This facility in San Francisco has been home to bands as diverse as The Grateful Dead, Green Day and Santana. But first Steve Sutherland salutes the man behind the brand
During my late teens in the mid 1970s, whenever I browsed through the stock in a record shop, if I came upon an album produced at Wally Heider Studios, no matter who it was by, I was more than likely to buy it. Such was the quality guaranteed by the Wally Heider brand that the studio became a kind of shrine to me, a far-off holy grail that shone in my imagination as did that holiest of live venues, the Fillmore West.
Once home to Aretha, The Eagles, Clapton and the brothers Gibb, this facility in Florida now turns out chart-topping hip-hop, Latin and R&B. Steve Sutherland takes up the tale
It may never feature in those lists of events so seismic that people remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. But what happened in Chicago's Comiskey Park on 12 July 1979 remains significant enough to engender heated debate even today.
Founded in 1954, this facility would become one of the music world's most renowned studios, giving birth to ska, rocksteady and reggae. Steve Sutherland has the story
One of the many pleasures in collecting used vinyl 45s is coming across a Jamaican cut where the label has been deliberately defiled. What this usually means is that the artist and the title on both sides have been scratched out or ink-penned over so that the disc attains supreme anonymity.
In London's Soho lies a studio that has rocked to Thin Lizzy, rolled with Robert Plant and now has big plans to bring immersive audio to music fans. Steve Sutherland explains
Not wishing to teach anyone's grandma to suck eggs, but it might be worth beginning by having a quick look at Dolby Atmos. A surround sound technology reasonably recently developed by US company Dolby – or 'Dobly' if you're a Spinal Tap fan – it's a system that allows sounds to be moved as objects in a three-dimensional space, coming atcha from above, behind, inside, outside... everywhere.
From Dusty to Deep Purple, The Beatles and The Stones, in the '60s and '70s this studio quickly became home to pop and rock's leading lights. Steve Sutherland has the story
So, here's how you do it. Take two synchronised tape copies of a finished recording and play them simultaneously into a third master recorder, all the while manually retarding the rotation of one of the two tape reels by pressing on the flanges, manipulating the phase difference between the two sources. Easy-peasy. Now you can flange.
Built originally for pop sensations ABBA, this studio inside a disused cinema has rocked to the sounds of Genesis, The Ramones and Led Zep. Steve Sutherland has the story
There were four in the group but most of the time only two made it to the studio. One absentee was holed up in a nearby hotel attempting to kick a drug habit. The other was an alcoholic who could hardly get out of bed and would die soon enough, choking while passed out in a stupor.
With its roots in a demo facility in downtown Stockport, this studio would later pump out hits from the likes of 10cc and The Smiths. Steve Sutherland takes up the story
Neither of the two musicians had been in a studio before. The closest they'd come was messing about doing demos on a knackered four-track Teac in an ex-manager's garage. So stepping into Strawberry, all swish and gleaming and stacked with mod cons, they were stunned. And not a little scared.
On the 60th anniversary of the hit 'Telstar', Steve Sutherland tells the tale of the man behind the music and his pioneering home studio above a shop in North London
You may have read recently about the discovery of a British warship that sank in 1682 off our eastern coast which is being hailed by those who know as the 'most significant historic maritime discovery since the raising of the Mary Rose in 1982'. Well, happy as I am for Her Majesty's hyped-up historians, there's another treasure trove currently being examined that, for me, knocks that watery wreck into a cocked hat.
The brainchild of Richard Branson, this studio in Oxfordshire was where Tubular Bells was laid to tape and Tangerine Dream created Phaedra. Steve Sutherland tells the tale
I'll let you into a little secret. Before no-one else did, and our world became all credit cards and phone taps, the rich stayed rich by never carrying cash. The Queen, for instance, was famous for never having any moolah on her at all, except on a Sunday when, if she was going to church, she'd have a tenner folded and ironed into a neat square so she could discretely slip it into the collection box.
As much a community as a recording complex, Bearsville gave birth to albums as diverse as The Band's Cahoots and Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell. Steve Sutherland has the story...
His ultimate weapon was silence. Which was weird considering his vocation in life was managing musicians. Don't get me wrong, Albert could curse and scream and bully and belittle with the best of them, but when all the histrionics were getting him nowhere he'd just clam up and stare like a statue. For a very long time. Which usually freaked everyone out and then, of course, they'd accede and he'd get what he came for.
Elvis, The Everly Brothers, Dolly Parton, Jim Reeves... Steve Sutherland tells the story of the home of a thousand hits – the recording studio that gave birth to the Nashville Sound
Dolly was in one heck of a hurry. She was running late for a recording session and if there was one thing that Dolly wasn't ever, it was late. Not only that, this was her debut appointment at Nashville's RCA Studios and she didn't want them thinking bad of her for being tardy.
The Four Tops, Jackson Five, The Supremes... they all cooked up classics in a studio so small they called it 'the snake pit'. Steve Sutherland has the lowdown on Motown
Even a genius can have an off day, and this was turning out to be one of them. Berry Gordy was in his office in LA and was shaking his head in dismay. 'No', he kept repeating. 'No.' The recipient of his negativity was Marvin Gaye, who had flown in from Motown's Studio A in Detroit to play his boss what he'd planned as his prospective next single.
From Beyoncé to The Boss, Meat Loaf to Madonna... few studios rival this international brand when it comes to churning out the chart-toppers, as Steve Sutherland explains
You could say that Jerry Ragovoy was quite the songwriter. It was he who penned 'Time Is On My Side', the Irma Thomas classic immortalised by The Rolling Stones. 'Stay With Me' was his too, the top-notch Lorraine Ellison belter. So were 'Cry Baby' and 'Piece Of My Heart', both of which Janis Joplin subsequently made unforgettable.
Synonymous with legends such as Sinatra, The Beach Boys and Nat King Cole, this studio in Hollywood has a pedigree spanning over 60 years. Steve Sutherland on Capitol...
Imagine if Jimi Hendrix had decided to release an album that wouldn't feature any guitar. Or that John Coltrane announced a long player sans any sax. Or Miles Davis did an LP on which you didn't hear one toot of horn. Madness, right? No way José.
Inside a former church in London is a recording facility used by such stars as Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Adele. Steve Sutherland invites you to pull up a pew as he tells its story
Some time in 1985, so the story goes, Dave Stewart of British pop duo Eurythmics had been working in Los Angeles with Bob Dylan and invited him to stop by his recording studio any time he found himself in London. The studio, which was called The Church, was in Crouch Hill, N8 and a few months later Dylan did just happen to be in the UK, so he decided to take up Dave on his offer.
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