Combines with history of Muscle Shoals Sound
Noel Webster knows what it takes to upkick a recording from just sounding good to sounding great. He did it for thirteen years as owner and producer of Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. Today, he continues to do that with the reincarnation of another iconic musical brand that today’s artists can be a part of.
Chess Records – along with Motown and Stax – has a special place in the history of popular music. These were studios where dedicated people found a way to bring the sound of R&B to the ears of America and the world. Noel has saved the iconic Chess name from oblivion and is set to create recordings again under the Chess logo.
Noel found that all the copyrights relating to Chess Records, its name and its logos had been abandoned and allowed to lapse. He formed a corporation under the name Chess Records LLC and copyrighted the name and the original logo.
Noel now provides artists with an all-in-one studio recording experience that combines tracking, mixing and mastering in one place. (More about that later.)
‘Music history’ in every piece
Noel Webster and I have been friends for many years and we got together to catch up and talk about his latest ventures. We met at his studio in Huntsville, Alabama, that is unlike any studio I have ever seen. Set in a craggy hillside and surrounded by trees and vegetation, it is private without being remote. As Noel told me, artists can sit out on the wraparound porch to work out a few licks without worrying about annoying the neighbors. However, some curious deer sometimes stop by to listen as they drink from the water trickling over the rocks out back.
Inside, it has an ultra-modern vibe with an open plan and hardwood floors. But then you see all the gear and realize this is ‘old school.’ As we walked through the studio, it seemed that every piece of equipment had its own story.
“All the music stands and all the speakers in the main room and the control room came from Capitol Records, said Noel. “The console’s parts came from Capitol Records. Capitol had ‘mirrored’ consoles, identical consoles, in both Los Angeles and New York.”
The Capitol console dates from the early 1960s and Noel devoted a lot of time to refurbishing and rewiring it. We also looked at some of the musical instruments in the studio.
Hammond organ signed with a screwdriver
“Bobby Whitlock from Derek and the Dominoes donated his Hammond organ,” said Noel. Whitlock had signed it and dedicated it to Noel, not with a pen but by scratching the scrawl into to the organ’s cover with a screwdriver!
“The drum set came from Mark Herndon [who played with the band Alabama]. I think that was his ’85 tour kit. The Ampeg Fliptop amp over there came from Bob Babbitt of Motown. Different speakers and microphones have a lot of historical significance. The mastering room came from the Hit Factory in New York City. A lot of the processing pieces are from Bill Putnam of Universal Audio. There’s Les Paul’s test equipment. Everything here had done famous things prior to us getting them.”
Back then, the labels gave [artists] the ability to make two, three, four, five albums. They let them develop on their own, to come into themselves, basically, instead of ‘we’re gonna chase what’s on the radio now and try to do the Nashville thing.’ Artists now need the same ability to develop. If we can get them on the right path and get them their sound and get them some cool stuff to make them original audio-wise, that’s what I see. – Noel Webster
But these aren’t simply museum pieces. Noel has no interest in just putting them behind silk ropes for people to look at. Every piece is fully working and is used as part of his recording process. Artists who come to Noel’s studio discover a sound that is impossible to replicate using only modern, all-digital, equipment. Even when played back over digital devices, the difference in audio quality is noticeable.
Six semi-trailers of music history
Interestingly, most of the pieces were destined to become museum exhibits. The Museum of Sound Recording donated a huge collection to Noel when they were no longer able to secure funding to operate a suitable display space. They sent down six semi-trailers from their warehouses in New York and New Jersey. He found ‘working homes’ for the pieces he couldn’t use himself.
“It’s like you have to use these essential tools, to not shelve them, but to let them live again to make records,” Noel emphasized.
Bringing Chess Records back to life is just the latest piece of the impact that Noel has made – and continues to make – on music. In fact, he had also rescued Muscle Shoals Sound Studios (MSSS) from destruction many years ago. He had visited Muscle Shoals and found the building abandoned and almost derelict.
Realizing the cultural importance of the place, and the number of huge hits that had been created there, he knew he had to do something. The building was condemned but the city gave him 90 days to repair it or it would be going under the wrecking ball. Noel got to work and saved the building, turning it back into a fully functioning recording studio. Noel now operates MSSS from his Huntsville studio.
‘World class’ analog studio built for UA
Noel’s expertise was called upon, too, by the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He became the first person in the state’s history to design and build a world-class analog recording studio on an Alabama college campus. It is now installed in the University’s recently renovated Roberts Recital Hall.
You can see and hear a brief interview with Noel, recorded at MSSS, conducted by the Oxford American, here. There is also a one-hour audio interview with Noel, going into detail about the history of MSSS, and the acquisition of all that historic studio equipment, here. Due to Noel’s efforts, the building is now registered as a national historic landmark.
He still owns the legal name of Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, although he sold the physical building that once housed the business. It felt a bit surreal to see the framed legal ownership documents for both Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and Chess Records, side by side on the wall in Noel’s Huntsville studio.
Nothing ‘smashed and compressed’
We listened to some of the tracks that Noel had recorded (and also mixed and mastered) in his Huntsville studio. The sound is nothing short of amazing. As Noel points out, “Nothing is smashed and compressed with ProTools.”
It is heartwarming to hear recordings made on equipment that had been destined to become silent museum exhibits, or – worse still – broken down for scrap.
In the second part of this two-part post, we will continue talking to Noel and find out more about how today’s artists can record at his studio to capture the tone that only this priceless equipment can create.
Preshias Harris is a music journalist and music career development consultant with the emphasis on new and aspiring artists and songwriters. Her book, ‘The College of Songology 101: The Singer/Songwriter’s Need to Know Reference Handbook’ is available at www.collegeofsongology.com Follow her blog at www.nashvillemusicline.com
Nice read, interesting and historically today.