Thus, though Meaux has often been depicted as having brilliantly coaxed Fender into singing part of this song in Spanish, random chance and linguistic improvisation may have been at play.
Of course, Meaux did recognize the power of Fender’s reinterpretation of the original lyrics—the beauty of his organic, eff ortless, and ultimately tran-scendent blending of the two languages of his heritage. Moreover, Meaux evidently did so at the very moment that he fi rst heard it. As they say in the industry, the man had good ears.
But after Fender had taped the vocal track for what would prove to be his life-changing hit single, there was yet one other unplanned moment, another improvised idea that would infuse this masterpiece recording with a crucial 1 9 2
h o u s e o f h i t s
Bradley_4319_BK.indd 192
1/26/10 1:12:20 PM
element of sonic texture. One of the other SugarHill staff engineers, Roger Harris, explains how during a subsequent meal break, fortuity struck yet again:
“Before the Next Teardrop Falls” was . . . on eight-track. So we dubbed the reel over to the sixteen-track, and then we went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant across town. We brought back to the studio the little band from the restaurant. And for a case of Tecate beer, they overdubbed accordion and Mexican guitars on the song. This changed the complexion of the song.
That spontaneous decision, presumably made by Meaux, to incorporate authentic Mexican-style instrumentation gave the song its crowning grace.
Though nobody had possessed the strategic insight to prepare in advance for it, given the surprising developments during Fender’s previous vocal session, it complemented his performance perfectly.
Genius is sometimes simply a matter of making the connections at hand, combining readily available components in an innovative way. Over the course of putting together Fender’s original recording of “Before the Next Teardrop Falls,” the singer and the producer had trusted their instincts and created something beautiful and unique. But during the actual studio production, and for a good while thereafter, they had little reason to believe that they had intuitively built a megahit.
Meaux had originally received the song from a friend, producer Shelby Singleton from Nashville. Singleton said he believed that this composition could be a bona fi de hit, but that no one in Nashville, where it had been previously recorded by various singers, could do it justice. He then suggested that one of Meaux’s “characters” might be able to do the job. As Singleton explains, “‘Teardrop’ was written by two of our staff writers. The Freddy Fender recording was the thirty-fi fth recording of the song. The song made the bottom of the charts each time it was released, but never was a big hit till the Freddy recording.”
By the time they produced their defi nitive version of the song at SugarHill Studios, Meaux and Fender had already been collaborating in vain for a couple of years, trying to resurrect Fender’s career—which had been launched back in the 1950s when, known as “El Bebop Kid,” he was playing rock ’n’
roll and doing Spanish-language covers of Elvis Presley songs. Based on the fervent recommendation of Doug Sahm, who as a teen had idolized Fender after seeing him perform at a San Antonio drive-in movie theater, Meaux had sought out the singer. In 1972 he found him washing cars in Corpus Christi. A week later Meaux signed him to his Crazy Cajun label. They tried several new angles in search of ’70s success, including even reggae. Harris t h e f r e d dy f e n d e r p h e n o m e n o n
1 9 3
Bradley_4319_BK.indd 193
1/26/10 1:12:20 PM
says that shortly before the “Teardrop” session, he engineered “an album for Freddy Fender, thirteen or fourteen songs. . . . Huey had gone to Jamaica and brought back an eight-track reel of reggae rhythm tracks that we transferred to the sixteen-track. We then added Freddy’s voice to them.” But the results of that album—and their partnership in general thus far—had been mediocre at best, leading to some artist-producer tensions.
Thus, when Meaux played the “Teardrop” demo and urged the singer to give it a try, Fender had bristled and asserted his distaste for doing a country song. Meaux’s persistence and manipulation eventually led to Fender desul-torily scribbling the lyrics and cutting some tracks to appease the producer.
But the magic that transformed that session depended on Fender dropping his page of notes and improvising a verse in his people’s language.
“I have always felt that the Spanish that Huey and Freddy put in the song was the main reason it became a big hit,” says Singleton. As for his motivation, beyond support for his own staff songwriters, for off ering the song to another producer, Singleton adds, “At the time Huey was struggling, and I wanted to help him as a friend, so I gave him the tracks.”
Thus, through a series of atypical circumstances, one of the biggest records of the mid-1970s came to be. Not only was the single well received nationwide, but so was the subsequently released album of the same name, which spawned even more hits. Brady off ers this account of its success: It was actually the number four record [album] of all in 1975 in sales . . . and I mean he’s up there with Elton John and some of the other pop stars of that year—the fourth-largest-selling album of that year! And that was a shock to me when I found out that it was that big. Prior to coming to Houston I had worked PR for CBS Records for about fi ve years, so I knew a bit about the music business. The album sold like crazy. . . . It was the fi rst country album to be certifi ed Platinum, which was quite a milestone. I’m not sure they made a big deal out of it at the time here in Houston, but it was something in Billboard.
Based on the success of the “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” single, Meaux had placed Fender’s identically titled debut album on a major label, ABC/Dot.
According to Nashville City Beat magazine, by the end of that year it had already sold 650,000 copies in the LP format and another 450,000 on cassettes.
Since then it has sold millions more, right into the MP3 era.
Thanks to the tip from Sahm, who later formed the Grammy Award–
winning Texas Tornados supergroup with Fender and others, Meaux had achieved the biggest hit record of his career. Though he had changed the site’s name from Gold Star to SugarHill, Meaux had also produced it in the 1 9 4
h o u s e o f h i t s
Bradley_4319_BK.indd 194
1/26/10 1:12:20 PM
same Houston studio where, almost ten years earlier, he had recorded the Sir Douglas Quintet’s “She’s About a Mover,” the big break in Sahm’s storied career.
But the success of the Fender recording did not come right away. Meaux fi rst vigorously shopped the master tape to a variety of larger labels, only to be repeatedly rebuff ed. Finally, still believing in the magic of that taped moment, he issued the recording himself on his Crazy Cajun label, paired with
“Waiting for Your Love” as the B-side (#2002). Then, given his limited distribution network and his inability to match the major labels’ well-funded promotional eff orts, Meaux personally committed to getting the record heard.
Brady picks up the story:
Huey then hit the road with a ton of records in the trunk of his car. He also took with him a bunch of cash and allegedly a bunch of not-so-legitimate drugs to use as incentive for the disc jockeys at the many country music radio stations out in the Texas countryside to play the record. Whatever the methods used, Huey got them to play the record. As they say, the rest is history.
As Meaux was fond of pointing out, promotion was the key that made a record a hit, and with “Teardrop” he had proven it yet again.
But ultimately, no matter how much push a producer or a DJ might give, the fi ckle public had to respond. And in 1975, when Americans of various generations, ethnic backgrounds, and musical tastes heard Fender’s exquisite tenor articulating this dual-language heart ballad, millions of them connected with it—making it one of the greatest recordings ever produced at the oldest continuously operating studio in Texas.
six months after “teardrop” had climbed the charts, Meaux released a new version of one of Fender’s older songs, originally recorded in 1959—the swamp-pop classic “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.” This single quickly claimed the number one slot on the country charts, duplicating its predecessor’s achievement. It also made the Top Ten on the pop charts, cresting at number eight. “Wasted Days” solidifi ed Fender’s status as an established star, and, paired with the previous hit ballad, it showcased his versatility as a singer.
It would be followed by even more astounding success. As John Morthland notes in Texas Monthly, “From January 1975 to the end of 1977, Freddy had twelve straight Top 20 country hits, nine of them in the Top 10, four reaching number one.”
Another SugarHill engineer, Mickey Moody, relates his memories of the sessions that produced Fender’s second round of hits:
t h e f r e d dy f e n d e r p h e n o m e n o n
1 9 5
Bradley_4319_BK.indd 195
1/26/10 1:12:20 PM
My fi rst recordings with Freddy included “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.”
That electric harpsichord solo was Bruce Ewen. Randy Cornor played guitar.
Donny King was on bass. Dahrell Norris played drums. I put at least three rhythm guitars on it, and Tracey Balin did the background vocals. That song was recorded from the ground up [as opposed to being based on a preexist-ing instrumental track].
Given Fender’s previous nationwide hit, “Wasted Days” bypassed Meaux’s little Crazy Cajun imprint and was released right away on the high-profi le major label ABC/Dot Records (#17558).
The subsequent third-in-a-row number one country single for Fender,
“Secret Love,” was released near the end of 1975 on ABC/Dot. This composition, by the Hollywood songwriting team of Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, was already an oldie, having won the Oscar Award for Best Original Film Song for its interpretation by Doris Day in Calamity Jane. Released also as a Day single, the song had hit number one on the pop charts in 1954—and thereafter was covered by various singers. But nobody had sung it the way Fender did in his SugarHill session, where taking his cue from the “Teardrop”
success, he made a point to sing one verse in Spanish. In addition to achieving fi rst place in the country rankings, that record also made the pop charts, peaking at number twenty. Moody says that this one “was also totally recorded from scratch here at the studio with members of the Houston Symphony on strings.” The poignant ballad received lush accompaniment, and Cornor provided some tasteful guitar embellishment. In fact, Cornor’s work on several Fender records led him to a contract, as an artist in his own right, with ABC/
Dot Records.
Moody tells how he had come to be affi
liated with the studio where he fi rst
worked with Fender:
I was producing a group called the Cate Brothers. Tom Noonan—from the record company that I was leasing their album to—suggested adding voices and horns to their record. Then he asked me if I knew Huey Meaux. I was not familiar with him. But I said, “If you think we need to add those things, set it up.”
Meaux called me about a week later and asked me when I could bring the masters. They were on four-track; he wanted to transfer them to eight-track and do his work on them. That thrilled me because I had only heard vague tales about eight-track machines existing. So I brought them down, and we went from there on to other projects and talked about production and started working together.
1 9 6
h o u s e o f h i t s
Bradley_4319_BK.indd 196
1/26/10 1:12:20 PM
left to right: Huey Meaux, Leo O’Neil, and Mickey Moody, at SugarHill Studios, 1976
He asked me to come down to Houston and take over the engineering department at SugarHill. I was happy to do it, especially after I had found out about some of the credits that he had.
In April of 1976 Asylum Records released a single called “Union Man”
and an eponymous album from the Arkansas-based Cate Brothers. Although formally produced and mixed by Steve Cropper in Memphis, Moody actually engineered some parts of the recordings at SugarHill. Moreover, he and Meaux shared the publishing rights for both sides of the single and eight songs from the album. Moody comments, “The fi rst hit record we worked on was the Cates. I did vocal overdubs here at SugarHill on that record.”
Around the time of the Cate Brothers releases, Fender had a new album out on ABC/Dot Records, called Rockin’ Country, and the fi rst single released was an old Hank Williams nugget, “I Can’t Help It.”
The fourth of Fender’s SugarHill-produced number one hit records came with a distinguished pedigree. Back in 1962 Meaux had scored a crossover hit with the song “You’ll Lose a Good Thing,” written and performed by Barbara Lynn (though Meaux secured the offi
cial songwriting credit, and hence royal-
ties, for himself). That song, originally recorded in New Orleans and released on the Jamie label (#1220), had topped the national R&B charts and soared as t h e f r e d dy f e n d e r p h e n o m e n o n
1 9 7
Bradley_4319_BK.indd 197
1/26/10 1:12:20 PM
high as number eight on the pop charts for Lynn, making it one of Meaux’s early big successes. It also demonstrated his uncanny ability to fi nd hit songs and unusual artists such as Lynn, who was probably the fi rst left-handed female R&B guitarist ever to have a hit record.
Approximately fourteen years later Meaux’s production of Fender’s croon-ing cover of her signature song not only topped the country charts but also made the pop Top 40, registering highest at number thirty-two.
Leo O’Neil, a veteran of previous work at Gold Star Studios, returned to SugarHill to perform on that session and others. He says,
Huey brought me back here in late ’76 or early ’77. I remember Huey playing “Teardrop” to me over the telephone. When I came back to SugarHill, I used to keep a Mellotron [polyphonic keyboard] in Studio A and would play lots of string parts on it for the sessions. The fi rst song I ever played on for Freddy was . . . “You’ll Lose a Good Thing.” The players on that record were my band. Evan Arredondo played bass, Louis Broussard played drums, Eddie Nation played guitar, and I played piano.
Meanwhile, O’Neil did string arrangements and keyboard overdubbing for various other Fender songs, and his group backed the singer again on
“Talk to Me.” That song, which hit number thirteen on the country charts for Fender, was a remake of the 1958 R&B hit (sung by Little Willie John) that had been popularly covered again in 1963 by Fender’s fellow South Texan, Sunny Ozuna.
Starting in early 1975, musician Don Michael “Red” Young also played on sessions for Fender and other artists at SugarHill. It happened as a result of Young’s role in a Fort Worth–based band called the Ham Brothers. He says, We came down to Houston often to work on projects for Mickey [Moody]. My fi rst trip down was with Bill Ham and Bruce Ewen to work on an album for Freddy. Some of those cuts wound up on his Before the Next Teardrop Falls album. We would come down for a week and work on Freddy’s stuff , the Ham Brothers album, and other tracks. . . .
One of my primary jobs was arranging vocal parts. The studio had this chick singer named Tracey Balin, and she would do all the harmony parts on the records. Originally she lived in Florida, and they would fl y her in. . . . We would wind up working on twenty-fi ve or thirty songs over the course of a few days.
Musician Gaylan Latimer, a former member of the Dawgs, had recorded for Meaux earlier in his career in the duo Bob and Gaylan. By the 1970s, how-1 9 8
h o u s e o f h i t s
Bradley_4319_BK.indd 198
1/26/10 1:12:20 PM
ever, he was working regularly at SugarHill as an in-house songwriter and occasional session player. He comments on the facility’s level of activity during the peak of the Fender phenomenon:
In 1976, following the success of Freddy Fender, Huey signed a large number of wr
iters to publishing contracts to write for Freddy and his other artists.
Back in the space that had been the original big studio, Huey set up a number of long tables and had as many as a dozen writers working on song ideas.
Oscar Perry, Danny Epps, Doak Walker, myself, and a number of others were being paid between fi fty and seventy-fi ve dollars a week to just come in and write. Huey would give us ideas and then turn us loose. . . .
During this time period both studios were working hard. In the B Studio, Mickey Moody was cutting tracks for Freddy Fender, Donny King, Tracey Balin, and other artists. . . . It was in 1977 that Freddy cut my song, “Think about Me.” It was on the ABC/Dot album If You Don’t Love Me (#2090), and in November of that year it peaked at number eighteen on the Billboard country charts.
Young adds, “Huey had a bunch of songwriters hanging around and cutting demos continually—guys like Lee Emerson, Gaylan Latimer, Oscar Perry, Danny Epps, and some other guys.” Meaux sought to craft more hits not only for Fender but also for other artists whom he was producing. Maintaining a songwriting staff contractually obligated to his publishing company was a key part of the process. And though Fender would continue to make numerous other recordings that sold well, Meaux kept prospecting in search of another star.
the first half of 1976 was a prolific time for SugarHill Studios. A new Kinky Friedman album was in the works for ABC/Dunhill Records.
Sahm was recording an album for ABC/Dot. Balin, a background vocalist on many Fender recordings, was making her own new recordings. Sherri Jerrico had just fi nished a Crazy Cajun single called “A Friend of Yours and Mine.” Donny King had recently recorded “Wake Me Gently” (written by Beth Thornton, Meaux’s executive secretary) for Warner Brothers Records. The former bassist with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Noel Redding, was recording a new album for RCA Records. Singer-songwriter Lee Emerson recorded a song called “Gospel Truth (Telling It Like It Is).” John Stuckey and the Magic Cowboy Band recorded a single with Jerry Jeff Walker: “Grandma’s Love” and
House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios (Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music) Page 28