| Starday-King Sound Studios | |
|---|---|
 Starday-King Sound Studios | |
| Location | 3557 Dickerson Pike Nashville, Tennessee 37207 |
| Built | 1960 |
Starday-King Sound Studios was a recording studio in the Madison neighborhood in northeast Nashville, Tennessee. [1] [2]
| Starday-King Sound Studios | |
|---|---|
| Starday-King Sound Studios | |
| Location | 3557 Dickerson Pike Nashville, Tennessee 37207 |
| Built | 1960 |
Starday-King Sound Studios was a recording studio in the Madison neighborhood in northeast Nashville, Tennessee. [1] [2]
Built in 1960, Starday Sound once was one of the city's busiest studios, with artists including James Brown, Dottie West and Jim Reeves recording there. [3]
When the studio opened as Starday Sound in May 1960, it was Nashville's third commercial recording studio, after RCA Studios and Bradley Film and Recording Studio. [4] Unlike those studios, it was not located in what was to become known as Music Row but in Madison, Tennessee, a bedroom community in northeast Davidson County.
The building shared space with Starday Records president Don Pierce's publishing company. [2] In 1963, Pierce ran a mail order distribution company, The Country Music Record Club of America, out of the building, with a warehouse built onto the existing building. [2]
Many of Starday Records' top acts, including Red Sovine and Cowboy Copas, recorded hits at Starday Sound, but the studio hosted more than country artists. For instance, Jimi Hendrix played guitar on a handful of R&B sessions there during the mid-1960s. [5] When Starday Sound's parent company acquired King Records after label founder Syd Nathan's death in 1968, the studio became known as Starday-King Sound.
James Brown recorded some of his biggest hits at the studio, beginning with "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine", cut in the early hours of April 26, 1970, after Brown wrote the song backstage following a Nashville concert the previous night. [6] Brown also recorded "Super Bad", "Hot Pants", "I'm a Greedy Man" and several other songs there between 1970 and 1975. [3]
In 2016, the mid-century modern building, which has sat vacant since 2000, [3] [7] was named to Historic Nashville's Nashville Nine, a list of properties endangered by demolition, neglect or development. [8] [9] There are petitions and an organized effort to save the studio. [2]
Following is a list of some notable artists who recorded songs at Starday-King Sound Studios.
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist, songwriter and singer. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as the greatest and one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music."
Starday Records was an American record label producing traditional country music during the 1950s and 1960s.
Gusto Records is a Nashville, Tennessee-based record company that specializes in reissuing and licensing recordings.
"Little Wing" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1967. It is a slower tempo, rhythm and blues-inspired ballad featuring Hendrix's vocal and guitar with recording studio effects accompanied by bass, drums, and glockenspiel. Lyrically, it is one of several of his songs that reference an idealized feminine or guardian angel-like figure. At about two and a half minutes in length, it is one of his most concise and melodically focused pieces.
Dottie West was an American country singer and songwriter. She also had several credits as an actress. A distinguished figure in the country genre, West was among several people who helped to elevate the platform of female country artists. She was also known for mentoring up-and-coming artists and being the first woman to win a country music accolade from the Grammy Awards.
Band of Gypsys is a live album by Jimi Hendrix and the first without his original group, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was recorded on January 1, 1970, at the Fillmore East in New York City with Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums, frequently referred to as the Band of Gypsys. The album mixes funk and rhythm and blues elements with hard rock and jamming, an approach which later became the basis of funk rock. It contains previously unreleased songs and was the last full-length Hendrix album released before his death six months later.
Music Row is a historic district located southwest of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Widely considered the heart of Nashville's entertainment industry, Music Row has also become a metonymous nickname for the music industry as a whole, particularly in country music, gospel music, and contemporary Christian music.
BBC Sessions is an album of recordings by the rock group the Jimi Hendrix Experience, released on MCA Records on June 2, 1998. It contains all the surviving tracks from their various appearances on BBC radio programmes, such as Saturday Club and Top Gear, recorded in 1967.
Woodrow Wilson "Red" Sovine was an American country music singer and songwriter associated with truck driving songs, particularly those recited as narratives but set to music. His most noted examples are "Giddyup Go" (1965) and "Teddy Bear" (1976), both of which topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
William "Billy" Cox is an American bassist, best known for performing with Jimi Hendrix. Cox is the only surviving musician to have regularly played with Hendrix: first with the experimental group that backed Hendrix at Woodstock, followed by the trio with drummer Buddy Miles that recorded the live Band of Gypsys album, and, lastly, The Cry of Love Tour trio with Mitch Mitchell back on drums. Cox continues to perform dates with the Band of Gypsys Experience and the Experience Hendrix Tour.
Gary Kellgren was an American audio engineer and co-founder of The Record Plant recording studios, along with businessman Chris Stone.
Rainbow Bridge is a compilation album by American rock musician Jimi Hendrix. It was the second posthumous album release by his official record company and is mostly composed of recordings Hendrix made in 1969 and 1970 after the breakup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Despite the cover photo and subtitle Original Motion Picture Sound Track, it does not contain any songs recorded during his concert appearance for the 1971 film Rainbow Bridge.
"Why Baby Why" is a country music song co-written and originally recorded by George Jones. Released in late 1955 on Starday Records and produced by Starday co-founder and Jones' manager Pappy Daily, it peaked at 4 on the Billboard country charts that year. It was Jones' first chart single, following several unsuccessful singles released during the prior year on Starday.
"Bleeding Heart" is a song written and recorded by American blues musician Elmore James in 1961. Considered "among the greatest of James' songs", "Bleeding Heart" was later popularized by Jimi Hendrix, who recorded several versions of the song.
People, Hell and Angels is a posthumous compilation album by the American rock musician Jimi Hendrix. The fourth release under the Experience Hendrix deal with Legacy Recordings, it contains twelve previously unreleased recordings of tracks he was working on for the planned follow-up to Electric Ladyland. It was released on March 5, 2013.
Marion Agness James was an American blues singer and songwriter. She was considered Nashville's "Queen of the Blues". Her career spanned 60 years, and she had a hit with a song she wrote, "That's My Man".
"Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" or simply "Hey Baby" is a song written and recorded by American musician Jimi Hendrix, from his second posthumous album Rainbow Bridge (1971). The song is a slower and more melodic piece, which features the prominent use of chorus- and tremolo-effects on guitar. Hendrix uses an idealized feminine figure that recurs in several of his lyrics. Commentators have seen the song as representative of his post-Band of Gypsys musical direction.
Songs For Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts is a chronologically sequenced collection of American musician Jimi Hendrix's 1969–1970 New Years recorded performances at the Fillmore East in New York City. It was released as a box set of five-CDs on November 22, 2019 and an eight-LP set on December 13.
Live in Maui is an album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience documenting their performance outdoors on Maui, Hawaii, on July 30, 1970. It marks the first official release of Hendrix's two full sets recorded during the filming of Rainbow Bridge (1971). The two-CD and three-LP set was released on November 20, 2020, along with a video documentary titled Music, Money, Madness ... Jimi Hendrix in Maui.
