Piety Street Recording is a recording studio at 728 Piety Street in the
9th Ward
The Ninth Ward or 9th Ward is a distinctive region of New Orleans, Louisiana, which is located in the easternmost downriver portion of the city. It is geographically the largest of the 17 Wards of New Orleans. On the south, the Ninth Ward is bound ...
/
Bywater,
.
History
The building was originally a US post office and later housed the Louisiana Center For Retarded Citizens. After a few short-term tenants, the building was purchased in 1999 by producer/engineer/musician
Mark Bingham
Mark Kendall Bingham (May 22, 1970 – September 11, 2001) was an American public relations executive who founded his own company, the Bingham Group. During the September 11 attacks in 2001, he was a passenger on board United Airlines Flight 93. ...
and ex-REM manager
Jefferson Holt. In 2001 it was rebuilt as a 3-studio recording facility and christened Piety Street Recording. Other partners included artist and studio manager Shawn Hall and producer/engineer John Fishbach, with Wesley Fontenot serving as chief engineer. The studio's largest room, Studio A, utilized a 48-channel
SSL 4064 G+ loaded with 30 outboard microphone preamps.
Acts who have recorded at Piety Street include:
Pretty Lights
Derek Vincent Smith (born November 25, 1981), known by his stage name Pretty Lights, is an American electronic music producer. Pretty Lights was originally a music project consisting of Smith and Michal Menert, who left after the release of their ...
,
Dr. Michael White
Michael White (born November 29, 1954 in New Orleans) is a jazz clarinetist, bandleader, composer, jazz historian and musical educator. Jazz critic Scott Yanow said in a review that White "displays the feel and spirit of the best New Orleans cl ...
,
Dr. John
Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019), better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer and songwriter. His music encompassed New Orleans blues, jazz, funk, and R&B.
Active as a session musician from ...
,
Ryan Adams
David Ryan Adams (born November 5, 1974) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, artist, and poet. He has released 23 albums, as well as three studio albums as a former member of alt-country band Whiskeytown.
In 2000, Adams left ...
,
[ ]Dave Matthews Band
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, Garage A Trois
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Gar ...
, Dany Brillant
Dany Brillant (; né Daniel Cohen-Biran, 28 December 1965 in Tunis), is a French singer of a Jewish- Tunisian origin.
Born in Tunis, his parents immigrated to France while he was a newborn infant. They settled in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois n ...
, Elvis Costello
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& Allen Toussaint
Allen Richard Toussaint (; January 14, 1938 – November 10, 2015) was an American musician, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was an influential figure in New Orleans rhythm and blues from the 1950s to the end of the century, descri ...
, Harold Battiste
Harold Raymond Battiste Jr. (October 28, 1931 – June 19, 2015) was an American music composer, arranger, performer, and teacher. A native of, and later community leader in, New Orleans, he is best known for his work as an arranger on record ...
, Terence Blanchard
Terence Oliver Blanchard (born March 13, 1962) is an American trumpeter and composer. He started his career in 1982 as a member of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, then The Jazz Messengers. He has composed more than forty film scores and performed ...
,[ ]The Black Eyed Peas
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, Crowbar, Dirty Dozen Brass Band
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, Drums and Tuba
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...
, Joe Sample
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, Ed Sanders
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, 3 Doors Down, Steve Earle
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, Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson (born December 4, 1955) is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. She is one of the most successful female Jazz singers and has been described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed wi ...
, Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars
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, Harry Shearer
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,[ ]Judith Owen
Judith Owen (born 2 January 1969) is a Welsh singer-songwriter. Her first North American album, ''Emotions on a Postcard'', was released in 1996 and has been followed by several additional albums. She is co-founder of Twanky Records with her hu ...
, OK GO
OK Go is an American rock band originally from Chicago, Illinois, now based in Los Angeles, California. The band is composed of Damian Kulash (lead vocals, guitar), Tim Nordwind (bass guitar and vocals), Dan Konopka (drums and percussion), and ...
, Shannon McNally
Shannon Maureen McNally (born March 17, 1973) is an American singer and songwriter.
Biography
McNally was born in Hempstead, New York, on Long Island. While studying anthropology at Franklin and Marshall College, she began singing and playing ...
, John Mooney, Nellie McKay
Nell Marie McKay (born April 13, 1982) is a singer and songwriter. She made her Broadway debut in ''The Threepenny Opera'' (2006).
Early life and education
McKay was born in London to an English father, writer-director Malcolm McKay, and an ...
, Erin McKeown
Erin McKeown (pronounced ) is an American multi-instrumentalist and folk-rock singer-songwriter. McKeown's music encompasses pop, swing, rock, folk, and electronic music, as well as several other genres.
Music career
They grew up in Freder ...
, Korn
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Originally formed in 1993 ...
, The Knux
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, Imagination Movers
The Imagination Movers are an American children's band formed in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2003. The line-up includes drummer Rich Collins, lead singer, keyboardist and mandolin player Scott Durbin, bassist Dave Poche, and guitarist Scott "Smit ...
, Charlie Hunter
Charlie Hunter (born May 23, 1967) is an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. First coming to prominence in the early 1990s, Hunter plays custom-made seven- and eight-string guitars on which he simultaneously plays bass lines, chords, a ...
, Hot 8 Brass Band, Happy Talk Band Happy Talk Band is a seminal alt country/rock band from New Orleans featuring the songwriting of Luke Allen. The band pulls influences from traditional country and early rock. The band's music contains themes including the joys and pitfalls of boo ...
, Mary Flower
Mary Flower is an American musician and music educator on the independent Yellow Dog Records label. A blues and ragtime fingerstyle guitarist and vocalist, she combines intricate syncopated Piedmont style fingerpicking with lap-slide guitar.
...
, Nicholas Payton
Nicholas Payton (born September 26, 1973) is an American trumpet player and multi-instrumentalist. A Grammy Award winner, he is from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is also a prolific and provocative writer who comments on a multitude of subjects, inc ...
, Less Than Jake
Less Than Jake is an American ska punk band from Gainesville, Florida, formed in 1992. The band consists of Chris DeMakes (guitars, vocals), Roger Lima (bass, vocals), Matt Yonker (drums), Buddy Schaub (trombone), and Peter "JR" Wasilewski (saxoph ...
,[ James Singleton, ]Jon Cleary
Jon Stephen Cleary (22 November 191719 July 2010) was an Australian writer and novelist. He wrote numerous books, including '' The Sundowners'' (1951), a portrait of a rural family in the 1920s as they move from one job to the next, and '' The ...
, Bo Kaspers Orkester
Bo Kaspers Orkester is a Swedish pop-rock band with strong influences of jazz, formed in 1991. Consist of Bo Sundström, Fredrik Dahl, Michael Malmgren and Mats Schubert and won a Grammis award in 1998 for ''artist of the year''.
Discography Alb ...
, Alec Ounsworth
Alec Ounsworth (born December 1, 1977) is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and frontman of indie rock band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. He is also a member of The Pelican Picnic and Flashy Python. His first solo album, '' Mo Beauty'' was ...
, Peter Stampfel
Peter Stampfel (born October 29, 1938, in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin) is an American fiddle player, old-time musician, and singer-songwriter.
Stampfel is best known as a member of the Holy Modal Rounders, a psychedelic folk band that he founded with ...
, Jay Weigel, and John Scofield
John Scofield (born December 26, 1951), sometimes referred to as "Sco", is an American guitarist and composer whose music over a long career has blended jazz, jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul and rock. He first came to mainstream attention in the ...
who named a CD after the studio. Other artists who have used the Piety Street title on their CD's include James Blood Ulmer
James "Blood" Ulmer (born February 8, 1940) is an American jazz, free funk and blues guitarist and singer. Ulmer plays a Gibson Byrdland guitar. His guitar sound has been described as "jagged" and "stinging". His singing has been called "ragge ...
, Eric Lindell
Eric Lindell (born 1969, Northern California, United States) is an American singer-songwriter. His recording career began in 1996 as a regional Sonoma County-based artist. Since 2006, when he was picked up by Alligator Records, he has toured nat ...
, and Christina Groth.
In August 2013, owner Mark Bingham shuttered the studio after 12 years of operation. When asked about his decision to vacate the space, his response was, ''"The spiritual intention of the city of New Orleans and its music scene is vastly different than it was 10 or 20 years ago," "It would have been fine to keep going, but I felt the world had changed.”'' Less than a year later, Alex Ebert, lead singer of the band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, bought the 4,865-square-foot studio for $750,000.
References
External links
pietystreet.com
Recording studios in the United States
{{recording-studio-stub