Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

Category: Recording studios

Columbia Studios (Nashville)
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Nashville’s Mid-Century Moderne Musique

Nashville’s music industry — a massive driver that contributes $5.5 billion to the local economy, for a total output of $9.7 billion in the Nashville area, according to a 2013 Cluster Analysis conducted by the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce — began its ascent in the 1950s and ’60s. Surely

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Cincinnati (OH-KY-IN tri-state area)
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The “Pre-Nashville A Team” at Cincinnati’s Herzog Studios

The Pleasant Valley Boys were considered country music’s first “A Team” of session players, whose services were highly sought by two of the top country artists in Nashville between 1947 and 1948 at the very dawn of that city’s ascendance as one of the world’s great recording capitals. When you

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Central Recording Studio
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Silver Spring’s Central Recording Studio

Jeff Krulik was the first to inform me that back in the mid-to-late 1980s, one could exit Silver Spring’s Track Recorders and walk about a mile or so up Georgia Avenue to reach another commercial sound facility:  Central Recording Studio. Silver Spring historian, Robert Oshel, wrote about this very parcel

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Central Recording Studio
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Central Recording Studio — Silver Spring, MD

Three recording facilities — Adelphi Studios, Track Recorders, and DB Sound — have helped put Silver Spring, Maryland on the world’s musical map, while a fourth, Paragon Studios, is notable for having captured The Muffins’ influential early work (as was noted in the recent Bob Devlin piece) .  Thanks to

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"Bad Girl"
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Bobby Smith’s King Productions 1963-1965

[This piece updated with new content in 2024] LINK to companion piece – Bobby Smith’s King Productions 1966-1973 Ruppli‘s King Labels discography is a 2-volume reference set that can be hard to make sense of initially, given all the subsidiary labels and various quirks in its numbering systems, among other things.

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"(Baby You Can) Scratch My Egg"
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Rusty York’s Cincinnati Indie Label

Billboard, in their January 8, 1972 edition, reported this quirky news item in the Cincinnati division of their “From the Music Capitals Around the World” column: Rusty York, who heads up the Jewel Recording Studio[s] here, learned last week that the new ‘Smash-Up Derby’ commercial [for Cincinnati-based Kenner Products], which he

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Bobby Smith
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Bobby Smith’s King Productions 1966-1973

– This piece updated with new content in 2024 – LINK to companion piece – Bobby’s Smith King Productions 1963-1965 Bobby Smith, we now know, had been commissioned by Syd Nathan to build a recording studio in Macon, Georgia, the adopted hometown of King Records’ biggest star, James Brown.  Thomas Goodwin

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"H2O Gate Blues"
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“H2O Gate Blues”: DB Sound Studios — Silver Spring, MD

This piece updated in 2019 & 2020 * As you may have already gathered, Zero to 180 has a soft spot for music history related to Silver Spring, Maryland.  We now know, for instance, that Track Recorders (with help from its chief engineer, Bill McCullough) was an important recording facility

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Bill McCullough
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Track Recorders: Studio Mad Men

It’s been months in the making, but music history – like good food – cannot be rushed.  Coming this week (and not a moment too soon ) is the next installment of Zero to 180’s epic Silver Spring music history trilogy, with an encore salute to Track Recorders, the recording

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