Castle Recording Laboratory
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Castle Recording Laboratory
Castle Recording Laboratory (also referred to as Castle Studio, or The Castle) was a recording studio established in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1946 by WSM broadcast engineers Carl Jenkins, George Reynolds and Aaron Shelton. The Castle was Nashville's first commercial recording studio, producing close to half of the songs on the country music charts between 1947 and 1955. History Early history In 1946, recognizing demand for local recording studio services in Nashville, WSM broadcast engineers Carl Jenkins, George Reynolds and Aaron Shelton established Castle Recording Laboratory (named after the radio station's nickname "Air Castle of the South"). The engineers utilized an 8-input mono mixing console designed by Reynolds and WSM's facilities at the National Life and Accident Insurance Company Building at 7th Avenue North and Union Street after broadcast hours, with signals transferred via telephone line to a recording lathe at WSM's backup transmitter site away. Less than a ye ...
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Recording Studio
A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single singer-guitarist, to a large building with space for a full orchestra of 100 or more musicians. Ideally, both the recording and monitoring (listening and mixing) spaces are specially designed by an acoustician or audio engineer to achieve optimum acoustic properties (acoustic isolation or diffusion or absorption of reflected sound echoes that could otherwise interfere with the sound heard by the listener). Recording studios may be used to record singers, instrumental musicians (e.g., electric guitar, piano, saxophone, or ensembles such as orchestras), voice-over artists for advertisements or dialogue replacement in film, television, or animation, foley, or to record their accompanying musical soundtracks. The typical ...
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Hank Williams
Hank Williams (born Hiram Williams; September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century, he recorded 55 singles (five released posthumously) that reached the top 10 of the ''Billboard'' Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 12 that reached No. 1 (three posthumously). Born and raised in Alabama, Williams was given guitar lessons by African-American blues musician Rufus Payne in exchange for meals or money. Payne, along with Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb, had a major influence on Williams' later musical style. Williams began his music career in Montgomery in 1937, when producers at local radio station WSFA hired him to perform and host a 15-minute program. He formed the Drifting Cowboys backup band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote his time to his career. When several of his band members wer ...
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1946 Establishments In Tennessee
Events January * January 6 - The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into four Allied-occupied Austria, occupation zones. * January 10 ** The first meeting of the United Nations is held, at Methodist Central Hall Westminster in London. ** ''Project Diana'' bounces radar waves off the Moon, measuring the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, and proves that communication is possible between Earth and outer space, effectively opening the Space Age. * January 11 - Enver Hoxha declares the People's Republic of Albania, with himself as prime minister of Albania, prime minister. * January 16 – Charles de Gaulle resigns as head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, French provisional government. * January 17 - The United Nations Security Council holds its first session, at Church House, Westmin ...
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Quonset Hut Studio
Quonset Hut Studio was a music recording studio established in 1954 in Nashville, Tennessee by brothers Harold and Owen Bradley as Bradley's Film & Recording Studios and later operated as Columbia Studio B. The Quonset Hut was the first commercial recording studio in what would later become known as Music Row. Today the studio serves as a recording classroom for Belmont University. History In 1954, producer Owen Bradley, along with his brother Harold Bradley, purchased a house at 804 16th Avenue South in Nashville for $7500 to convert into a film and recording studio. The Bradleys tore out the first floor of the house to create recording space in the basement. They also attached a surplus Army Quonset hut that they bought to the back of the house to use as a television studio for filming musical performances. In 1958, the basement space became too crowded and the recording end of the Studios moved into the Quonset Hut. The recording facility became an instant success, attracti ...
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Webb Pierce
Michael Webb Pierce (August 8, 1921 – February 24, 1991) was an American honky-tonk vocalist, songwriter and guitarist of the 1950s, one of the most popular of the genre, charting more number one hits than any other country artist during the decade. His biggest hit was "In the Jailhouse Now", which charted for 37 weeks in 1955, 21 of them at number one. Pierce also charted number one for several weeks each with his recordings of " Slowly" (1954), " Love, Love, Love" (1955), " I Don't Care" (1955), "There Stands the Glass" (1953), " More and More" (1954), "I Ain't Never" (1959), and his first number one " Wondering", which stayed at the top spot for four of its 27 weeks' charting in 1952. He recorded country gospel song "I Love Him Dearly" also. His iconic hit "Teenage Boogie" was covered by British band T. Rex as "I Love to Boogie" in 1974, but credited as being written by the group's lead singer Marc Bolan and not Pierce. The music of Webb was also made popular during the B ...
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Kitty Wells
Ellen Muriel Deason (August 30, 1919 – July 16, 2012), known professionally as Kitty Wells, was an American pioneering female country music singer. She broke down a barrier to women in country music with her 1952 hit recording "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels", which also made her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts and turned her into the first female country superstar. “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” would also be her first of several pop crossover hits. Wells is the only artist to be awarded top female vocalist awards for 14 consecutive years. Her chart-topping hits continued until the mid 1960s, paving the way for and inspiring a long list of female country singers who came to prominence in the 1960s. Wells ranks as the sixth most successful female vocalist in the history of the '' Billboard'' country charts, according to historian Joel Whitburn's book ''The Top 40 Country Hits''. In 1976, she was inducted into the Countr ...
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Red Foley
Clyde Julian "Red" Foley (June 17, 1910 – September 19, 1968) was an American musician who made a major contribution to the growth of country music after World War II. For more than two decades, Foley was one of the biggest stars of the genre, selling more than 25 million records. His 1951 hit, "Peace in the Valley", was among the first million-selling gospel records. A Grand Ole Opry veteran until his death, Foley also hosted the first popular country music series on network television, ''Ozark Jubilee'', from 1955 to 1960. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, which called him "one of the most versatile and moving performers of all time" and "a giant influence during the formative years of contemporary Country music." Biography Foley was born on a farm in Blue Lick, Kentucky, and grew up in nearby Berea. He gained the nickname Red for his hair color. He was born into a musical family, and by the time he was nine was giving impromptu concerts at his father's ...
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Ernest Tubb
Ernest Dale Tubb (February 9, 1914 – September 6, 1984), nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, "Walking the Floor Over You" (1941), marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music. In 1948, he was the first singer to record a hit version of Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson's " Blue Christmas", a song more commonly associated with Elvis Presley and his late-1950s version. Another well-known Tubb hit was "Waltz Across Texas" (1965) (written by his nephew Quanah Talmadge Tubb, known professionally as Billy Talmadge), which became one of his most requested songs and is often used in dance halls throughout Texas during waltz lessons. Tubb recorded duets with the then up-and-coming Loretta Lynn in the early 1960s, including their hit "Sweet Thang". Tubb is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Biography Early years The youngest of five children, Tubb was born on a cot ...
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Owen Bradley
William Owen Bradley (October 21, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American musician and record producer who, along with Chet Atkins, Bob Ferguson, Bill Porter, and Don Law, was one of the chief architects of the 1950s and 1960s Nashville sound in country music and rockabilly.


Before the fame

A native of , United States, Bradley learned piano at an early age, and began playing in local s and roadhouses ...
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Paul Cohen (record Producer)
Paul Cohen (November 10, 1908 – April 1, 1970) was an American country music producer. Career Cohen was chiefly responsible for Nashville's emergence as the country music recording capital and the Nashville Sound and was a long-time Decca Records executive. As President of the Country Music Association (CMA), Cohen was on hand when the Country Music Hall of Fame opened in 1967. Cohen first entered the record business with Columbia in the late 1920s, but in 1934 joined Decca's newly formed American operation, organized by two brothers, Jack and Dave Kapp—old Chicago friends of his. Cohen moved to Cincinnati to become Decca's midwestern branch manager in 1935; in this role he was responsible for scouting, producing and signing new talent in addition to marketing records. During World War II, he gradually took over Decca's hillbilly production work from Dave Kapp, and in the mid-1940s moved to New York to head that branch of the company. With two of Decca's main country st ...
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RCA Records
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Arista Records, and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, classical, rock, hip hop, afrobeat, electronic, R&B, blues, jazz, and country. Its name is derived from the initials of its defunct parent company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). RCA Records was fully acquired by Bertelsmann in 1987, making it a part of Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and became a part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment after the 2004 merger of BMG and Sony; it was acquired by the latter in 2008, after the dissolution of Sony/BMG and the restructuring of Sony Music. RCA Records is the corporate successor of the Victor Talking Machine Company, founded in 1901, making it the second-oldest record label in American his ...
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Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the state, List of United States cities by population, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the fourth most populous city in the southeastern United States, southeastern U.S. Located on the Cumberland River, the city is the center of the Nashville metropolitan area, which is one of the fastest growing in the nation. Named for Francis Nash, a general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, the city was founded in 1779. The city grew quickly due to its strategic location as a port on the Cumberland River and, in the 19th century, a railroad center. Nashville seceded with Tennessee during the American Civil War; in 1862 it was the first state capital in the Confederate ...
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