House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios (Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music) (45 page)

But given the changing demographics among record buyers in Texas and nationwide, coupled with the rise of a new sound, a diff erent type of regional band soon dominated SugarHill’s productions of hit records.

the legacy of gold star/sugarhill studios has included Spanish-language songs since the late 1940s, when founder Bill Quinn recorded Conjunto de Maxie Granados performing “Flora Perdida” for his Gold Star label (#401). Pappy Daily had dabbled briefl y in the regional Hispanic market too in the 1950s, but it was not until Meaux’s production of Freddy Fender’s bilingual hits that such projects became even somewhat common at SugarHill.

However, by the late 1980s and the ’90s, Tejano music, which energized folk-style Mexican conjunto with elements of contemporary pop, had developed as a major subgenre with a huge fan base. As a result, many of the best-selling recordings produced at SugarHill during this era came from Latinos.

MMV

fi rst capitalized on the growing Tejano music scene via discussions with Bob Grever of Cara Records, an established independent recording and publishing company based in San Antonio, the home of Tex-Mex culture.

One of Cara’s major artists was La Mafi a, one of the most prominent Tejano groups. But Grever had recently signed a new band, called Xelencia, comprising several ex-members of La Mafi a plus singer David DeAnda. In an un-conventional move, this group had recorded its fi rst two songs in Nashville, utilizing country music studios and personnel to create a diff erent, relatively progressive sound that was not commonly found in San Antonio recording facilities. Grever was therefore interested in recording next at SugarHill. The historic facility possessed the proper country music credentials and a reputation for quality studio work, yet was cheaper than Nashville and much closer to home.

In late 1988 Grever fi rst brought Xelencia to SugarHill Studios to record tracks for the 1989 album
Ni Por Mil Puñados De Oro
on the Cara Records/

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CBS label. It earned our fi rst of many Gold Record Awards for Tejano music.

Since then, Xelencia has recorded nearly a dozen albums at SugarHill.

Our successful marriage of Tejano and country sounds prompted Grever to bring others there, including the young star singer Emilio Navaira (b.

1962). We cut all the tracks for Navaira’s 1990 album
Sensaciones,
released on CBS Discos International. That record produced at least three hit singles, quickly going Gold and then Platinum.

Around the same time, Grever brought in the young Tejano-outlaw group called La Fiebre. Fresh off a major hit single recorded elsewhere, the initial SugarHill sessions for La Fiebre yielded the album
Out of Control
for CBS

Discos International and another Gold Record.

Those projects led to sessions with the established country singer Johnny Rodriguez (b. 1951). Hoping to cash in on the surging Tejano music industry, in 1990 Capitol Records commissioned him to record a mostly Spanish-language album called
Coming Home.
Producer Bob Gallarza assembled top-notch musicians and cut some tracks in San Antonio and others at SugarHill, where we also engineered most of Rodriguez’s vocals and the brass overdubs.

Meanwhile, La Fiebre returned to SugarHill in 1991 to record vocals for the album
No Cure
for release on the Capitol/EMI Latin imprint, another Gold Record award winner.

Gallarza came back next to produce a solo album for Adalberto Gallegos, the former lead singer of the pioneer 1970s hit-making Tejano group, the Latin Breed. That record, issued by CBS Discos International, was called
Me
Nace.

Eventually Grever sold his label to Capitol/EMI Latin, also based in San Antonio. Thereafter, our many subsequent recordings by Emilio Navaira, Xelencia, and La Fiebre were for that label with Grever producing.

This outburst of Tejano recording activity also stimulated Discos MM, MMV’s independent record label, which was initially distributed by Polygram.

Its premiere recordings, all made at SugarHill, featured two groups: the Jerry Rodriguez and Mercedes album
Rebelde
and the Rick Gonzalez and the Choice debut
La Primera Vez.
However, Polygram soon divested itself of its Latin divi-sion, so Discos MM made another distribution agreement with Capitol/EMI Latin. Both albums were reissued, and Rodriguez scored a regional hit with a dance track called “El Pinguino.” Rodriguez followed up with the album
No
Somos Criminales,
and Gonzalez with
Por Ti.

Discos MM also produced the vocalist Elsa Garcia, who debuted with the well-received album
Simplemente.
But Garcia’s follow-up album,
Ni Mas, Ni
Menos,
was even more popular, earning a Gold Record award. In February 1994, its title-track single peaked at number eight on the Latin category in
Billboard.
The album reached number forty-two on the Latin charts too. At
m o d e rn m u s i c ( a d ) ve n t u r e s

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this time,
Billboard
did not recognize Tejano music as a category unto itself.

Hence, all music by Spanish-speaking performers directed at Hispanic audiences was grouped together as “Latin.” There was no distinction recognized among styles as diverse as South American pop and Dominican salsa and Tejano. Thus, Garcia’s achievement in cracking the Top 10 was even more substantial than it might fi rst appear.

Concurrent with SugarHill’s production of Tejano hits, MMV sought to establish itself in the burgeoning Spanish-language rock movement. Thus, MMV signed a Houston-based Latino rock band called the Basics, fronted by singer Lupe Olivarez and guitarist Artie Villasenor. In 1991 Discos MM

released their album
Sonido Básico,
which Lummis marketed to no avail to major U.S. labels.

When MMV restructured in 1991, Lummis took over and brought manager, promoter, and booking agent Max Silva into the company. Silva replaced Gottschalk as executive producer of CDs, and Lanphier and I took over as music producers. Soon after this, Discos MM signed the Hometown Boys, from Lubbock. Leading a neotraditionalist resurgence in Tex-Mex conjunto, they soon triggered another wave of Gold Records.

Thus, with a solid string of hits, SugarHill Studios established itself as a recording center for Spanish-language productions during the 1990s. Until its popularity crested and began to fade near the end of the decade, Tejano music remained our primary source of success with Latino styles. But other musical possibilities
en español
would soon emerge.

the late 1980s to mid-’90s brought increasingly diverse projects to SugarHill Studios. From madcap sessions with Australian rock bands to more staid productions for educational services to long-running relationships with eclectic record labels and continued development in the Latino market, we worked with all kinds of clientele.

The

fi rst Aussie group to utilize the facility was called Weddings Parties Anything, which briefl y recorded there while representing their homeland on stage at the 1988 Houston International Festival. One of the tracks, “Goat Dancing at Falafel Beach,” appeared on a twelve-inch vinyl EP called
Goat
Dancing on the Tables,
released in Australia on the WEA label. That single resurfaced also on the EP
No Show without Punch,
issued in Europe by Utility Records. But these lads would soon be followed by some of their countrymen with bigger projects at hand.

Thompson continued to fi nd new sorts of clients for SugarHill. One such was the Educational Enterprises Recording Company (EERC), founded and operated by Paul and Blanche Harrison. Since the 1970s they had been creating and marketing recordings of rehearsal instrumentation and vocal demos
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for the Texas All-State Choir. With a new repertoire established each year by the Texas Music Educators Association, EERC recorded the required accompaniment and produced the vocal demos. Starting in the early 1990s EERC

began adding other states as clients, including Florida, South Carolina, and New Mexico. Since 1994 Debbie Talley, alto vocalist and pianist, has produced the sessions. While this type of work is not glamourous, it is quite valuable for an independent studio operation.

Nonetheless, SugarHill Studios primarily catered to individuals and groups producing albums for the popular or alternative music marketplace.

Guitarist and composer Erich Avinger (b. 1956) self-produced his fi rst solo album at SugarHill. With emphasis on jazz improvisation and drawing from an international palette of musical infl uences, he called it
Heart Magic.

Issued in 1989, it became the fi rst CD on the Heart Music label, owned by Tab Bartling. Since then Heart Music has used SugarHill to produce over a dozen CDs, consistently placing titles on
Billboard
’s jazz charts and the Gavin national jazz radio charts. For example, its fi rst two releases by saxophonist Tony Campise,
First Takes
and
Once in a Blue Moon,
both reached number three in the Gavin rankings. Moreover, the latter stayed on the
Billboard
jazz Top 20 list for three months.

In 1989 the independent producer Randall Jamail formed Justice Records, which Thompson joined as vice president and A&R man. Hence, a whole new chapter in studio history began. Jamail explains the genesis and development of his label:

I was getting ready to record Kellye Gray at the time, and I decided to record that fi rst album at SugarHill. . . .
Standards in Gray
featured a lot of the best jazz cats in Houston: David Catney, piano, Sebastian Whittaker, drums, David Craig, bass, and others. We cut that record live to two-track. No overdubs, just great performances captured live in the studio, just like in the old days in New York. We made a great record, but at that point there was no destination for it. . . . So I decided to form my own company and put out the record myself.

Jamail thereafter aggressively promoted the record, getting airplay on local radio, good reviews in regional publications, and eff ective self-distribution in the area. He continues,

It seems surreal how this label has moved through the years. We recorded exclusively at SugarHill for at least the fi rst three years. In 1990 we recorded fi ve jazz albums, and three of them went to number one on the jazz charts.

We were also named the number one debut jazz label by R&R [Radio and
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Records] and Gavin, the two radio reporting charts. We did at least eight albums in 1991, which included guitar legend Herb Ellis.

Regarding his reasons for recording so many of his initial projects at SugarHill Studios, Jamail adds,

There is something about the A room at SugarHill, which is very comfortable and intimate. I have worked at the Power Station in New York and Ocean Way in Los Angeles. It is harder to maintain that communication and inti-macy in those big rooms. . . . All those records . . . made in that funky old house studio with all the history have a feeling and warmth to them that says creativity was at work. Those early Justice albums were recorded in an environment that was comfortable, unpressured, loose, and spontaneous. The musicians all enjoyed the vibe at SugarHill.

Drawing

fi rst from talent in Houston’s largely underrated jazz scene, Justice seemed to be defi ning itself by a single genre. But that would change.

Jamail says,

We were becoming a preeminent independent jazz label. That was certainly not my intention. My background was more in singer-songwriter music, rock, and Texas blues. The jazz direction was not planned but was a huge blessing because those fi rst dozen albums were live to two-track analog tape or direct to two-track DAT digital recordings. . . . All of those early albums sounded top-notch. . . . Audiophile magazines and
Billboard
always gave us very high marks for the recordings. . . .

I made the shift towards roots music after a couple of years of jazz albums. I released both the orphaned Emily Remler [1957–1990] CD, completed prior to her untimely death in Australia on tour, and a two-volume tribute album that was recorded in New York and Houston. While working on those albums I met Dr. John in New York. I asked him if there were any young blues guitar players that I might want to take a look at. He led me to Tab Benoit.

We then signed [Benoit] and brought him to Houston to record [at SugarHill] . . . the album
Nice and Warm.
We anticipated that it would sell around 5,000 units, and it actually sold close to 90,000. At the time it was the most successful album in our catalogue.

While Benoit would continue to record for Justice Records, Willie Nelson would soon supplant him as the label’s best-seller. His 1994 Justice release
Moonlight Becomes You
received a Grammy nomination and, as Jamail says,

“put the label on a diff erent footing. We had broken a new blues artist and
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now we had signed an international icon.” Thereafter Justice also signed Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristoff erson, Billy Joe Shaver, and other major artists.

Various “demos and preproduction sessions for those projects” were staged at SugarHill Studios, Jamail says.

As Justice Records expanded, it mainly used SugarHill for the Houston-based artists it recorded. That roster included the veteran jazz vibraphonist Harry Sheppard (b. 1928), who issued several acclaimed CDs. Justice also has introduced multiple albums by younger jazz artists, such as pianist Dave Catney (1961–1994) and drummer Sebastian Whittaker (b. 1966).

As for SugarHill’s role in these recordings, Tim Carman, in a review of Whittaker’s album
First Outing,
says,