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Hut's Recording Days Hold Historic Musical Moments
By: PETER COOPER Staff Writer Improvised studio produced No. 1 hits for almost 30 years
"It was weird-looking to me," remembered Lee, now a member of the country and rock 'n' roll halls of fame. The place was a Quonset hut built for producer Owen Bradley and his guitar-slinging brother, Harold, and the structure's odd curves were disconcerting to the 11-year-old. "It was strange on the outside," she said. "But once I was inside it was so intimate and the sound was so great. That room was magic, and those walls have memories." Lee would record classics including I'm Sorry and Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree in that room, which opened in 1955 as "Bradley Film and Recording Studios" but quickly became known to musicians and music fans simply as the Quonset Hut. A major factor in the development of Nashville's music industry, the Hut was the spot where Patsy Cline recorded Crazy; where George Jones sang He Stopped Loving Her Today; where Bob Dylan recorded his Blonde on Blonde, Nashville Skyline and John Wesley Harding albums; where Loretta Lynn made her first Nashville recording; where Ray Price committed his famously influential 4/4 country shuffle songs to tape; where Marty Robbins, Charlie Rich, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette and other luminaries raised their voices in song and altered the course of American popular music. "I liked it out there, a lot," said Merle Haggard, who often recorded at the Hut in the 1970s. "It was impossible for me not to be aware of the history of the place when I was recording there in the 1970s. When I walked in there, I always realized, 'Hey, this is where they cut I Fall To Pieces. If you're at all interested in country music, you know about the Quonset Hut." Sometimes falsely credited as the first recording studio on what is Music Row, the Hut was actually built behind a house at 1804 16th Ave. S. where the Bradleys had begun operating a studio in 1955. The studio was built in part to accommodate Decca recording artists, as Decca head man Paul Cohen promised he'd send his country artists to the Bradleys if they built a sufficient studio. In that house — which was long ago demolished — hit records including Gene Vincent's Be Bop-A-Lula and Gene Allison's You Can Make It If You Try were recorded. Led by Owen, who held a 90% interest in the Bradleys' company, the brothers built the Quonset Hut with hopes of turning it into a film production studio. When the house's basement studio proved too small for some recording sessions, Owen Bradley began experimenting with the Hut for music production. "The sound wasn't great when we first started there," said Harold Bradley, who now presides over the Nashville Association of Musicians union and who has played on more recording sessions than any other guitarist. "The tile floor had a 'ping' to it. But they did a Stars of the Grand Ole Opry film there and put wood along the side. When they put the wood in there it evened out the sound to where it was fantastic." Commercial real estate brokers put the asking price at about $3 million. The Castle Recording Studio downtown was Nashville's first professional recording service and it helped establish Nashville as a prime spot to record country music. In 1956, as the Bradleys' Quonset Hut began to earn notice, Castle was shuttered and the Bradleys' studio was drawing artists including Lee, Robbins, Price and Eddy Arnold. Other businesses' buildings — including RCA's famed facility now known as Studio B, which became the Hut's chief rival — sprang up in the area, and the Bradleys' business was the embryo of a part of town that now exists as the nerve center of the country music industry. "It was such a great location that Owen picked," Harold Bradley said. "You could be in town in five minutes. The area was not very expensive at the time, so you could buy houses or put up buildings." Columbia Records purchased the studio in 1962, but it remained open to artists not affiliated with Columbia. Owen Bradley continued to make classic records there, and Harold Bradley was among the "A-Team" of session players who helped define the "Nashville Sound" and who frequently recorded at the Quonset Hut. According to Hut engineer/producer Lou Bradley (no relation to Owen and Harold), Columbia initially considered knocking down the unsightly metal building, but outcry from the music community caused the company to connect its headquarters to the Hut rather than destroy the studio. Country music wasn't all that was made at the Hut, and the A-Team was versatile enough to play on albums for pop and R&B artists as well. Bobby Vinton's Blue Velvet was among the big pop hits recorded at the Quonset Hut, and Harold Bradley recalls playing at the Hut in sessions for Connie Francis, Dusty Springfield, former Drifter Clyde McPhatter and others, and Bob Dylan recorded several albums. Later, Columbia added another studio upstairs, where string sections often were recorded. Producer Billy Sherrill kept an office at Columbia, and mixing and mastering facilities throughout the building ensured that the label headquarters bustled with activity. "It was amazing back then," said Margie Hunt of Sony/BMG, who has worked in the building since 1976. "You'd walk down one hall and bump into Marty Robbins, then you'd go down the next hall and bump into Johnny Cash." Harold Bradley and Brenda Lee recalled the days when Kris Kristofferson worked in the building as a janitor, with Bradley remembering that the musicians would curse the future Country Music Hall of Famer for not keeping the studio coffee pots filled. "Bad janitor, good writer," Bradley said. Columbia stopped making records in the Quonset Hut in 1982, and John Anderson's Swingin' was the final No. 1 hit recorded there. After that, the label's Creative Services department was housed in the Hut. "I was in there not too long ago and there was a girl in the art department that had a cubicle, there in the Quonset Hut," said Lou Bradley. "She had Patsy Cline pictures all over the wall. I said, 'If you're a Patsy Cline fan, come with me.' I walked her just a few feet away and said, 'That's where Patsy Cline stood and sang, right there'." Most of George Jones' greatest musical moments were captured in the Quonset Hut, and Jones is concerned that the history-drenched building could fall into uncaring hands. "It's a shame if they can't keep it up as a shrine," Jones said. "More hits have come out of there than anybody's ever known. Tear the whole d**n building down, but leave the Quonset Hut alone." Jones is not alone in his assessment of the Hut: WSM-AM air personality and country music historian Eddie Stubbs shares his concern. "A state marker should be in front of that building," Stubbs said. "For those of us who know and understand and love Nashville music, that site is sacred." |
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Who recorded in the Hut?
Between 1952 and 1982, a who's who of country and popular music artists used Owen Bradley's Quonset Hut recording studio on 16th Avenue, now known as Music Row. Here is a partial list of artists who recorded there:
SOURCE: Sony Music Nashville Archives, Harold Bradley Session Books and Staff Reports |
Originally Published In The Tennessean On January 22, 2005
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