House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios (Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music) (30 page)

We started [recording] at one a.m. following our gig that night, and the rest of the horn players, a group of about fi ve or six players, arrived at two-thirty after their gigs. . . . I think it was about fi ve a.m. when we laid down the vocals to those songs. We did all that recording in the smaller studio with the gold star in the fl oor.

I came back the following Saturday to record the instrumental lead. . . .

The Hammond B3 organ resided in that bigger studio, and that’s where we added the parts. The song was then mixed back in the smaller studio, and then discs were made to take to the radio stations.

In March 1966 Neal Ford and the Fanatics recorded the song “All I Have to Do Is Dream” at Gold Star with Frilot at the controls. The song would become a regional hit and top the charts in Houston.

In 1966 Billy Gibbons, who would later achieve fame and fortune fronting ZZ Top, made two appearances at Gold Star with producer Steve Ames. Both times Gibbons recorded a song called “99th Floor,” fi rst with his group the Coachmen. That session, according to invoices, occurred on April 22, 1966, and was engineered by Lurie. Gibbons paid for it himself, in cash. A month later Gibbons had reorganized his band, named it the Moving Sidewalks, and returned to Gold Star to record “99th Floor” again, this time with Frilot at the controls. According to Ames, neither of these versions got it right, so the band recorded it yet again—but elsewhere.

Despite the fact that the vinyl version of “99th Floor” (which became number one in Houston) was not recorded at Gold Star, a master tape of the earli-1 4 2

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est attempt lives in the tape vault at SugarHill Studios. The Coachmen version marks Ames’s fi rst eff ort as a producer and possibly the earliest studio recording by Gibbons—making both of these important fi gures part of Gold Star history too.

By the mid-1960s the clientele came from increasingly varied backgrounds.

For instance, on June 6, 1965, a group called the Dinos recorded three songs in a Gold Star session engineered by Holford. Two of those songs—“This Is My Story” and “Baby Come On In”—were released as a single on Van Records (#03265). The Dinos were a Hispanic bilingual pop and doo-wop vocal group led by Abraham Quintanilla. He later would father the ill-fated Tejano-pop queen known as Selena (1971–1995), who started her career with a revived version of the family band known as Selena y Los Dinos. Moreover, in 1983

she would record her earliest demos, performing with a family band, at the same (but renamed) site.

True to its founder’s original vision, Gold Star Studios has always recorded country music too—even during the rise of pop-rock. For instance, drummer and singer Johnny Bush revisited the site in early 1966 to record gospel music with George Jones. He recounts how that came to pass:

I was living in Nashville. Willie [Nelson] and I were off the road for a couple of weeks, and George Jones’s band called and asked if I could fi ll in. Willie said, “Go ahead and do it. We’re off for a while.” So I joined up with them in Houston, and our fi rst gig was a recording session right back at Gold Star.

Meanwhile, in addition to its various music projects, during the HSP era Gold Star Studios signifi cantly elevated its local profi le in relation to electronic advertising. In fact, some of the most ubiquitous clients during this time were advertising agencies—more than double the number the studio was handling before Patterson had persuaded Holford and Stevenson to consolidate with him in a new corporation. A review of the invoices shows it recorded ads for companies as diverse as Humble Oil (the predecessor of Exxon), Houston Natural Gas, Dentler Potato Chips, O.J.’s Beauty Lotion, and Star Furniture. As trombonist Aubrey Tucker reminds us, such work often meant easy gigs for session musicians. “I did a major jingle here that Leo O’Neil arranged for a big ad company, and the client was Shell Oil Company,”

he says. “I remember that well because of the residual checks that I received for a number of years—because the ad ran for a long time.”

given the increased revenues from advertising as well as the large numbers of regular sessions it was handling, one might assume that Gold Star Studios was fl ush with cash by 1966. It may have been, but somehow Patterson sometimes failed to pay his engineers or fulfi ll other obligations.

a h o u s e o f ro c k , d e s p i t e t h e m u c k
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Where did the money go? After repeatedly raising that question themselves, after waiting for delayed compensation only to see the promised settlement again be postponed with a new set of excuses, the key staff members departed. By March of 1966 Holford was gone. Likewise, ace engineer Jones got out, soon followed by Frilot. They all resurrected their own businesses, leaving Patterson with the Gold Star property lease and a stack of unpaid bills.

On a website devoted to the memory of Frilot (1939–1999), writer Larry Benicewicz quotes the famous Louisiana record producer Eddie Shuler’s opinion of the erstwhile HSP employee: “He was as honest as the day is long—

someone you could always trust. And that’s saying a lot in this nasty racket I’m in.” Having come over with Holford in the ACA/Gold Star merger, during his brief time at the Gold Star site Frilot conducted sessions for Roy Head, B. J. Thomas, Kenny Rogers, and various others. However, as Benicewicz notes, because Patterson “had a penchant for writing bad checks,” after eight months the likable engineer, “having had his share of being stiff ed by his new boss, abruptly vacated the premises.”

The mucky payroll situation over which Patterson presided ultimately killed the HSP Corporation, but it did not immediately end Patterson’s tenure at Gold Star Studios, which he still controlled as the lessee to the property. And for a while, even after Quinn sold the facility to new ownership, Patterson was still around.

Meanwhile, this change in the executive administration and staff was re-fl ected by a physical alteration within the structure. Just after Holford pulled out, the control room for the big studio was moved downstairs—probably in March or April of 1966.

Stevenson and Patterson had built the new downstairs control room about fi fteen months after Studio B was created. It was a virtual duplicate of the original control room upstairs, although a bit smaller, and located directly below it. It was fourteen feet long by thirteen feet wide, with a ten-foot-high ceiling. The fl oor was raised about eighteen inches to allow cable-trough access and provide a good view of the big studio. Like the other control room, it had acoustic wall tiles, a dropped ceiling with acoustic tiles, and a linoleum fl oor. Meanwhile, the abandoned space upstairs was converted into an offi ce.

At some point after that, Stevenson departed too.

Although Lurie would remain a bit longer, the end of HSP meant that Patterson had to hire new personnel to keep operating. Somehow he would pull it off , and Gold Star Studios continued to function—despite the expanding ranks of disillusioned former associates—as one of the most active and signifi cant recording sites in Texas.

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14

The HSP Aftermath and

a New Direction

ollowing the dissolution
of the HSP Corporation in 1966, Gold Star Studios nonetheless remained as one of the primary

recording companies in Houston, a status signifi ed in part by its impressively large advertisement in the local Yellow Pages directory. In November 1966 that big ad caught the attention of new Houston resident Jim Duff , who would soon fi nd himself employed there—and unwit-tingly embroiled in controversies generated by J. L. Patterson’s increasingly aberrant management practices. On the other hand, Duff would also get to record some classic tracks during the next phase of Gold Star operations.

Duff , who had some previous background in recording, had arrived from Florida in August, fi rst fi nding work in the furniture business. A few months later, having seen the Gold Star ad in the Yellow Pages, he called to inquire about employment possibilities and, to his surprise, was off ered an immediate interview for a part-time engineer position. When Duff visited the facility, his audition took place in a four-track room with an enormous twenty-channel tube console designed by Louis Stevenson. Duff had never seen a soundboard that large, but he got the job.

Following the interview he was told that many hit records had been made at Gold Star Studios and that the complex was now owned by a thirty-seven-year-old Texas “millionaire” named J. L. Patterson. Whether or not Patterson rightfully possessed a million dollars, he did not actually own the facility; he was leasing it from the increasingly reclusive Bill Quinn, who still resided next door. That fi rst day Duff also met the two full-time engineers, Gaylan Shelby and Bob Lurie, as well as the new studio manager, Don Travis (aka

“Cadet Don,” a persona he had adopted as a local children’s television show host).

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Within two days of Duff ’s start there, Shelby quit in a dispute with Patterson over nonpayment of engineer fees. That schism created a full-time opening for the new employee, but it also made him uneasy. He soon discovered too that Lurie was frustrated with Patterson, but Duff initially ascribed that to the fact that Lurie’s classical music background may not have meshed well with the staples of Gold Star recording: country, blues, rock, and pop.

Nevertheless, remaining for the most part uninformed about any behind-the-scenes troubles, Duff plunged into his work. “One of my fi rst sessions at Gold Star was an album for Utah Carl in late 1966, and I think he paid for it himself,” Duff says. “I also remember doing albums for Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records on Clifton Chenier, and on Gatemouth Brown for manager/producer Roy Ames.” Soon, however, he found himself pulled into an entirely diff erent kind of project.

Near the start of 1967, the Houston Symphony Orchestra initiated plans for Gold Star to make a remote recording. Guest conductor Andre Previn (who later returned in a full-time role) wanted to record a rehearsal so that he and the composer could evaluate the progress of a major new work. That piece was
Elegy for Strings
by John Williams, who later scored grand soundtracks for fi lms such as
Star Wars.
As the assistant to Lurie, Duff gamely loaded up studio gear, transported it to the spacious Jones Hall in downtown Houston, and installed it for the session.

The recording was successful, and Previn and Williams soon visited Gold Star Studios to mix and edit—taking all the tapes, including outtakes, with them when fi nished. In a few days they scheduled a second remote recording session. However, during the brief interval between those two sessions, Duff had witnessed another angry resignation when Lurie suddenly packed his gear and left for New York—which he had incessantly been threatening to do.

The last holdover from the HSP era, and like all the engineers before him, Lurie was reportedly dissatisfi ed with Patterson’s handling of remuneration.

In fairness, we note Duff ’s report that Lurie had also frequently expressed his disdain for living in Texas.

Having absorbed some of Lurie’s recording techniques, Duff promptly found himself promoted to chief engineer and working solo with the orchestra. He says he scrutinized Previn’s every gesture, bringing up the relevant microphones as the maestro pointed to sections during the trial takes. Somehow Duff pulled it off , as well as the subsequent mixing and editing session with Previn and Williams. Though he could not read a note of the music on pages that Previn often pointed to in their discussions, he had the ears and technical savvy to engineer a successful on-location symphony recording.

By the way, in 1965 the Houston Symphony Orchestra (then directed by Ezra Rachlin) had previously visited Gold Star Studios to record
Texas Suite,
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a piece by composer David Guion, commissioned by Ima Hogg. Lurie had engineered that project in the big studio room. But Duff ’s more recent recordings represented something altogether new for Gold Star—that is, going out to record large orchestras in live performance at public venues. Thus, Duff inadvertently helped start a tradition that has continued to date (with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, Houston Grand Opera, Shepherd School Symphony of Rice University, Orchestra X, Symphony of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, International Festival-Institute at Round Top, and others).

But

Duff , like each of his predecessors, soon realized that his pay was falling into arrears. As the sole remaining engineer, he decided to confront the alleged millionaire owner, whom he had yet to meet. However, the smooth-talking Patterson convinced Duff that his fears were groundless and all debts would soon be covered. He even persuaded Duff to accept the title of general manager. As Duff explains, “Cadet Don was real frustrated trying to manage a studio with the engineers all preparing to leave. That’s what I found when I fi rst got here. He really didn’t know how to go about managing a studio, and I eventually took over from him.”