House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios (Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music) Read online

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House

of Hits

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b r a d a n d m i c h e l e m o o r e r o o t s m u s i c s e r i e s u n i v e r s i t y o f t e x a s p r e s s

a u s t i n

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The Story of

Houston’s Gold Star/SugarHill

Recording Studios

by andy bradley and roger wood Bradley_4319_BK.indd iii

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Copyright © 2010 by the University of Texas Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First edition, 2010

Requests for permission to reproduce material

from this work should be sent to:

Permissions: University of Texas Press

P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html

The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements

of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper).

Designed by Lindsay Starr

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bradley, Andy, 1951–

House of hits : the story of Houston’s Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios / by Andy Bradley and Roger Wood. — 1st ed.

p. cm. — (Brad and Michele Moore roots music series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 978-0-292-71919-4 (cl. : alk. paper)

1. SugarHill Recording Studios. 2. Gold Star Studios. 3. Sound recording industry—Texas—Houston—History. I. Wood, Charles Roger, 1956– II. Title.

ml3792.s84b73 2010

781.6409764'1411—dc22

2009044441

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Contents

Foreword by Deniz Tek vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: The Case for Greatness xi

1. The Raid 1

2. Domestic Crude 6

3. The Independent Quinn 11

4. Gold Star Records 18

5. Label’s Demise, New Studio’s Rise:

Recording in the House 32

6. Pappy Daily and Starday Records 41

7. The Big Studio Room Expansion 61

8. Daily’s Dominance and D Records 70

9. Little Labels: Blues, Country, and Sharks 82

10. Into the ’60s and Quinn’s Last Sessions 92

11. Duke-Peacock: The Gold Star Connection 104

12. The HSP Corporation Experiment Begins 121

13. A House of Rock, Despite the Muck 135

14. The HSP Aftermath and a New Direction 145

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15. International Artists Record Company:

The Psychedelic Business Plan 158

16. Disillusioned Dissolution 177

17. Meaux Moves In, SugarHill Ascends 181

18. The Freddy Fender Phenomenon 191

19. The Later ’70s and Early ’80s 204

20. Meaux’s Final Phase 212

21. Modern Music (Ad)Ventures 219

22. Emergence of a RAD Idea 231

23. Millennial Destiny 236

24. Still Tracking in the Twenty-fi rst Century 245

appendix a 255

Catalogue of Interviews

appendix b 259

Chart Records from the House of Hits

appendix c 267

Selected Discographies: A Partial History

appendix d 311

Chronology of Gold Star/SugarHill Engineers

Bibliography 313

Index 319

v i

h o u s e o f h i t s

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Foreword

first came to sugarhill studios in the year 1991. I had been out of the business of recording for a decade and was eager to get back into the studio. My friend and former bandmate in Radio

Birdman, Chris Masuak, had asked me to help out on an album he was doing with his group the Hitmen. I fl ew in to Houston’s Hobby Airport, and we stopped at a Two Pesos for cheap tacos on the way.

The building is on Brock Street in a quiet and old neighborhood. Although in the city, it has a rural feel. It rains a lot, so stuff grows fast here. Primal life energy fl ows freely. Trees, vines, fl owering shrubs of all kinds mingle with old stuff lying around and threaten to engulf the pavement. If people went away, there would be no sign of civilization within a decade. Small mid-century vintage wood-frame houses needing paint line the street, some with beer coolers on the front porch. Kids and dogs run around outside, their shouts mingling with a hint of charcoal smoke and the aroma of tortillas. I got the feeling there was some voodoo in that humid air.

Inside the building, the small reception area has some glass cases displaying Gold Record awards, album covers, and other memorabilia. Down the narrow hallway, Studio B is on your left; the original gold star emblem is emblazoned in the fl oor. Go on down past there, through the coff ee lounge, and into the control area with the big Neotek desk that adjoins the big room known as Studio A. You suddenly get hit with the impression you are in a parallel world. It looks like an old Mexican cantina, but with a grand piano out front—a surreal juxtaposition, but somehow perfect. There are painted palm trees and white adobe walls fronting the various booths. Staff members told me that Freddy Fender wanted those palms in there, and they just left ’em. I felt immediately at home. If I could aff ord the rent, I’d live there.

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Behind the control room there is a narrow staircase that leads up to Huey Meaux’s old tape archives. I went up there and had a quick look around the dusty shelves, and was astonished to lay hands on original four-track masters of the 13th Floor Elevators and the Sir Douglas Quintet, among others numerous and amazing. Those tapes were as hot and heavy in my hands as a box of plutonium. I felt like Indiana Jones fi nding the Ark.

SugarHill and the Houston music scene have living treasures too. All it took was a phone call from Andy to get Grady Gaines (who played with Little Richard, among others, back in the 1950s) to come down and blow tenor sax on one of my sessions. After the killer tracks that he recorded, and the fan photos we had to take of Grady in his blue cardigan with Chris and me, I handed him a wad of cash. He said, “You boys can call me anytime!” A great moment at SugarHill, but maybe the greatest was Huey Meaux wandering into the control room during a playback. He listened for a minute, then shook his head. He looked up and said, “Y’all need to record in mono. ”

Magic is a recurring theme in this history. Maybe it is the central theme.

Much has been said and written about other magical studios—Abbey Road, Olympic, the Hit Factory, to name a few. There is certainly more to these places than bricks, mortar, wires, and electrons. Take the trip through these pages, and enjoy the ride. But after you read about SugarHill magic, be sure to get hold of some of the wonderful recordings made here. When you listen, you’ll hear it and you will feel it, somewhere in the beat. You’ll know, because it will make you want to dance.

deniz tek

Billings, Montana

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h i t s

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Acknowledgments

he coauthors heartily thank Andrew Brown, whose knowl-

edge of and passion for the history of independent recording in Texas inspired and informed this book.

Andy Bradley adds: Thanks to the numerous musicians and

engineers, past and present, who participated in our research. The staff at SugarHill Studios and my business partners have gone the extra mile. My wife Donna gave me the idea and kept me focused. And I must acknowledge my two mentors, Bill Holford and Calvin Owens. Bill galvanized my love of analog recording and taught me how to edit with a razor blade. Calvin taught me patience and, with his many sessions featuring big brass and strings, how to record such instrumentation eff ectively. Johnny Bush, a Texas legend and my friend, has given me invaluable insight into country music. Roger Wood’s involvement has been critical in developing and documenting the narrative and preparing the manuscript.

We have lost quite a few colleagues since the inception of this project. May this book keep their memories alive.

Roger Wood is grateful to Marla, his wife. He also thanks his many friends who love the music and stories of Texas and the Gulf Coast, especially James Fraher, Edwin Gallaher, Mack McCormick, John Nova Lomax, Tomas Escalante, Pete Mitchell, Reg Burns, Chris Gray, William Michael Smith, Pete Gordon, Ruben Duran, Chris Strachwitz, Rick Mitchell, Gary Hartman, Tom McClendon, the folks at KPFT-FM radio, and his two brothers, Glen and Terry.

For professional support and more, he thanks Alan Ainsworth of Houston Community College—Central, Andy Bradley and the SugarHill staff , as well as Theresa May and Allison Faust of the University of Texas Press.

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Roger Wood’s involvement in the writing of this book was supported by an Individual Artist Grant Award provided by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

quotations from our many oral historical sources, unless otherwise indicated, come from the interviews documented in Appendix A, which follows the main text.

Quotations from, or references to, published sources are each cited by the relevant writer’s name and other necessary identifying data, corresponding to full documentation in the Bibliography.

Most of the photographs in this book come from the in-house archives of SugarHill Studios, and unless otherwise indicated, the photographers are unknown. We thank Tony Endieveri, Doug Hanners, Frank Juricek, Gaylan Latimer, Gina R. Miller, and Chris Strachwitz for the use of additional images.

In the main text, when referencing a recording, we generally include the issuing label’s catalogue number, signifi ed by a parenthetical reference containing the # sign.

x

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Introduction

t h e c a s e f o r g r e at n e s s

his book approaches postwar Texas music history through the epic story of a single entity—a Houston-based sound engineering and recording facility that started in 1941 and is still operating today. Over the years its founder and subsequent engineers have produced a multitude of infl uential hit records and classic tracks for numerous labels in a diverse range of popular genres. Combining fi rsthand accounts from insiders and musicians with research-based historiography and discography, we make the case that the structure that houses the enterprise now known as SugarHill Studios, a place fi rst famous for several decades mainly under the name Gold Star Studios, is the most signifi cant studio site in the rich legacy of popular music recording in the state of Texas.

That argument is based on several criteria, including this studio’s unique longevity of continuous operation, its production of so many hits and popular standards in so many diff erent styles of music, and its key role in the careers of scores of major musicians, songwriters, and producers.

Regarding that last point, among the hundreds of Gold Star/SugarHill–

affi

liated artists, a brief sampling of the roster includes blues giants (ranging from Lightnin’ Hopkins to Albert Collins to Bobby Bland), country legends (from George Jones to Willie Nelson to Roger Miller), early rockers (from the Big Bopper to Roy Head to Sir Douglas Quintet), seminal fi gures in Cajun and zydeco (from Harry Choates to Clifton Chenier), architects of R&B (from O. V. Wright to Junior Parker), pioneers of psychedelia (from 13th Floor Elevators to Bubble Puppy), the phenomenal Freddy Fender, Tejano performers (from Little Joe y La Familia to Emilio Navaira), Texas jazz ambassadors (from Arnett Cobb to Conrad Johnson), revered song-crafters (from Guy Clark to Lucinda Williams), satirists (such as Kinky Friedman), gospel greats (such as the Mighty Clouds of Joy), neo-swing bands (such as Asleep at the Wheel), Bradley_4319_BK.indd xi

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contemporary pop icons (such as Beyoncé Knowles and Destiny’s Child), rappers (such as Lil’ Wayne) . . . and many more.

Of course, there are many other important studios that have also made their mark on the history of music recording in Texas. Elsewhere in Houston, for example, ACA Studios did much important work documenting regional music for commercial release. Founded in 1948 by Bill Holford, its legacy extends all the way to 1985—impressive, for sure.

Likewise, as Gary Hickinbotham relates in The Journal of Texas Music History, Dallas has been home to several noteworthy facilities over the years.

Included among those are the one Jack Sellers and Jim Beck built in the 1950s, as well as Sumet Studio (built in 1962 by Marvin “Smokey” Montgomery), Autumn Sound Studio (built in 1974 and later renamed Audio Dallas), Dallas Sound Labs (founded in 1980), and others. In Lubbock there was Bobby Peebles’ Venture Recording Studio; in El Paso there was the one Bobby Fuller built in 1962; in San Antonio, there were studios created by engineers such as Bob Tanner, Jeff Smith, Abe Epstein, and Eddie Morris, and so on. Meanwhile, to quote Hickinbotham, “there were no real commercial studio facilities for recording in Austin until the 1970s.” During that era and thereafter, famous enterprises such as Austin Recording Studio, Pedernales Recording Studio, Arlyn Studios, Riverside Sound Studio, Electric Graceyland Studios, and the Hit Shack came into being.

Granted, studios such as these have made many salient contributions, in varying degrees, to the grand-scale history of music recording in the state.

Their individual roles and accomplishments could likely provide worthy material for articles or books by other writers. However, none of the aforementioned studios got started as early as the one Bill Quinn created in 1941. Not only was it one of the fi rst, but also in terms of longevity and diversity it is surely the most impressive. For, as this book shows, during almost seventy years of continuous operation, this studio company has had a wide-ranging impact on so many diff erent facets of popular music that no other independent recording facility in the state—and only a few in the nation—can rival its achievement.

We also concede that some of the most infl uential recordings ever to come out of Texas were not made in any studio. In the earliest days of recording technology, well before the advent of any established studio sites in the region, the Lone Star State profoundly aff ected recording history, particularly in terms of the evolution of certain folk-ethnic musical styles and their impact on popular tastes.

For instance, as far back as 1908 the groundbreaking folklorist John A.

Lomax was transporting his newfangled portable equipment across Texas to make the earliest fi eld recordings of many previously undocumented cowboy x i i

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songs that are now considered American classics. Then, in the 1920s and

’30s during the fi rst major wave of commercial recordings of popular music, New York–based companies (such as RCA Victor and Columbia) regularly sent engineering teams to Texas to conduct sessions in hotel roo
ms and other makeshift locations, producing some of the most momentous music recordings of the era in the process.

A case in point: In 1936 at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, such arrangements yielded the fi rst recordings by the iconic Mississippi-born blues guitarist and singer Robert Johnson. A year later, he made his only other recordings at a temporary facility rigged up in the Brunswick Records warehouse in Dallas. Thus, no sonic documentation of Johnson exists outside of sessions in Texas. These are profoundly crucial tracks whose infl uence still resonates today.

Yet, like the earlier fi eld recordings by Lomax, the Johnson sessions did not take place in any professionally designed, quasi-permanent studio space devoted exclusively to sound recording. There was none in Texas at the time.

In fact, before World War II, such facilities simply did not exist in most American cities other than New York and Chicago, where they were owned and utilized by the few early major record labels. These were companies that guarded zealously their in-house innovations and trade secrets. But by the 1940s that situation was starting to change.

Across the nation various self-taught or military-trained technophiles and inventors, as well as other people involved in commercial music performance, were beginning to tinker curiously with existing equipment and to ponder the possibilities of devising a way that they, solely on their own, could capture and play back sound. Other hit-seeking entrepreneurs, usually with dreams much larger than their budgets, were discovering new performing talent and analyzing the logistics of where and how to make records. The independent recording industry was about to be born.

Meanwhile, working entirely on his own in southeast Houston, Quinn did things that ultimately made him part of that process. A native of Massachusetts, he had previously been employed to handle sound equipment for a carnival company before circumstances prompted him to settle unexpectedly in Houston. Keen on electronics, Quinn had long been intrigued by the way sound vibrations could be captured in grooves on a disc and then duplicated and played back on a machine. Utilizing primitive or improvised equipment and substandard raw materials, and guided evidently by an inquisitive endurance of trials and errors, he eventually taught himself how to make records. Despite wartime shortages of basic materials that had generally paralyzed the industry, he independently started commercially recording and pressing discs.

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