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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  By 1941 he had changed the name of his one-man business operation from Quinn Radio Service to Quinn Recording Company. Initially he focused his commercial work on spoken text or jingles, documenting it direct to disc on acetate masters. His fi rst clients typically were making advertisements for radio broadcast or creating novelty gifts in the form of individualized personal greetings or songs.

  By 1944, however, the maverick Quinn decided to augment his business plan to encompass straight-up music production. He created his own labels, fi rst Gulf and then Gold Star, specializing originally in what he called “hillbilly” songs. Soon, though, he was recruiting and recording African American blues singers, of which there were plenty in mid-twentieth-century Houston.

  By the time that the postwar boom years were underway, Quinn had become a legitimate but eccentric one-man record company doing his small-scale business far removed from the industry centers.

  Starting in 1950, following a bit of success on the regional market and some consequent legal entanglements with the Internal Revenue Service, Quinn made some changes. Closing his shop on Telephone Road, he moved the whole enterprise into his family residence, conveniently located just a few blocks away. That modest homestead was also situated on a larger tract of land, which would later off er valuable space for expansion. Meanwhile, Quinn, his wife, and their son continued to live upstairs while he set up and ran his recording studio and company on the fi rst fl oor.

  Today that business is still in operation, under a diff erent name, on the same site. Moreover, the large, remodeled-many-times-over building located there still uses some of the aged structure of Quinn’s old house. And just beyond the property boundaries, various working-class families still reside nearby.

  One might ask: How could such a signifi cant recording studio be located in such an odd edifi ce on such an obscure street? Blame it on the “anything goes” mentality that, past and present, has defi ned Houston, the nation’s largest city to reject zoning laws regulating land use. Blame it also on the fact that this particular mixed-use southeast-side neighborhood has somehow been bypassed by the regentrifi cation that has altered so much other inside-the-Loop real estate. Blame it too perhaps on the incongruousness inherent in the strange business of independently recording music. Whatever the case, the most historic continuously operated studio in Texas remains almost hidden from public consciousness, even in Houston. But there it is, nestled on a dead-end street among a gritty hodgepodge of residential bungalows, machine shops, small businesses, and warehouses serviced by the nearby railroad line.

  This book is largely the story of that place, the house where the studio founder once lived and made records. A lot has happened to it, and a lot has x iv

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  happened in it over the years. That modest structure has been expanded, remodeled, and subsumed into a more intricate network of hallways, offi ces,

  storage rooms, and studio spaces. One could easily overlook the currently extant architectural clues, but to the keen observer its original foundation, main walls, and roofl ine remain detectable even today within the larger footprint.

  Known with changing times under a variety of business names—including Quinn Recording, Gold Star, International Artists, and SugarHill—it is the unlikely home of one of the most noteworthy independent recording enterprises in the history of postwar popular music.

  as with all accounts, this one has a narrator, a role overtly assumed by me, Andy Bradley, abetted by the writing skills, research, and historical insights of my collaborator Roger Wood. Speaking in the fi rst person at various points in the book, I sometimes directly relate experiences and observations that are part of my ongoing professional relationship with the historic recording facility now known as SugarHill Studios.

  But there are many voices that ultimately inform this story. Beyond Roger’s own distinctive coauthorial voice (which invisibly infl uences the texture, tone, and shape of the entire narrative), there are scores of musicians, producers, engineers, and others who share their own oral historical accounts. These por-tions are culled mostly from a series of documented interviews I conducted (over several years) and are interwoven into the text in the form of quotations, most of which adopt a personal perspective too. Otherwise, except when thus signifi ed, only I shall wield the fi rst-person singular pronouns.

  So who am I?

  I am a Japanese-born Canadian of Russian and Anglo parentage who grew up in Asia and Australia and moved to Houston in 1980. A large part of my life was, is, and will always be music—as a fan and as a longtime professional audio recording engineer. Growing up overseas did not stop me from amassing a large record collection fi lled with American rock, blues, and country music. Some of my favorite recordings came from artists such as the Big Bopper, Sir Douglas Quintet, Bubble Puppy, 13th Floor Elevators, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. I also grew up intrigued by records produced by Pappy Daily, Huey P. Meaux, and Don Robey. Today it still blows my mind to realize that I work in the space where they made so many classic recordings.

  In the 1970s in Australia I worked as an audio engineer and roadie for various bands and sound companies. Under a pseudonym (“Supermort”) as well as my own name, I also worked as a part-time journalist writing a rock column and music-related articles for several Australian magazines.

  Then in 1980 I moved to Houston and started working at the ACA Studios.

  After four years of being mentored by the veteran audio man Bill Holford, I approached Meaux, then the owner of SugarHill, with a proposal to bring my i n t ro d u c t i o n : t h e c a s e f o r g r e at n e s s x v

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  client base and take over his studio operations. Meaux agreed, and I became the latest in a long lineage of engineers to work in this historic place. So I was thrilled years ago to have the gig, and I still am. It comprises the bulk of my professional work (though I also have served for many years as the senior audio engineer at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music).

  But I actually came to the profession circuitously, all thanks to Radio Birdman.

  You see, as a journalist some of my work (published in magazines such as Rolling Stone, Ram, and Juke) focused on the extraordinary Australian alternative rock band known by that bizarre moniker. I was a big fan and eventually worked for Radio Birdman as a roadie. I soon developed deep friendships with all the principals, interacting with them professionally and personally on the road, on stage, in recording sessions, and at home. These guys are integral to my life’s path.

  Today Radio Birdman is widely considered to be one of the all-time greatest Australian bands. For example, John Dougan, writing in the All Music Guide to Rock, credits these “highly regarded punk forefathers” with “changing the course of Australian rock forever.” Led by Deniz Tek, Radio Birdman’s sound and style disregarded many established rock band conventions. They also established an independent record company that enabled them to side-step the major label morass.

  Working as a sound technician and roadie for Radio Birdman fi rst brought me into recording sessions and set in place the chain of events that led to my career as a professional recording engineer, my part-ownership of a famous studio, and my coauthorship of this book.

  Many factors have coalesced to facilitate the research and inspire my ef-forts, ultimately including my invaluable collaboration with Roger Wood to bring this book to fruition. Our work together has taught us many things—

  not only about the history of a rare, almost unique studio complex but also about Houston, the upper Gulf Coast region, the state of Texas, and American popular music at large.

  As early R&B star Joe Hinton sings in the title line of a 1964 hit record that was written by Willie
Nelson and recorded at Gold Star Studios: “Ain’t it funny how time slips away?” This book seeks to reclaim slippery time, or at least a meaningful portion of it, the part that relates to a place that has produced a huge quantity of great music in many diff erent eras and styles. May you enjoy your journey back in time, back to what was originally a simple residential structure in an unzoned neighborhood, back to the place where Bill Quinn founded the enterprise that would become, however unlikely, a house of hits.

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  House

  of Hits

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  1

  The Raid

  he said, “put that down, and put your hands up!” I thought, hmm, some anonymous chick singer with a sense of humor.

  It was ten o’clock in the morning, Friday, January 26, 1996. I was walking across the hall, from the Studio A control room toward Studio B, with a rack full of expensive microphone preamps in my arms. My mental focus at that moment had been solely on an upcoming recording session. Otherwise, I was just awaiting the arrival of the producer whose mixing session I had scheduled. But then this attractive black woman in jeans, black sweater, sneakers, and a light-blue satin jacket was suddenly walking toward me shouting her outrageous requests.

  I was about halfway into the studio before I felt a large gun barrel stuck in the middle of my back. She sternly repeated her command. Exasperated, I said, “OK, but I’m carrying fi ve thousand bucks’ worth of gear here, and I am going to put it down on this table.”

  Upon depositing that equipment, I turned and faced her with my hands meekly up in the air. It was only then that I saw the automatic pistol and the words “Houston Police” inscribed on her jacket.

  The

  offi

  cer immediately asked who else was in the building, and I said that my client, Joel Stein, was in the other studio. Then I thought frantically and quickly added that a guy was upstairs in the tape vault. She motioned her gun and said, “Let’s go fi nd them and talk.” We crossed the hall back into Studio A. She summoned Joel to join me and then marched us both to the front of the building, where we were turned over to a uniformed offi

  cer.

  Unbeknownst to all of us, legendary record producer and former studio owner Huey P. Meaux was already handcuff ed and sitting in the back of an HPD patrol car in the middle of the studio’s parking lot.

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  As I also later learned, at the onset of the raid my colleague Dan Workman had instinctively hidden himself in the drum booth of Studio B, from which vantage point he observed the exchange between that gun-toting plainclothes cop and me. Unaware of her professional status, he inferred that the studio was being robbed at gunpoint (as was reported to have occurred elsewhere a couple of months earlier). As Workman refl exively headed toward a telephone to call the police, another female offi

  cer, pistol pulled, quickly appre-

  hended him.

  He was escorted back into the section of the building that housed Meaux’s company called Music Enterprises, Inc. It was private offi

  ce and warehouse

  space that Meaux rented from the current property owners, Modern Music Ventures, Inc. (MMV).

  Elsewhere, Brian Thomas, a musician who was temporarily living in the tape vault, was getting a wakeup call from HPD offi

  cers wearing riot gear and

  pointing pump shotguns at his face. His makeshift quarters and personal belongings were thoroughly searched, and then, wearing nothing but his jockey shorts, he too was brusquely marched down to Meaux’s offi

  ce.

  Other plainclothes offi

  cers had apprehended Maria Garcia, secretary to the

  studios and MMV, and directed her to the front of the building.

  Meanwhile, in the back corner of Meaux’s space, police used battering rams to crash through unlocked doors—a pointlessly dramatic scene that evoked an assault on a fortifi ed crack house. But it was not really a drug raid that shook Meaux’s door frames, and what the police found inside was actually rather mundane: two people working on music publishing fi les and one cleaning lady.

  The HPD squad leaders kept Maria, Joel, and me in the front reception room under offi

  cial supervision. The others were similarly held in other

  areas. Meanwhile, the search-warrant-sanctioned raiders forcefully proceeded to access and assess the structure and contents of the entire building.

  It seems that anywhere a door was locked or even merely closed, they broke through it rather than asking for it to be unlocked or opened. It was a frightening scene to witness, perhaps more so for some of us than for others. For instance, Rosie, a nearby resident and mild-mannered matriarch who provided janitorial services for the building, was verbally harassed (in her native Spanish, by some of the Hispanic offi

  cers in the crew) to the point of

  fearful humiliation. From my perspective, it was a particularly galling abuse of power. But given the circumstances there was little that Rosie, I, or anyone else looking into the barrels of those HPD fi rearms could do. Nothing, at least, but wait for the search frenzy to conclude—and hope that the mild ter-ror provoked by this unexpected turn of events would soon subside.

  The whole experience was exasperating. We had no idea what was going 2

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  on; or rather, we could see and hear what was going on but had no knowledge of why. And despite the evident gusto with which HPD was executing the raid, there were anomalies that made it all a bit surreal.

  About two hours into the disruption, producer David Thompson appeared in the doorway and reported that Meaux was cuff ed and detained outside. We had speculated covertly that perhaps someone from one of the bands that stored equipment in the warehouse had been busted for running drugs, or who knows what? Now we began to wonder about Meaux.

  About three in the afternoon—some fi ve hours after my plans for a normal workday had disintegrated at gunpoint—the head of the task force announced that they had procured the evidence and collected the necessary information, and then they released us. Until that point, the numerous phones in the building had been ringing sporadically, going unanswered while we waited in limbo. Now it was time, however, for the various enterprises housed at SugarHill Studios to resume contact with the outside world.

  Most of the police soon departed, except for a couple of offi

  cers who su-

  pervised the remaining confi scation and loading of the contents of Meaux’s offi

  ces and storage spaces for transfer to a bonded warehouse.

  By four o’clock Workman was fi nally able to start his recording session.

  Meanwhile, I focused on mixing an album. Around eleven o’clock that night David Lummis of MMV handed me the keys to the back of the building and asked me to lock up when the authorities were done.

  Early the next day numerous TV station trucks were parked outside SugarHill Studios. All day long the façade of the structure served as the on-the-crime-scene background while various reporters addressed their respective camera lenses and relayed the scandalous news: Meaux, the famous Gulf Coast music producer and promoter, had been busted on drug and sex charges regarding activities with underage females that allegedly took place right here, behind locked doors in some mysterious private chamber that he maintained.

  Meanwhile, journalists bombarded the phone lines of various other independent companies based inside the building with requests for statements and interviews. Suddenly everyone, it seemed, had a keen interest (mostly salacious) in this obscurely tucked-away place of business called SugarHill.

  The HPD spokesperson, who had been duly told
that the property now belonged to MMV, apparently nonetheless misinformed the media, which fi rst reported that the studios were owned by Meaux. The general mispercep-tion was thus that the whole multifaceted SugarHill enterprise was somehow complicit in Meaux’s treachery and therefore permanently tainted. In truth, however, Meaux had sold the studios to MMV over nine years prior to this arrest. In other words, without knowledge or consent on the part of the t h e r a i d

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  SugarHill Studios, front entrance, 2009 (photo by and courtesy of Tony Endieveri) actual landlord, the criminal behavior with which Meaux was charged had occurred in privately accessed space (with its own backdoor entrance) that he legally rented and occupied merely as a tenant. His misdeeds should never have been linked with the ownership of the studio, but erroneously they were.

  Eventually the media were forced by MMV’s attorney to correct and retract their false statements. However, some damage had been done.

  After the Meaux scandal broke, SugarHill Studios lost a lot of business, and it took nearly six months to recover from the residual paranoia induced by the widespread misreporting and presumed guilt by association. Most prominent among those clients who quickly canceled recording sessions were the gospel artists and church-related producers. But there were many others who followed suit.

  The legal aftermath of the Meaux arrest played out over the next fi ve months, as reported in a series of articles in the Houston Chronicle. First, Meaux posted bail in the amount of $130,000. Then when he later failed to report to authorities as ordered, he became a fugitive from justice, eventually ending up in Mexico—where in March of 1996 he was arrested in a Juárez hotel and turned over to the FBI. After being extradited to Houston, Meaux initially entered a plea of not guilty. However, two months later he avoided a 4