Larry commenced piano lessons in Edinburgh at age 10, with Phyllis Millar LRAM, and on entering George Heriot's School at age 12, took piano and organ lessons from Norman Shires FRCO, on both the original organ of Greyfriar's Kirk in Edinburgh (3 manual Gray & Davidson, rebuilt by Hilsdon), St Paul's & St George's Church, York Place (3 manual Rushworth & Dreaper), and the 2 manual Compton electrostatic organ in Heriot's Assembly Hall.
During his first two years at Heriot's, Dr Eric Smith who was an ex Cinema Organist, albeit this was unknown to Larry at the time, was head of music. In addition to receiving formal general musical education from Dr Smith, he also received many 'ad hoc' organ lessons. Dr Smith was succeeded by Mr Martin Rutherford, who was more voice orientated, and pushed his singing talents, to the point where he was the lead soprano in the school choir for a performance in Edinburgh's Usher Hall.
He also acknowledges having received much guidance and support from Dr William Spink, at his parish church in Edinburgh (St Ninian's Ferry Road) where there was an extremely fine 3 manual organ by Wm Hill & Sons, on which he regularly practised.
A friend was an apprentice projectionist at the Astoria in Edinburgh, and knowing of Larry's interest in the organ, invited him out to the cinema, to play the organ there after the show. He was 16 at the time. During the course of the evening, a gentleman in full evening suit entered the projection room. Larry thought it was the Cinema Manager, and that he would be thrown out, but no, it was the organist for the evening, presenting the newly restored Astoria organ for the first time in some 25 years during that evening's film intermission.
The organist of course, was Gordon Lucas. From that evening on, Larry was hooked on the sound of the Cinema Organ. Gordon was good enough to give him lessons in cinema organ technique, both at the Astoria, and on the electronic WurliTzer theatre organ Gordon had in his home. Within 3 months, Larry presented his first 'cinema intermission' programme, at the Astoria, and when Gordon moved to the Playhouse as organist later that year, Larry took over the Astoria position, playing every Friday and Saturday.
By the time Larry was 17, he was regularly playing electronic organs in the evenings in a pub lounge bar (Rose Lounge of the McCann Hotel, Haymarket, Edinburgh), dinner dances at the Claremont Hotel on Sunday Evenings, and the following year, moved onto the club circuit in Edinburgh, playing at venues like the RAOB Club, the Free Gardeners Hall, the Free Mason's Hall, and many others, squeezing in sole accompanist & musical director for a couple of pantomimes in between.
Policy at the Astoria changed late on in 1971, so for pipe organ playing, Larry moved to the Playhouse as deputy organist to Gordon Lucas, where because of his full time job, Gordon could not be present for the number of performances the theatre wanted the organ to be used at.
Larry frequently recalls Christmastime 1972, where on the Friday and Saturday, he was doubling in the Restaurant Bar at the Playhouse, and had to scoot from the restaurant to the organ console every 45 minutes or so to play for the breaks in the performance. There were more than 9300 people through the doors that day, for the three showings of Walt Disney's Snow White, with the organ intervals stretching from 20 to 45 minutes or so each time. That year, saw the Playhouse establish a record for Walt Disney in Britain - 42,000 admissions in one week, for Snow White.
The Scottish District of the Cinema Organ Society, of which Gordon Lucas was by now District Secretary, presented some concerts by visiting organists, including Hubert Selby (founder of the Cinema Organ Society), Arnold Loxam, and Ernest Broadbent - the then organist of Blackpool Tower Ballroom. Needless to say, a visit was organised by Ernest to the Tower Ballroom for Gordon and Larry to play the mighty WurliTzer there.
On the closure of the Playhouse in 1973, Larry was active in the campaign to see it reopened as a theatre, to the point, that he spent most of 1977 working on this campaign.
During the period when he was working in Kirkcaldy, Larry was lucky enough to get the residency playing for entertainment and dancing at a restaurant in Lower Largo in Fife, which he enjoyed doing for about a year. (Larry continued teaching organ in his 'spare' time through until 1982 when pressure of work at the Playhouse forced him to give it up).
Larry moved back to Edinburgh in 1975, and worked next door to the Playhouse Theatre at Largs Music as manager and organ demonstrator, and every Tuesday morning, he would pop next door to the theatre, and play a live broadcast on the organ on Radio Forth in the 'Tom Bell Show'.
One fun day, the vocal microphone stopped working, so Gordon Lucas went up to the Circle to speak into the microphones that were picking up the organ, to do the announcement for him (it took maybe a minute to get from the organ console to there, so Larry couldn't do it). Gordon stayed up there for the handover back to the studio at the end of Larry's playing. So, there he was, sitting at the organ console, 18 feet up in the air. One of only 2 people in the entire building, playing a live broadcast. The music was only on the desk to aid the memory - just in case - but, what should happen at the page turn of the music???, you guessed it - the music fell off the music desk, not onto Larry's lap, not onto the pedalboard, but right off the console, into the orchestra pit miles below!! At that moment, Larry says his mind went blank, so can't remember to this day how 'The Entertainer' ended, but it certainly wasn't the way that Scott Joplin intended!!
During the period of 1974 to 1979, as the Playhouse's fortunes staggered from one crisis to another, Larry did a lot of musical arranging as well as playing and teaching. One such project was when he arranged 4 traditional seasonal songs for 'Cantabile' for a set of Carlsberg radio adverts, which subsequently went on to win a Radio Award for Radio Forth, for whom it was done. This set of adverts started a trend for 'barbershop quartet' arranging both on Radio and TV.
Larry had many fun evenings in Radio Forth, when Bill Torrance (latterly of the BBC's Beechgrove Garden) used to present a hospital request programme, and if Bill couldn't find the record of something, Larry would play it live on the Lowrey Berkshire electronic organ in Studio A. The listeners Probably didn't believe Bill when he said that he had a 'captive organist' in the other studio. Larry also co-produced and co-presented with Gordon Lucas, a series of 1 hour programmes titled 'the King of Instruments' on Radio Forth, which covered all forms of pipe and electronic organ, and which featured a lot of his playing.
In 1972, Larry and Gordon Lucas, founded STOPS, the Scottish Theatre Organ Preservation Society, set up to maintain the organs of the Playhouse, the Astoria, and to operate the Society's own organ, at Bangour Village Hospital. This was a 2 manual Christie, originally installed in the ABC (Lonsdale) Cinema in Carlisle.
During the course of STOPS presenting concerts at Bangour by many of the famous names of the time, Larry was given much help and guidance from people like Gerald Shaw, Robbie Cleaver, George Blackmore, John Mann, and of course, David Hamilton, with the latter of whom, Larry formed a long lasting friendship, until he died tragically while still under 40.
Larry McGuire and Gordon Lucas presented weekly concerts and dances for the residential patients there, sometimes solo, frequently duetting, with Larry playing the piano and Gordon playing the organ. Sometimes a drummer came along as well, making a formidable trio.
The Bangour organ was vandalised late in 1978, and due to a change in Hospital administration, the hall in which it was housed became a staff club, so the organ had to go. If there had only been 3 more months of time, STOPS would still have it, however, it now sings nicely in a private residence in Boroughbridge.
On being made redundant from the Playhouse in 1986, Larry had some time on his hands, so he and Gordon started to build up the organ parts they had in storage (the remains of the Hilsdon from the Palace Picture House, Princes Street, plus some pipes from the old organ of Edinburgh's St Giles Cathedral), on the basis, that erected into an instrument, they would take up less space. They soon had an organ playing, in the first floor music room of their family home Edinburgh, on the common wall of a semi detached Victorian villa!! Fortunately, the neighbours enjoyed their playing - even those at the other end of the large garden.
It soon became obvious though, that they either had to extend the house to accommodate the organ properly, or move. They decided to move, and having looked for some years for a suitable property, eventually found one in Greenlaw, complete with 'studio' and Granny Flat, which latter was perfect for Larry's elderly mother who lived with him. The studio was to have a 'little' amount of building work done to it to house the organ from the Palace, but the building itself took a form of its own during the conversion works, becoming a little theatre as the project developed, until now, it is officially the New Palace Theatre, with change of use being granted some 2 years ago, and a Public Entertainment License being granted earlier this year (2000).
The story of our little theatre is well documented in www.stops.org.
One current project very dear to Larry's heart, is the establishment of the National Institute of Theatre Organ Studies, which is based in the New Palace Centre in Greenlaw. Details of this project are at www.stops.org/NITOS
Larry is kept extremely busy, both with his 'day' job for Northern Light, working on the organ and theatre, and playing for organ societies whenever he gets the chance, specialising now in accompanying silent movies, but also performing both 'in Concert' and for dancing as well, and he spends a tremendous amount of time travelling, driving some 60,000 miles each year, despite having had a major car accident 7 years ago (in which his pelvis was broken, and his right arm, right leg, and three ribs were cracked).
Larry has made many cassette recordings over the years, and recorded his first CD on the organ of the New Palace Theatre last summer, which has received kind reviews, and he is currently preparing another two, as well as producing the last CD that the late Peter Lish recorded.
Being the last of the true 'theatre organists' in Scotland, in that he was the last person in Scotland to hold an in-theatre playing residency, Larry's publicist has coined the slogan -
Larry McGuire
Scotland's Premiere Theatre Organist.
Larry is available for bookings, and is particularly anxious to help newly formed pipe organ societies, and can, if necessary, tour with his Eminent Electronic Theatre Organ. He performs a wide range of material, from musical selections, current 'pops', to ballads, light classics, and well known classical organ music.
Phone :- +44 (0) 1361 810 759 Fax :- +44 (0) 1361 810 669
E-mail Larry McGuire
For further details, see Larry McGuire's web site