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.

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)

OCTOBER 2009 UPDATE

Every so often I receive an e-mail asking for more information on King Records, most of which I refer to the Cincinnati Public Library where some historical material is on file.  You can imagine my surprise when I read an e-mail from Keith Murphy in early October 2009:

"Like your King page. I recorded there in May 68 - have one pic of my band in studio - not high quality - tell me where to email and I will. King 45 record #6171 Keith Murphy and the Daze - Slighlty Reminiscent of Her/Dirty Ol' Sam It books on Osborne book at $1000 - was also released on Polydor in UK."

A few days later, I received a long response e-mail from Keith with a photo and this information:

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"Picture attached from when we recorded King 6171 May 1968 in their Cincinnati studio.

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