educate and inform our readers, and to introduce you to the fabulous modeling keyboard, the Nord Electro. Manufactured by Clavia, the Nord Electro is a stage keyboard focused on vintage instrument sounds -- specifically, sounds from popular electromechanical keyboards produced from the '50s to the '70s. The Wurlitzer Electric Piano, along with the Hammond B-3 Organ, the Fender Rhodes, the Clavinet, and several other widely used (and recorded!) electric pianos, is one of the excellent featured "sounds" faithfully reproduced by the sophisticated Nord. If we awarded stars for products, this one would get them all. It's a great musical instrument! 
From "The Story behind the Nord Electro" by Clavia: "What became the Wurlitzer electric piano was originally designed by Benjamin Franklin Miessner, born in 1890. An American inventor who became involved with innovations in radio during his early years, Miessner designed an electro-acoustic instrument pick-up in 1921. A company called Amperage manufactured it for guitars in 1928. After selling his radio patents to RCA in 1930, Miessner set up a laboratory to develop his ideas on electrifying musical instruments. with the goal of creating small, affordable electric pianos for educational use. He experimented with ways of amplifying the strings in an acoustic piano that lacked a sound board, and he files a patent for this design in 1931. Miessner continued to develop his theories and give the piano a more powerful tone. He began incorporating metal reeds in place of strings because the reeds' timbre and the decay of their vibrations sounded superior to the muddy quality of the sound-boadless strings. "At this point Miessner's concept garnered lots of interest from piano manufacturers around the country. His ideas reached the big jukebox and organ company, Wurlitzer, where someone realized the invention had great potential. Wurlitzer bought the patent and the rights to make this instrument and immediately started the development of an electric piano. They wanted to produce an electric piano silmilar to the Rhodes, but with a more piano-like action and sound. The basic design incorporated felt-dressed hammers similar to those in an acoustic piano to stroke the metallic reeds. The vibrations from the stroke on the reeds produced a big, fat, rich tone, which was sensed by the electro-static pick-ups, amplified an routed to the built-in speakers on the front of the piano... "The first electric piano released by Wurlitzer was the model 100, which came to the market in 1954. It was an instant success. The Wurlitzer Company realized the instrument's potential in music education and offered many special educational models. Miessner's basic design was the backbone of the product, but one problem remained: It was difficult to keep a 100-series electric piano in tune, and this problem definitely needed to be solved. "The tuning artifact that plagued early Wurlitzer electric pianos wasn't solved until the release of the 200 series in 1968. The Wurlitzer 200 was constructed better mechanically and is the model most know on the rock [music] scene. It became a huge success and was produced until 1982."
Here are some classic records featuring the famous "wurli" sound. In particular, recordings by Ray Charles ("What'd I Say") and Marvin Gaye ("I Heard It Through The Grapevine") etched the Wurlitzer sound into pop culture. In the rock world, Pink Floyd's "Money" and "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash prominently feature the "wurli" sound. Great stuff, all!
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