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RCA Studio B

{{Short description|Music recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee}}

{{Distinguish|RCA Studio II}}

{{Infobox building

| alternate_names = RCA Victor Studios
Little Victor
Home of a Thousand Hits

| image =File:RCAStudioB Console.jpg

| address = 1611 Roy Acuff Place

| location_town = Nashville, Tennessee

| coordinates = {{coord|36.1500|-86.7928}}

| website =https://studiob.org}}

RCA Studio B was a music recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee, established in 1957 by Steve Sholes and Chet Atkins for RCA Victor. Originally known simply as the RCA Victor Studio, in 1965 the studio was designated as Studio B after RCA Victor built the newer, larger Studio A in an adjacent building.

Located centrally in what would become Nashville's Music Row, the RCA Victor Studios were an essential factor to the development of the musical production style and sound engineering technique known as the Nashville Sound. In the two decades the studio was in operation, RCA Studio B produced 60 percent of the Billboard magazine's Country chart hits.{{cite book|last=Cogan|first=Jim|title=Temples of Sound|year=2003|publisher=Chronicle Books LLC|location=San Francisco|isbn=0-8118-3394-1|pages=54–63}}

The studio closed in 1977.{{cite magazine|title=RCA Folds Nashville, L.A. Studios: N.Y. Next?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YEUEAAAAMBAJ&dq=rca+studios&pg=PA3|magazine=Billboard|date=15 January 1977|access-date=15 May 2024}} Since 1992 the studio has been under the ownership of the Country Music Hall of Fame, which offers scheduled tours of the facilities.

History

=Early history=

After years of using portable equipment to record projects in various recording facilities around Nashville, Steve Sholes and Chet Atkins established RCA Victor's first Nashville recording facility within the Methodist Television Radio & Film Commission building at 1525 McGavock Street in 1954.{{Cite web|url=http://scottymoore.net/studio_mcgavock.html|title=RCA Victor – 1525 McGavock St.|website=Scotty Moore: The Official Website|access-date=2019-07-18}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.cmt.com/news/1521233/historic-studio-site-being-demolished-in-nashville/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813061528/http://www.cmt.com/news/1521233/historic-studio-site-being-demolished-in-nashville/|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 13, 2020|title=Historic Studio Site Being Demolished in Nashville|website=CMT News|access-date=2019-07-18}} It was at this studio in January, 1956, that Sholes and Atkins produced a session with Elvis Presley during which he recorded Heartbreak Hotel,{{cite magazine|last=Wood|first=Gerry|title=Bradley Bullish On Potential Of Studio|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xCMEAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22Bradley%27s+Barn%22&pg=PT37|magazine=Billboard|date=9 April 1977|access-date=15 May 2024}} the song that would become Presley's first gold record and the biggest-selling single of 1956. The building on McGavock Street that housed this recording studio was demolished in 2006 for a parking lot.{{Cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5165563|title='Heartbreak' Studio Demolished for Parking Lost|website=NPR.org|language=en|access-date=2019-07-18}}

=Studio=

With Atkins and Sholes establishing RCA Victor's Nashville operations, the company sought to build a recording studio. The company's chief engineer and recording manager Bill Milttenburg drew building plans on a dinner napkin and Dan Maddox, a local businessman, offered to construct the building as an investment. Four months later, in November 1957, the pastel cinderblock building located at 1611 Hawkins Street (later re-named Roy Acuff Place) was completed at a cost of $37,515, and Maddox leased it to RCA for the next twenty years.{{cite web|title=About the Historic RCA Studio B|url=https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/experiences/studio-b/about-studio-b|website=countrymusichalloffacme.org|publisher=Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum|access-date=2 January 2023}}

Business offices resided in the single-story front of the building, with studio facilities in the rear. The studio measured {{convert|40.5|by|26.25|ft|m}}, with a {{convert|13|ft|m}} high ceiling. A grand piano, acquired from NBC's Tonight Starring Steve Allen, sat in the corner. The small control room was only {{convert|12|ft|m}} deep, and housed an RCA radio station tube console with 12 microphone inputs and four outputs, which fed an Ampex 2-track deck. An echo chamber occupied the second story.{{cite book|last=Jordan|first=Larry|title=Jim Reeves: His Untold Story|year=2011|publisher=Page Turner Books International, LLC|location=United States|isbn=978-0-615-52430-6|page=240}}

In March, 1959, Bill Porter replaced Bob Ferris, RCA Studio B's first chief engineer, and by June had mixed a number one hit: "The Three Bells" by the Browns. Porter considered the studio's acoustics problematic, with resonant room modes creating an uneven frequency response. To lessen the problem, he took some $60 from the studio's petty cash and bought fiberglass acoustic ceiling panels which he cut into triangles and hung from the ceiling at varying heights; these were dubbed "Porter Pyramids".{{cite web |url=http://www.musicangle.com/feat.php?id=140 |title=Mr. Natural: Recording Engineer Bill Porter Part I |last=Fremer |first=Michael |date=May 1, 2009 |publisher=MusicAngle.com |access-date=July 8, 2010}} Porter also marked "X"es on the floor where he discovered, by careful experimentation, the resonant modes to be minimal. Porter positioned lead vocalists, background vocalists, and acoustic guitarists at microphones placed directly over his marks. After these improvements, Don Gibson recorded his album Girls, Guitars and Gibson in the studio. Porter later told an interviewer: "Everybody said, 'God, what a different sound!{{' "}}{{cite journal |last=Rumble |first=John W. |title=Behind the Board with Bill Porter: Part One |journal=The Journal of Country Music |volume=18 |number=1 |page=33 |year=1996 }}

Porter also preferred the luminous echo of the studio's EMT 140 plate reverb rather than its echo chamber, keeping the plates chilled in the air conditioned room to brighten their sound.

In 1960 and 1961, an addition was built to provide office space and rooms for tape mastering and a lacquer mastering lab.

Nashville painter and singer/songwriter Gil Veda—introduced to the Grand Ole Opry crowd as "The Spanish Hank Williams" in 1962—was the first Hispanic singer to record at RCA's Studio B.{{Cite web|url=http://www.tnledger.com/editorial/Article.aspx?id=69631|title=Music and art mesh in Veda's storied life|website=www.tnledger.com|language=en|access-date=2019-07-18}}

In her 1994 memoir, My Life And Other Unfinished Business, Dolly Parton recounted how she was rushing to her first recording session at Studio B in October 1967 (shortly after having signed with RCA Victor) and, in her haste to make the session on time, drove her car through the side wall of the building. She noted that the spot where her car impacted the building is still visible.Dolly Parton (1994). Dolly: My Life And Other Unfinished Business. Harper Collins. {{ISBN|0-06-017720-9}}{{Cite web|url=http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/nashville-city-guide11.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080927061143/http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/nashville-city-guide11.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 27, 2008|title=HowStuffWorks "Suggested Itineraries for Visiting Nashville"|date=September 27, 2008}}

=Historic landmark=

In 1977, the studio was made available to the Country Music Hall of Fame for tours, and in 1992 it was donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame by the late Dan Maddox. Until 2001, it was operated as an attraction when the new home for the Hall of Fame was built in downtown Nashville. From 2001 to 2011 the studio was co-operated by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Belmont University's Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business program, which utilized the studio to teach students basic techniques of analog recording.{{Cite web|url=http://www.belmont.edu/mb/recording_studio_facilities/index.html|title=Belmont University Recording Studio Facilities|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060820053355/http://www.belmont.edu/mb/recording_studio_facilities/index.html|archive-date=2006-08-20}}

In 2012, the National Park Service listed RCA Studio B on the National Register of Historic Places.{{cite web|title=Weekly List of Actions Taken on Properties: 7/09/12 through 7/13/12|url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister/upload/weekly-list-2012-national-register-of-historic-places.pdf|publisher=National Park Service|date=July 20, 2012|access-date=July 20, 2012}} The same year, operation shifted solely to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which offers daily scheduled tours of the studio.

Production style

{{main|Nashville sound}}

Bradley Studios, RCA Studio B, and later RCA Studio A, were essential locations to the development of the "Nashville Sound." Chet Atkins and the production team at RCA Studio B, notably Steve Sholes, Owen Bradley, Bob Ferguson, and Bill Porter produced studio recordings in the Nashville Sound style, a sophisticated style characterized by background vocals and strings. The Nashville Sound both revived the popularity of country music and helped establish Nashville's reputation as an international recording center, with these three studios at the center of what would become known as Music Row.

List of notable artists recorded

More than 47,000 songs were recorded at RCA Studio B,{{cite book|last=Jordan|first=Larry|title=Jim Reeves: His Untold Story|year=2011|publisher=Page Turner Books International, LLC|location=United States|isbn=978-0-615-52430-6|page=239}} many by legendary music artists. Elvis Presley is known to have recorded more than two hundred songs at this location.{{cite web|url=https://studiob.org/newsandupdates/posts/historic-rca-studio-b-celebrates-60th-anniversary-with-special-programming|title=Studio B Celebrates 60th|publisher=StudioB.org|access-date=2018-04-08}}

Following is a list of some notable artists who recorded songs at Studio B.

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References

{{Reflist}}

External links

{{Commons category|RCA Studio B}}

  • [http://www.studiob.org/ Official website]

{{Authority control}}

{{Coord|36.149929|-86.792848|display=t|type:landmark}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rca Studio B}}

Category:Recording studios in Tennessee

Category:Buildings and structures in Nashville, Tennessee

Category:Culture of Nashville, Tennessee

Category:RCA Records

Category:Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum