The Town House (also known as Townhouse Studios) was a

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 enoug ...

located at 150

Goldhawk Road Goldhawk Road is a road in west London, which starts at Shepherd's Bush and travels west. There are numerous shops, restaurants and businesses lining the road, which forms the southern boundary of Shepherd's Bush Green. It is designated part of ...

Shepherd's Bush Shepherd's Bush is a district of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Although primarily residential in character, i ...

in London, built in 1978 under the direction of

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

for

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

. The studios changed ownership and eventually ceased operation in 2008, with luxury apartments now in its place. Artists that recorded at The Town House included

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

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Phil Collins Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and lead singer of the rock band Genesis and also has a career as a solo performer. Between 1982 and ...

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Bryan Ferry Bryan Ferry CBE (born 26 September 1945) is an English singer and songwriter. His voice has been described as an "elegant, seductive croon". He also established a distinctive image and sartorial style: according to ''The Independent'', Ferry an ...

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Muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...

Duran Duran Duran Duran () are an English Rock music, rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer and bassist Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor (bass guitarist), John Taylor. With the addition of drummer Roger ...

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Robbie Williams Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

, and

Joan Armatrading Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, (, born 9 December 1950) is a Kittitian-English singer-songwriter and guitarist. A three-time Grammy Award nominee, Armatrading has also been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She received ...

. Studio Two's "Stone Room" was an especially popular place to record drum sounds during the 1980s, directly as a result of producer

Hugh Padgham Hugh Charles Padgham (born 15 February 1955) is an English record producer and audio engineer. He has won four Grammy Awards, for Producer of the Year and Album of the Year for 1985, Record of the Year for 1990, and Engineer of the Year for 199 ...

's treatment of the drums on Phil Collins' "

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History

The Town House was originally managed by Barbara Jeffries as part of the

Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

Studios Group. The Goldhawk Road facility had three recording rooms, numbered One, Two, and Four, with the Townhouse Three designation given to

Ramport Studios Ramport Studios was a recording studio on Thessaly Road, Battersea, south London, owned by the Who. The studio was built in an old church hall. Several major albums were recorded at Ramport, including 1974's ''Crime of the Century'' by Supertram ...

after the Virgin Group acquired it from

The Who The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...

in 1984. Town House Studio One originally was home to a 72-input Helios console with an Alison 64K computer mixdown system, which now resides at Shorefire Recording Studios, Long Branch, New Jersey, United States. The Town House established a close relationship with

Solid State Logic Solid State Logic (SSL) is a British company based in Begbroke, Oxfordshire, England that designs and markets audio mixing consoles, signal processors, and other audio technologies for the post-production, video production, broadcast, sound ...

when it became the first studio in the UK to install an SL 4000 B Series

console Console may refer to: Computing and video games * System console, a physical device to operate a computer ** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device ** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...

in Studio Two in 1978. SSL commemorated the partnership in 1995 by installing its 1000th console, an SL 4000 G+, in The Town House's Studio One. Artists that recorded at The Town House included

General Public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

, and

. Studio Two's "Stone Room" was an especially popular place to record drum sounds during the 1980s, directly as a result of producer

's treatment of the drums on Phil Collins' "

". In July 1984, Town House opened Studio Three in Battersea, which was the former Ramport Studios, purchased from the Who. Studio Three replaced Ramport's Neve console with the original Helios mixing console from Town House Studio One. The Helios console would later be replaced by another Neve console. On 27 August 1986,

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

entered the studio and recorded a few songs including the unreleased "To Fall in Love with You". Thought to be one of Dylan's greatest masterpieces, the song was not completed or considered suitable for official release. Dylan was in England for filming ''Hearts of Fire'', having completed an exhausting tour promoting his album ''

Knocked Out Loaded ''Knocked Out Loaded'' is the 24th studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 14, 1986 by Columbia Records. The album was received poorly upon release, and is still considered by some critics to be one of Dylan's leas ...

''. It is not known how many takes of "To Fall in Love with You" were recorded but only one take exists. Dylan returned to the studio the following day and may have decided to record further songs. In 1992, Branson sold Virgin Records, including the Virgin Studios Group and The Town House, to

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

. In 2002, the Sanctuary Group bought the studio from EMI. Al Stone, a recording engineer and producer who trained at The Town House, ran the studios for Sanctuary beginning in 2006, only to see Universal close it around April 2008 after a Sanctuary buy-out. Today, a luxury apartment complex is located at the address.

References

External links

Townhouse Studios videos at RecordProduction.com
{{Authority control Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Recording studios in London