John Kiley (November 1, 1912 – July 15, 1993SSDI, SSN: 010-12-0234) was the organist at

Braves Field Braves Field was a baseball park located in Boston, Massachusetts. Today the site is home to Nickerson Field on the campus of Boston University. The stadium was home of the Boston Braves of the National League from 1915 to 1952, prior to the B ...

from 1948 to 1952,

Fenway Park Fenway Park is a baseball stadium located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, near Kenmore Square. Since 1912, it has been the home of the Boston Red Sox, the city's American League baseball team, and since 1953, its only Major League Base ...

from 1953 to 1989 and at the

Boston Garden The Boston Garden was an arena in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who also built the third iteration of New York's Madison Square Garden, it opened on November 17, 1928, as "Boston Madison Square Garden" (late ...

from 1941 to 1984. He is credited with having discovered the Boston Garden's resident singer Rene Rancourt. Kiley was a veteran movie theater organist from the silent film era. In the early 50s he recorded a number of songs on the then Boston Music Hall Wurlitzer pipe organ (4 manuals, 22 ranks). These were originally released on the budget Spin-O-Rama label under the title "The Majesty of the Big Pipe Organ" however, soon after the first release the same tracks ("Poor Johnny One Note," "Tell Me Pretty Maiden," "Roamin' in the Gloamin'," "Dark Eyes," "O Promise Me," among others) began appearing on releases on other budget record labels under different pseudonyms ("William Daly," "John Minger," "Ralph Kramer," "Don Ayers," "George Ryan," etc.) According to a 1993 ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' obituary: "From the age of 15, when he made his professional musician's debut at the Criterion Theater in Roxbury, Kiley played in many Greater Boston movie theaters. In 1934 he switched to radio and was music director for the next 22 years at radio station WMEX." In later years, he appeared at a number of Boston-area science fiction conventions and other gatherings of film buffs where he played the organ for showings of silent era classics. A popular trivia question among Boston-area sports fans in the 1970s was "Who is the only man to play for the

Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...

, the Bruins, and the

Celtics The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 as one of t ...

?"—referring to Kiley, who played the organs at both Fenway Park and the Boston Garden. The organ that Kiley played at Braves Field from 1948 and 1949 was later upgraded in 1950. It was said that the organ was state of the art and so loud that it could be heard all the way to Kenmore Square, about a mile away. He was known to play "The Mexican Hat Dance" during Braves rallies. The organ that Kiley played at Fenway Park was a Hammond X-66. At Boston Garden it was a Hammond C-3, later a Kimball. After his departure at Boston Garden in 1983, he was succeeded by Ron Harry, who played until the building's closing in 1995, and in the new building for the Celtics until his death in 2004.

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