House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios (Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music) (43 page)

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1980, she coproduced it with Mickey White, while Moody engineered. The supporting cast of musicians includes White and Moody, plus Rex Bell, Andre Matthews, Ira Wilkes, and Malcolm Smith. The album was originally released on a Folkways LP (#31067) later that year, and then reissued on CD

by Smithsonian Folkways in 1990.

As Steve Huey writes for
Allmusic.com,
“As her fi rst album of original compositions, it was an important step forward, and although it was much more bound by the dictates of tradition than her genre-hopping later work, her talent was already in evidence.” Former
Houston Press
music editor John Nova Lomax notes, however, that “the languid, drawling voice” for which Williams is famous was already present, as were “the poetic and geographical imagery and memorable melodies, the keen eye for telling details, the chronicles of the faulty attempts lovers make to meld minds as well as bodies.” Nonetheless, the album sold poorly, and Williams would remain relatively obscure for a while.

As with the public’s general indiff erence to
Happy Woman Blues
in 1980, the legacy of SugarHill Studios has frequently been overlooked in the annals of music history. But in retrospect we see that greatness sometimes takes time and perspective to appreciate.

t h e l at e r ’ 7 0 s a n d e a r ly ’ 8 0 s

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20

Meaux’s Final Phase

y 1984 the flow of profits
from Huey Meaux–produced hits had slackened to a trickle. Most members of the engineering

staff , including the recently added Lonnie Wright, were gone or professionally engaged only sporadically at SugarHill Studios.

The recording equipment there had not been updated since the 1970s, and poor maintenance had caused quality control to decline. Moreover, the building had yet to recover fully from the major damage it had sustained from Hurricane Alicia in August 1983.

That storm had spawned numerous tornadoes, one of which ripped a huge hole in the roof of Studio B. Insurance coverage eventually provided funds to replace the roof—but not before the studio and control room had been thoroughly soaked and exposed to weeks of extreme humidity. Numerous valuable microphones and the piano were badly damaged. The burlap walls were drenched and eventually covered in funky mildew. The fl ood line, approximately six to eight inches high, indicated that equipment on the fl oor had sat in dirty water. Consequently, even after the roof was repaired, the room was eff ectively closed because of technical issues and the stench of rotting burlap and carpet.

Unfortunately, there was not a lot of activity going on in the other studio room either. Most of Meaux’s original client base had left, and he was no longer producing many recordings. By then Meaux was perhaps out of touch with music trends, and the prospects for him fi nding another hit-maker were bleak.

So in 1984 Meaux decided to put the studio complex up for sale, a move that would bring me to the front entrance of SugarHill Studios (which then faced Brock Street) and into a new and major phase of my professional life.

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By late 1984 I had resigned my position at ACA Studios. My ACA mentor and boss, Bill Holford, was retiring, a decision triggered by the pending expiration of a sweetheart lease he had negotiated upon selling the building back in 1978. Having not previously been told of his plans, I was shocked—and suddenly found myself looking for employment at other recording facilities in Houston.

When I had learned that Meaux was selling his studio company, I proposed instead to take over all recording operations and let him remain as owner. Particularly because I was in a position to transfer my ACA client base, Meaux was receptive to the idea. We reached an agreement, and in October 1984 I moved my gear and offi

ce to SugarHill Studios.

After my quick orientation to the historic complex, SugarHill resumed recording in what was now Studio A, the old room with the gold star embed-ded in the fl oor. The larger, newer studio and control room were initially off -

limits because of the fl ood damage and lingering aftereff ects. However, it soon became apparent that the smaller studio was insuffi

cient for certain

sessions. Many of the tube mics and vintage gear that were catalogued on the studio inventory were missing. Some Pulteq tube equalizers and Teletronix LA-2A compressors did later emerge, having been stashed clumsily in the warehouse, coated with dust and debris. But it would take extensive rewiring to prepare the studio for the anticipated infl ux of new clients.

Fortunately, one of the rock bands that made the transition with me from ACA to SugarHill included guys with construction expertise. So we traded their labor and skills for future studio time and went to work to restore Studio B. Over a period of three months we resealed the walls, dismantled two of the small booths, recarpeted the fl oor, and replaced or tested the wiring. We reequipped and rewired the reverb chambers with speakers and amps found stored in the warehouse. We hung the main set of large control-room monitors, Altec 604Es, from beams in the ceiling, which improved the listening quality for the engineers and provided a full view of the studio through the wide window. We removed all excess gear and furniture from the control room and enhanced the lighting.

Meanwhile, the piano, Hammond B3 organ, Fender Rhodes, and other keyboards were all moved back into Studio B, along with all the best outboard gear and machines. At that point, we shut down Studio A except for dubbing and rehearsals.

As the rebirth of SugarHill Studios proceeded, mixing was done on an Auditronics 501 console. The multitrack deck was an MCI JH-16 series sixteen-track machine that ran two-inch tape. I discovered Dolby A racks in both studios for the multitrack and mixing decks and upgraded them with DBX

cards. Mix-down decks were one-quarter-inch MCI JH-110 two-track ma-m e a u x ’ s f i n a l p h a s e

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chines. Along with the rewired and reequipped acoustic reverb chambers in the hallway, the EMT plates and Lexicon digital processors provided reverb.

I also installed racks of personal eff ects units. Monitoring was done on Altec 604E speakers utilizing the Auratone sound cubes.

In addition to physically restoring the facility, I brought with me clients who would help to reenergize the place. Among them in particular were many of the alternative-rock bands from the local scene, including Really Red, the Mydolls, the Recipients, and Culturcide (which featured Dan Workman on guitar). There were a number of power-pop or pop-rock groups too, such as Rick Tangle and the Squares, the Voices, and Private Numbers.

Workman, my future business partner, was introduced to the new era at SugarHill via an editing project for Culturcide’s
Tacky Souvenirs
LP. “All of the songs were carefully edited on one-quarter-inch analog tape, long before Pro-Tools or any digital editing systems,” he says. “All these little pieces of tape

[were] hanging carefully along the sides of the MCI tape deck.”

Working often with bands on projects such as these, the studio company soon regained its equilibrium. Yet the roster of clients remained somewhat diverse.

For instance, country singer Johnny Bush recalls a 1985 SugarHill session timed to coincide with, celebrate, and—most obviously—profi t from the Texas sesquicentennial anniversary in 1986. Bush says,

Huey Meaux and Don Daily produced an album [packaged] in the shape of Texas, with some memorabilia [depicted] on the cover—like Travis’ last letter from the Alamo and other important documents. The record featured Bob Wills, Willie [Nelson], myself, Tanya Tucker, Billy Walker, Freddy Fender, and several others. The tracks were already cut, and all I had to do was sing. I did two songs that were real nice western swing arrangements. . . . “A Little Bit of Everything in Texas,” originally by Ernest Tubb, and . . . “I Got Texas in My Soul.”

In addition to the occasional country music project, SugarHill regained its groove as a choice locale for blues recordings. One of the mainstays in the 1980s was the Gulf Coast guitarist and singer Bert Wills. Though grounded in Texas blues, Wills has also mastered styles such as country, rock, and in particular the surf-rock subgenre—and led regionally popular bands such as the Cryin’ Shames and the Country Cadillacs. Wills, who would record several albums at SugarHill, describes his earliest memories of the place: I do remember coming into the studios when Huey owned it back in the 1970s. I didn’t know him real well, and he was a very high-profi le businessman back in the day. The engineer I worked with was Mickey Moody, and
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I was called in to play guitar and harmonica on a number of sessions for

[producer] Roy Ames. I was fi nishing guitar tracks for some pretty famous guys who had gotten tired of his [Ames’s] allegedly bad business dealings.

They had quit in the middle or near the end of these album projects, and Roy had a number of unfi nished tracks. I had a reputation for being able to copy other guitar styles very convincingly [so] . . . I helped complete them. I was well paid for it, but never realized what was going on till very much later in the game. Most of these records were being put out in Europe.

However, not all the major clients at the time were bands or artists. For instance, one that followed me to SugarHill was Merrbach Record Service, a square-dance music supply company. Norman Merrbach and Johnny Wyckoff were at the studio every six weeks, almost without fail, to record another half-dozen new tracks for the many callers who staged square dances around the state. To make these recordings they used top studio musicians such as Louis Broussard, Jake Willemaine, Randy Cornor, Steve Snoe, Robbie Springfi eld, and others.

Challenge Records also moved to SugarHill. It was an independent label that I had previously formed with Art Gottschalk, Tom Littman, Cliff Atherton, and John D. Evans (aka singer Johnny Cantrell). Challenge Records issued singles by Kay Rives, Roy Clayborne, the Voices, Johnny Cantrell, Susan Watson, Chet Daniels, and Anthony Arnt. All of them had begun their recording projects at ACA Studios and then moved with me to SugarHill to fi nish them. Based particularly on the success of the Kay Rives single, which had registered on the
Cashbox
country charts, the small company discussed a merger with a Las Vegas–based concern, but when that deal died, Challenge Records folded.

Nonetheless, SugarHill Studios was attracting new business too. Among the recordings of note done in this time period was an album titled
Scenes
from “Shir ha Shirim”
featuring classical composer Mario Davidovsky on CRI Records (#530), produced by Art Gottschalk and George Burt. The ensemble was conducted by Larry Livingston and featured world-famous violinist Sergiu Luca.

Another project was the mixing of a new LP for Little Joe y La Familia, led by Joe Hernandez (b. 1940). As Texas music historian Gary Hartman writes,

“Hernandez is often considered the ‘father’ of modern Tejano music,” and in 1992 he would be the fi rst artist ever to win a Grammy Award for that genre. Back in 1984, Hernandez had recorded the album
Renunciacion
(featuring the hit song “Cuatro Caminos”) at his own studio in Temple, Texas, but he brought it to SugarHill for mixing. Hernandez was already friends with Meaux, who had made some of Little Joe’s earliest recordings.

m e a u x ’ s f i n a l p h a s e

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Prominent session drummer Robbie Parrish recalls an unusual SugarHill undertaking from this time:

I remember a major recording project for a New Zealand country singer by the name of Jody Vaughn. She won female vocalist of the year in New Zealand and Australia in the mid-1980s and went to Nashville to seek her fame and fortune. They sent her to Huey because she was unusual, and he had been the King of unusual and diff erent singers. . . . I played drums on two albums for Jody and enough tracks for a third album. The fi rst album was released only in New Zealand and featured a guitar player from there named Gray Bartlett and our own Randy Cornor. Paul English played keyboards, and bass was Gene Kurtz. The second album, which was also released here, was called
Kiwi Country
[Challenge Records].

We also recorded an R&B singer and songwriter named William Burton Gaar and his partner George Hollinshead from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They recorded over an album’s worth of material, with Gaar and Meaux producing.

Several Gaar-written singles were released on the Crazy Cajun label, including “(If You Can’t Put Out the Fire) Don’t Fan the Flame” backed with “Sugar Roll Blues” (#2072), “You Go Crazy All Alone” and “Two Timed” (#2092), and “Teardrops from Heaven” with “After All These Years” (#2097). Meaux then signed Gaar as a country artist to a Mercury/Polygram subsidiary called Smash Records in Nashville. The fi rst single on Smash, cowritten by Gaar and Meaux, featured “Somewhere between Mama’s and Daddy’s” (#884-828-7). Its follow-up release was “I’m Gonna Rise Up through These Ashes.”