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If you look at it casually from the
street, this building sitting anonymously on Cincinnati's Brewster
Avenue, within sight of I-71, looks like just another converted
warehouse building. Oh, if the walls could talk!
Beneath the skylights is the old shipping department of the
old King Records Studios, founded and managed by Sid Nathan,
where
James Brown, Hank Ballard, The
Platters, John Lee Hooker and other stars from pop, soul, blues and
rhythm and blues recorded. Songs like "The Twist," "Fever,"
"Finger Popping Time" and "Please, Please, Please" were first
recorded here and then became part of the American music
scene.
While King Records had several
facilities in Cincinnati, this was their last one from 1944 until
they closed in the early 1970s. Sid Nathan was inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 for his work at King
Records and with early R&B performers.
Current word on the street is the
State of Ohio will soon be erecting a historical marker near the
King Records Studio.
JANUARY
2004 UPDATE!
I never claim to be an
expert on anything--in fact, I always say "an expert is a person
who's stopped learning." I was just contacted by Lee Hazen who
handled recording and the mastering department at King Records in
1966. Lee told me he
recorded such stars as Hank Ballard, James Brown, Freddie King,
Stanley Brothers, The Casinos, 2 of Clubs and many
others.
Here are a few photo
gallery sheets Lee sent me of scenes at King records in
1966:
Lee sent the panoramic
black and white photo above and wrote "If
you see the rectangular building at the left of the picture, then go
around the corner, the studio was in the back of the shipping
department." Lee continued to explain "Looking at the
panoramic photo, the bays on the left are the shipping
department. On the floor above it is the Art department.
Looking down the left side of the building is the door that opened
into a hallway that accessed Gene Redd's office (front), Mastering
(center) and studio (left and rear). Above the studio's control room
and mastering room were some "live" echo chambers which were later
converted to more office space after I left. The next area to
the right on the ground level was an office used by James Brown's
manager (I think). Behind that was a warehouse that held the
records. The two story part , continuing to the right, housed
offices and the entrance. Sid's office was on the second floor left
window. Behind that area on the ground floor was the printing
presses. To the right of the printing area was the electroplating
vats where all the metal parts were made for pressing the records -
masters, mothers, stampers. To the right of that is the
pressing plant, floor level. At the right end is where the vinyl was
brought in to the building and mixed with crushed records to be
reused. Behind that on the second floor was the Machine shop
for the factory. They built their own record presses. Sid's
factory was a complete facility from recording, mastering, pressing,
photographing, printing and storage and
managing."
The center photos above, according to Lee, are "of the Disc
Mastering Room. The left photo shows the playback gear;
the right one shows the Mastering Lathe." The bottom two
pictures are "before and after shots of the control room" after the
1966 remodeling.
In the photo gallery above,
Lee photographed before and after pictures of the control room in
1966. According to Lee, the top two pictures show the new
console. The middle pictures show the new drum booth and a
close-up view of the console's center. In the bottom photographs, we see the actual King recording studio.
Lee told us the photo on the left was taken during a session with
"Gene Lawson in drum booth, Lonnie Mack
standing, unknown person sitting by Bass booth, Louis Innis sitting
with back to the camera. The right photo is of the
studio in stand-by mode ready to be set up for a session. At
this time, the studio was starting to LOOK like CRITERIA
(another studio in Miami) by that time!"
Lee provided some more insight into King Records which we had
not known before:
"I worked at
Criteria Studio in Miami
before moving to
Cincinnati and I tried
to take what I had learned from the guys at Criteria and apply that
knowledge to KING's facilities. Remodeling and cleaning KING
was a high priority for me. The remodeled studio was modern and
equipped with a console identical to the one that went into
Criteria's studio A in l966.
Jeep Harned built both of them simultaneously at his MCI
Company in Ft. Lauderdale
Fla. MCI stood for: Music Center,
Inc.
"Dave Harrison started working at KING after I
left. He was in Wayne
Cochran's band "Wayne Cochran and the CC Riders" playing Sax. He worked at Criteria a
while before going up to KING and stayed at KING until it was sold
to Starday Records in
Nashville. Once all the
gear was moved to
Nashville, Dave and Mike
Stone operated the Nashville Starday studio together. Dave built a prototype
console while there and it became the design for the first MCI
console - the 416.
"Jeep Harned's MCI operation began making tape
recorders and consoles and was in a financial relationship with Sid
Nathan (from my knowledge) until Sid died.
"MCI became very well known in studio
circles. Criteria was
the testing ground for MCI's new prototypes.
"Dave Harrison designed and built a new console
which stole the show at AES l973-4 - The Harrison Console. Chips Moman in
Nashville purchased the
prototype board and traded in his MCI 416B, which I bought and
placed in my "Studio by the Pond" in l976. I still have that
board.
"All the master tapes from KING were moved to
Starday's new Vault in
Nashville. Eventually,
the company was sold to Moe Lytle's IMG corporation. The studio became GUSTO and
the tapes now reside in Moe's vault at IMG. He has all the old
KING, DELUXE, Bethlehem
and many custom tapes as well including those of FRATERNITY RECORDS
owned by the late Harry Carlson.
"IMG is still a very healthy company and is
based in Nashville,
TN."
FEBRUARY 2006 UPDATE
!
Lee Hazen sent us a scan of
a 78 rpm master for the second side of Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk"
recorded at King Records in the 1960s.
A very big thank you to Lee
Hazen for sharing his memories and photographs with all the fans of
Bluejeans' Place.
Good blues to ya,
Lee!
(Black &
white photos above © 1966-2004 Lee
Hazen All Rights Reserved
(Used on Bluejean's Place with Lee's
permission January 4 2004)
* * * * *
For more information, please visit this web site:
History-of-Rock.com
Fortune City
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