It was rock organists like Mark Stein, Gregg Rolie, and Keith Emerson, along with the jazz organist Jimmy Smith, whose music led me from the piano to the organ. I “graduated” from rock to jazz to classical, and ended up in musicology rather than performance (though I’m an organist for a small church), but there’s still a soft spot in my heart for their music, and I wouldn’t mind playing the organ for a Vanilla Fudge revival :-)
Check out our film “Rockin’ the Wall.” Of course, for my book with him, I interviewed Mark at length, but I also read both Keith Emerson’s books, interviewed David Paich of Toto, Felix Cavaliere of the Rascals, and Billy Joel. They all cite Jimmy Smith. Mark plays excellent classical music, as you can see in our movie.