Temples of Sound

Just what the name says.
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lukpac
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Temples of Sound

Postby lukpac » Mon Jun 16, 2003 8:47 am

This sounds interesting. Anyone picked it up yet?

http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 30307/1004

Article published Jun 13, 2003
Well-intentioned 'Temples' falls short of noble mission

By Terry Pace
Entertainment Editor

A truly inspired idea forms the foundation of "Temples of Sound," an intriguing though ultimately frustrating new volume of music history that's subtitled "Inside the Great Recording Studios."

For music buffs, the basic concept couldn't be more compelling: Co-authors Jim Cogan (a Wisconsin-based engineer and producer) and William Clark (a playwright and songwriter from Washington, D.C.) select and explore the stories and secrets behind 15 recording studios that determined the direction of American popular music in the 20th century.

There's Sun Studios, of course (or, more accurately, the Memphis Recording Service), where Florence native Sam Phillips first brought black Delta blues to record buyers through the early recordings of Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Rufus Thomas and Little Milton.

Then, working with a one-of-a-kind new discovery named Elvis Presley, Phillips blended white country and black rhythm-and-blues into an earth-shattering sound called "rock 'n' roll." From the mid-to-late 1950s, Presley was quickly followed at Sun by fellow "rockabilly" revolutionaries Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and many others.

"Temples of Sound" also honors another mainstay of the Memphis, Tenn., music scene – Stax, the fabled "Soulsville U.S.A." funk factory where Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Johnnie Taylor, Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers cut dozens of sizzling soul hits in the 1960s.

Moving above the Mason-Dixon line, Motown's "Hitsville U.S.A." studio naturally makes the list, as does Atlantic, the New York studio that served as the home base for a pioneering R&B label whose roster of artists included Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, The Drifters, The Coasters and Solomon Burke.

Chicago is represented by the mythic blues label Chess -- where Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and Howlin' Wolf left their mark on future generations of blues-based rockers – as well as Universal, a meeting place for such musical movers and shakers as Count Basie, Jackie Wilson, Gene Chandler and the Impressions.

"Temples of Sound" doesn't limit itself to the sounds of blues, rock and soul: You'll encounter pop crooners Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee and Alabama's own Nat "King" Cole at the famed Capitol Studios in Hollywood. You'll follow Presley out of Memphis and over to Nashville, where the "King of Rock 'n' Roll" shared the legendary RCA Studio B with Jim Reeves, Don Gibson, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers and a gallery of country and pop stars.

The anointed "Temples" also include Los Angeles' Sunset Sound (which hosted sessions for the Rolling Stones and Prince as well as Walt Disney and the Doors) and United Western Recorders (home base of everything from the smooth soul of Sam Cooke to the soaring "Pet Sounds" harmony of the Beach Boys) and J&M in New Orleans (where the studio's musical gumbo mixed the spicy seasonings of Allen Toussaint, Fats Domino and Little Richard).

Along with Atlantic, Manhattan makes the "Temples of Sound" roll of honor with Columbia Studios (birthplace of classic cuts by Bob Dylan and Billie Holiday), while New Jersey's Van Gelder Studio served up the smooth jazz of John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. The "Philly Sound" is celebrated with Sigma, a studio whose chart-topping records ranged from the O'Jays' "Back Stabbers" to David Bowie's "Young Americans."

The book concludes with a visit to Criteria Studios in Miami, where the late studio wizard Tom Dowd

(whose career frequently carried him to Muscle Shoals) worked equally astonishing studio magic on groups as seemingly incompatible as the Bee Gees, the Eagles, the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Filled with plenty of rare and revealing photos, "Temples of Sound" looks terrific and is generally well-written. Each chapter includes fascinating reflections, insights and recollections from such studio trailblazers as Phillips, Dowd, Jerry Wexler, Ahmet Ertegun, Phil Ramone and Quincy Jones, whose foreword provides the historical perspective of an industry insider. The authors also examine the technical side of the studio scene – along with radical changes in technology over the past five decades – with refreshing clarity.

With all of these factors working in its favor, what, then, could possibly be wrong with this crisscrossing tour of our country's most hallowed "Temples of Sound"?

For one thing, any self-respecting fan of Southern soul – along with any proud citizen of northwest Alabama -- will note the glaring omission of Muscle Shoals from the "Temples of Sound" chapters. The reasoning, it would seem, is that the world-famous "Muscle Shoals sound" was place-specific only in regard to its geographic proximity and people, and not to one studio in particular.

In a way, that would seem like a reasonable argument: How do you select one "temple" from the complex history of the Muscle Shoals recording industry, which at one point included 11 commercial studios?

The legendary FAME studio on Avalon Avenue definitely added the area to the musical map, but Muscle Shoals Sound carried the torch as well (and from two Sheffield locations – first on Jackson Highway, and now on Alabama Avenue). And if you have to select a single session that sent the "Muscle Shoals sound" soaring around the world, it would have to be Percy Sledge recording "When a Man Loves a Woman" – which occurred not at FAME or Sound, but at Quin Ivy's Nor-Ala studio in Sheffield.

Even if you accept the reasoning behind the omission of Muscle Shoals, the local music industry suffers shoddy treatment throughout "Temples of Sound." Poorly edited and unevenly researched, the book is riddled with factual and interpretive errors that severely damage the authors' musical credibility. Bobby Goldsboro's name, for instance, is spelled correctly in one place, then misspelled "Goldsborough" in another. We're also introduced to "Glenn" Campbell and Etta "Jones," among others.

The individual chapters on Atlantic and Stax fail to note that many of those labels' best-known recordings (most of Wilson Pickett's hits, for example, as well as the Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There") were actually recorded in Muscle Shoals instead of Memphis.

The area is mentioned by name only twice – once in reference to Phillips' birth, and when the authors draw the dubious conclusion that Wexler "settled" on bringing Aretha Franklin to Muscle Shoals when Stax unexpectedly shut him out of Memphis. Wexler had, in fact, been barred from Stax much earlier (following an early Pickett session), and had established FAME as his preferred home base by the time Franklin signed with Atlantic in 1966.

The authors do at least acknowledge that Muscle Shoals musicians traveled to New York to record "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" and other groundbreaking Franklin hits, and the book includes a rare photo of Franklin in the sound booth with Wexler, fellow producer-engineers Dowd and Arif Mardin and Muscle Shoals musicians David Hood, Roger Hawkins and Duane Allman.

A couple of egregious errors also crop up in "Sun Studios: Mecca for Rebels," an otherwise-engaging chapter on Phillips, Presley and the Memphis rockabilly movement. Sally Wilbourn, Phillips' longtime assistant and companion, is mistakenly referred to as the producer's "wife and assistant since the late 1950s." They're not married, and she joined Sun in 1955.

In the chapter on RCA Studio B, the authors also make the ludicrous claim that Presley was a "great musician" (he wasn't) who "actually produced all of his records himself" (he didn't) except when he worked in Memphis with Phillips in the '50s or former Muscle Shoals musicmaker Chips Moman in the late '60s.

In their introduction, the authors of "Temples of Sound" proudly boast that their book "opens the door to some of the great rooms where the American soundtrack was recorded." Deeply passionate and clearly well-intentioned, the writers obviously meant "Temples of Sound" to be an affectionate and enlightening look at the art of music and the creative process of sound recording.

It's a shame that irritating issues of accuracy, scope and understanding undermine what should have been a noble musical mission.

Terry Pace can be reached at 740-5741 or terry.pace@timesdaily.com.

mikenycLI
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Postby mikenycLI » Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:09 am

Luke, did he discuss Gold Star ????


Mike

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lukpac
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Postby lukpac » Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:13 am

All I know about this book is what's posted above...