36th Annual Spreckels Summer Organ Festival Closes with Well-Attended Tribute to The Doors, Pink Floyd
by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved Last night (Monday, September 2) the 36th annual Summer Organ Festival at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park concluded with the annual rock tribute, this time to The Doors and Pink Floyd. San Diego’s regular civic organist, Raúl Prieto Ramírez, appeared playing the pipe organ (ironically in music originally written for electronic organ players Ray Manzarek of The Doors and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd) along with an ad hoc rock band consisting of musicians who’ve played with him in previous concerts. He referred to them under the band name “The Organization” and they consisted of singers William Fleming, Chloe Lou and Lauren Leigh, guitarist Ben Zinn, bass guitarist Harley Magsino and drummer Richard “T-Bone” Larson. I expected a large crowd but I didn’t expect one the size of what we got: just about every seat in the Organ Pavilion was taken – the sort of overwhelming attendance we used...