House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios (Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music)
Page 35
One of the few results we have been able to trace, the Bang or Ball album from Cash Money/Universal Records, made it to number four on the Billboard R&B/hip-hop albums chart in January 2002.
In addition to the Cash Money crew, a Jamaican-born reggae-dancehall rapper also cut a hit record at SugarHill Studios in 2001. Robert Minott, sometimes billed only by his surname, had recorded there in the late 1980s, but when he returned in the new millennium he brought with him tracks on analog tape, Pro Tools fi les, and other digital platforms. Over a period of about six months we worked on fi nishing seventeen songs. Six had been recorded in Jamaica, four were created at SugarHill, and the rest came from dif-ferent programmers in Houston. We did the vocals for most of the songs in Studio B, with mixing done in Studio C. Errol McCalla, who had programmed
“Independent Women” for Destiny’s Child, also worked on this project, which resulted in Minott’s album Playing the Game Right on the World Beat Records label. The sound of this record blended Jamaican pop with contemporary urban infl uences, including hip-hop. Minott scored a Top 10 hit with the track
“Playa Playa (Playing the Game Right),” which peaked at number eight on the Billboard rap singles chart in September 2001, while simultaneously hitting number sixteen on the separate Billboard R&B/hip-hop singles chart.
Thus, in the early phase of RAD Audio ownership, SugarHill Studios asserted its continuing relevance through best-selling projects featuring new R&B or hip-hop music and mostly younger, African American performers. By late January 2002, Destiny’s Child, Mack 10, and Robert Minott all simultaneously had singles and/or albums on the Billboard charts.
Though times and tastes had changed, the facility—in its sixth decade of operations—was still a house of hits.
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24
Still Tracking in
the Twenty-first Century
hile a new generation of hit performers infused
SugarHill Studios with fresh styles of contemporary urban
music to start the new millennium, the facility also retained
its no-zoning tradition. That is, the company regularly record-ed—and still does—music from a multicultural mix of genres, including country, blues, jazz, rock, pop, Celtic, gospel, classical, Latin, R&B, rap, and other forms and mutations. In addition to working with hundreds of artists from the Houston scene, in recent years the facility has continued to host a diverse roster of high-profi le visitors. Those range from R&B and rap sensation Brian McKnight to alt-rocker Frank Black to the mysterious experimental composer Jandek to Texas folk hero Willie Nelson to veteran pop singer Ann-Margret to country singer Clay Walker, and many others.
Walker (b. 1969) was one of the biggest country stars of the 1990s, a Beaumont native who seemingly went straight from obscurity to the national limelight. As Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes in All Music Guide, “Walker immediately established himself as a commercial success . . . racking up no less than fi ve number one singles in the fi rst three years of his career.” From his 1993 debut through 1999, Walker had released a total of six albums (including a Greatest Hits compilation) on Giant Records, all recorded elsewhere.
Then in 2001 he came to SugarHill Studios to record some vocal tracks for his last Giant project, the CD Say No More, which reached number fourteen on the Billboard country album chart. Dan Workman explains some details of those sessions:
Doug Johnson was the head of Giant Records and also Clay’s producer.
Doug . . . fl ew down to Houston and brought his favorite microphone and Bradley_4319_BK.indd 245
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preamps and an engineer by the name of Chip Matthews. . . . Among the songs that were recorded for that album are “Could I Ask You Not to Dance,”
“She’s Easy to Hold,” and “Texas Swing.”
Matthews returned a few months later to mix the audio tracks recorded during Walker’s recent performance at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo—a concert that was sold to Direct TV for satellite broadcast. Then in 2003 Walker staged vocal sessions at SugarHill for his album A Few Questions, produced by Jimmy Ritchey and released on RCA. This one rose as high as number three on the 2004 country album rankings by Billboard.
In October 2006 the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Johnny Bush returned after a twenty-one-year absence to record the CD
Kashmere Gardens Mud: A Tribute to Houston’s Country Soul. Produced by Rick Mitchell, this fourteen-track concept album features Bush originals and classic covers that all connect in some way to the city. These songs cover a spec-trum of stylistic shadings, including a fi ne treatment of “Born to Lose” (written by Houston native Ted Daff an) with the Calvin Owens Blues Orchestra.
“I have never been part of a session that big in my life. They had a rhythm section, fourteen horns, and a string section,” Bush marvels, adding, “And it was all being done in the same room where Mickey Gilley and I recorded
‘Ooh Wee Baby’ in 1956!”
Some of the other noteworthy guest performers on this album include Willie Nelson, Jesse Dayton, Bert Wills, Paul English, Dale Watson, Frenchie Burke, Brian Thomas, and Bush’s brother, the Rev. Gene Shinn.
The
well-received
Kashmere Gardens Mud led directly to a country music
summit of sorts at SugarHill Studios. It involved three alumni of the 1950s-era band known as the Cherokee Cowboys—its leader, singer Ray Price (b.
1926), Nelson, and Bush. The resulting album, Young at Heart, is a collection of standards (arranged by Owens, English, and Nelson Mills). Bush explains its origin and concept:
When we fi nished the Kashmere Gardens Mud album, I played the two big band songs that we recorded with the Calvin Owens Blues Orchestra to Willie. His ears perked up, and his eyes kind of sparkled and he said, “You know, we need to do a whole album of songs like that. . . . old established hit records that are recognizable.” . . . This album is not old country or new country. It’s not really pop music. It is a hybrid of pop, jazz, and country in a big band situation.
Slated to be released on Nelson’s Pedernales Records label and distributed by MCA, this recording is a direct by-product of the cross-cultural musical environment that Bush discovered at SugarHill.
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Other notable country artists to record at SugarHill in recent years include singer Kelly Schoppa, whose Let’s Go Dancing was released in 2005. There was also the fi ddle player and singer Jeff Chance, a Nashville veteran who had formerly recorded on the Mercury and Curb labels. He paired with guitarist Randy Cornor in 2007 to cut tracks for an album project. The country-folk singer-songwriter Glenna Bell recorded her 2007 CD The Road Less Traveled, featuring a duet with Bush, at SugarHill. Meanwhile, the Honky Tonk Heroes and their special guest James Burton (b. 1939, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist) came there to record 2008’s Paybacks Are Hell. In the last few years SugarHill has also hosted sessions by the River Road Boys, a western swing ensemble that includes fi ddler and singer Clyde Brewer.
The versatile John Evans has been grounded in country music and rockabilly, both as a singer-songwriter and a producer. But drawing from other in-fl uences he has also crafted a rock sound, as evidenced on albums recorded at SugarHill, such as Circling the Drain (2004) and Ramblin’ Boy (2006)—which engineer Christensen describes as “the fi rst of his big production rock records.”
In the blues genre, one of the most prolifi c clients was the late maestro and trumpeter Calvin Owens. In a professional career that reached from the 1940s till his 2008 death, Owens worked with numerous major fi gures, most famously with B. B. King. But Owens fi rst recorded in the late 1940s at the site where Bill Quinn founded his historic recording enterprise. Though Owens did some Duke-Peacock 1960s
session work there and some early 1990s overdubbing too, it was not until the twenty-fi rst century that he came there to produce and perform on projects featuring the Calvin Owens Blues Orchestra and many special guests.
His
fi rst major undertaking at SugarHill Studios was the 2002 album The House Is Burnin’, released (as were all of his projects) on his own Sawdust Alley label. Owens coarranged the selected songs with trombonist Aubrey Tucker and saxophonist Horace A. Young. In addition to the horn-heavy nineteen-piece band, members of the Houston Symphony string section and guest soloists such as saxophonist Grady Gaines augmented the instrumentation. Featured vocalists, besides Owens, were Trudy Lynn, Gloria Edwards, and Leonard “Lowdown” Brown.
The 2004 CD called The Calvin Owens Show showcased his orchestra with singers Edwards and Lynn, plus special guests saxophonist Wilton Felder (b. 1940, a founding member of the Crusaders), guitarist Bert Wills, harmonica ace “Sonny Boy” Terry Jerome, and the then eighty-eight-year-old Conrad Johnson, who delivered a masterful alto saxophone solo on “The Hucklebuck.”
Around this time, I also helped remix Owens’s debut solo CD, True Blue.
Originally released in 1993, the remastered version was issued in 2005.
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Among the many distinguished guests to appear on True Blue are the guitarists B. B. King and Johnny Copeland, as well as jazz star David “Fathead”
Newman (b. 1933) on tenor sax.
We then remixed a set of tracks Owens had previously recorded with rappers such as South Park Mexican, Big Snap, and Valdemar. Some of these were originally released on the 2000 album Stop Lyin’ in My Face, an unusual fusion of rap with Owens’s big band blues. However, Owens had used guest rappers on several other CDs too. The remixed compilation was issued in 2006 on the European label called Sabam Records.
The passionate intensity that Owens brought to his many productions fueled a surge of new Sawdust Alley releases in the fi nal years of his life. His most characteristic album of 2006 was I Ain’t Gonna Be Your Dog No More: The Calvin Owens Show, Volume Two. Owens also worked on, in his own words,
“another rap CD with Rasheed, Valdemar, and the Classic Thugs,” as well as “a Spanish-language blues album,” plus “an album featuring Trudy Lynn singing with the Calvin Owens Blues Orchestra.” That last one, titled I’m Still Here, garnered fi nalist consideration for 2007’s Best Soul Blues Album in the Memphis-based Blues Foundation’s Blues Music Awards. His burst of creativity not yet slaked, Owens went on to make the 2007 album Houston Is the Place to Be with his full orchestra and special guests such as Barbara Lynn, Rue Davis, Pete Mayes, and others. That CD was released simultaneously with the debut album by an Owens protégé—the bilingual Mexico-born blues singer and saxophonist, Evelyn Rubio. Also recorded at SugarHill, La Mujer Que Canta Blues was credited to Rubio “y Calvin Owens Orqestra Azul.”
The close relationship Owens had with SugarHill Studios caused him to recommend the facility to one of his former colleagues—the current bandleader and trumpeter in B. B. King’s band. So in January of 2007 James Bolden recorded his fi rst solo album there. Called Playing to the King, it is a tribute to the guitar-wielding bluesman he has backed for many years. Bolden tells how it came to be:
I live in Houston even though I’m on the road worldwide with B.B. for over two hundred dates a year. My cousin, Rocky White, who was the drummer for the Mercer Ellington Orchestra, also lives in Houston. So in mid-January of 2007 [B.B.] came into Galveston to play two dates at the Opera House.
This was a perfect opportunity to record, as we were in the area for about fi ve days. . . . [We] recorded ten great songs that were either B.B’s or my compositions. Rocky was the drummer, and the rest of the guys were from B.B’s band.
Highlighted by senior artists such as Owens and Bolden, SugarHill Studios recorded some impressively grand blues and jazz in the fi rst decade of the 2 4 8
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Barbara Lynn and Calvin Owens, at SugarHill Studios, 2006
new millennium. But there were performers from the next generation too—
perhaps best exemplifi ed by the fi ne blues-rock singer Tommie Lee Bradley.
Supported by experienced musicians such as Erich Avinger, Bert Wills, Kenny Cordray, Paul English, Anthony Sapp, and Kelly Dean, Bradley recorded all the tracks for her 2005 album, Soul Soup, at SugarHill.
One jazz session came about following Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans. In October 2005 Nonesuch Records booked studio time at SugarHill to record tracks for Our New Orleans 2005: A Benefi t Album, released one month later. New Orleans–based engineers Mark Bingham and Drew Vonderhaar worked with producer Doug Petty to record two of the Crescent City’s recently displaced jazz stars, clarinetist Michael White (b. 1954) and trumpeter Kermit Ruffi
ns (b. 1964), for the project.
Meanwhile, jazz pianist and vocalist Kellye Gray continued to make SugarHill Studios her recording base. Having previously been there to make her fi rst two CDs ( Standards in Gray on Justice Records and Tomato Kiss on Proteus Recordings), she used the SugarHill staff again in 2002 for live sessions at Ovations, a Houston club. We did the location recording with freelance engineer J. P. Rappenecker, producing enough quality tracks to make two CDs. The fi rst, released in 2002, was called Blue and featured the ballads, s t i l l t r a c k i n g i n t h e t w e n t y - f i r s t c e n t u ry 2 4 9
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Latin, and gentle songs. The second CD, released in April 2003, was named Pink and featured the bebop, high-energy blues, and funk grooves.
The sibling vocal trio known as the Champion Sisters fi rst brought their blend of pop-jazz standards to SugarHill in 2004. (Forty-eight years earlier, their father, George Champion, had recorded at the same site with George Jones.) Featuring a tight three-part harmony that evokes the Andrews Sisters, the three Champion women—Molly, Brenda, and Sandra—cut tracks for their 2005 debut album In the Mood, which included a guest appearance by jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum. In 2006 the sisters returned—again with Paul English as arranger, keyboardist, and producer—to record their follow-up album, Christmas with the Champion Sisters (2007).
while country, blues, and jazz have remained staples of SugarHill sessions in recent years, there have also been various manifestations of postmodern rock and even avant-garde music, as well as an ongoing relationship with rap.
Perhaps the most unusual of all the artists in these categories is the internationally famous-for-being-obscure atonal music phenomenon known simply as Jandek. A mostly one-man operation based in Houston, Jandek released his fi rst self-produced album in 1978. As of 2008, he has now issued over fi fty weird art-rock albums, many of which have been mixed and mastered at SugarHill.
While Jandek’s music resists simple classifi cation, Texas Monthly writer Katy Vine reveals that Jandek favors the description “pentatonic refractive dissonance.” Reclusive and elusive, Jandek has steadfastly shunned publicity and the revelation of his true identity, disappearing instead behind his corporate identity as Corwood Industries, the name of his homemade label.
Moreover, despite a growing worldwide cadre of fans, Jandek made no public performances until October 2004, when he played at an unpublicized event in Scotland. Since then, Jandek has occasionally but rarely played live elsewhere. Houston Chronicle writer Andrew Dansby, who observed a 2007 concert, describes the live sound as “dark, naturally; loud; and, for those who like their music served up with performance-artish rough edges intact, sharp as shorn metal . . . like deconstructed mountain music run through monster amps.”
I
fi rst met Jandek in 1981 at ACA Studios when he hired me to mix and master his third album, Later On. Since
then, I have mixed a tremendous volume of his music—and since 1984, all at SugarHill Studios. Jandek has confi rmed that I handled mixing and mastering for the Corwood releases #0741
through #0769, and then for #0783 and all subsequent releases to date. As Dansby points out, “there’s some untainted allure to the music.” And despite 2 5 0
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its strangeness and the mystique of the Jandek persona, in some respects he is one of the most successful artists currently engaging the services of SugarHill Studios.
Speaking of unusual personae, the famous alternative rocker known variously as Frank Black and Black Francis, of the infl uential late 1980s–early ’90s postpunk band the Pixies, graced SugarHill Studios with a session during his Fall 2006 tour. Via his pseudonyms, Black (b. Charles Mitchell Kittredge Thompson IV, 1965) has been a major presence on the national scene for over two decades. Christensen recalls the night Black recorded at SugarHill: Billy Block, a drummer . . . all during the 1980s here in Houston, called
[Andy Bradley] to talk about a recording session. It turns out that he is both the manager and drummer for Frank Black. . . . They were in town playing a show at the Meridian [and] wanted to cut a couple of new songs. . . . They brought in an engineer named Billy Mumfrey . . . and I worked as his assistant. . . . The band arrived by taxi from the Meridian about midnight. . . .
They just jumped in the studio and went to work and knocked out the two music tracks like a well-oiled machine. . . . As soon as we fi nished the tracks, Frank went into the vocal booth. I had the Neumann U-67 [microphone] set up, and he just sang and screamed Frank Black–style.
As often occurs when touring visitors briefl y use the studio, Black departed with the only copy of the recorded tracks—and provided SugarHill with no song titles or identifying details. However, because Christensen recalls over-hearing that this session was for a “live” album, it seems likely that these two tracks may have appeared on the Frank Black Live Session EP that was created during that same tour.