RCA Studio B was a music recording studio built in 1956 in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

RCA Victor 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 A ...

. Originally known simply as "RCA Studios," Studio B, along with the larger and later RCA Studio A became known in the 1960s for being an essential factor to the development of the musical production style and sound engineering technique known as the

Nashville Sound The Nashville Sound originated during the mid-1950s as a subgenre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of the rough honky tonk music, which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s, with "smooth strings and choruses", "sophis ...

. In the two decades the studio was in operation, RCA Studio B produced 60 percent of the ''Billboard'' magazine's

Country chart Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sa ...

hits. The studio closed in 1977. The studio is located centrally in the Nashville's historic Music Row district. Since 1992 the studio has been under the ownership of the

Country Music Hall of Fame The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the world's largest museums and research centers dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of American vernacular music. Chartered in 1964, the museum has ama ...

, which offers scheduled tours of the facilities.

Early history

After years of using portable equipment to record projects in various recording facilities around Nashville, in 1954 Steve Sholes and Chet Atkins established RCA Victor's first Nashville recording facility within the Methodist Television Radio & Film Commission building at 1525 McGavock Street. In January, 1956, Sholes and Atkins produced a session with

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...

, during which he recorded the song ''

Heartbreak Hotel "Heartbreak Hotel" is a song recorded by American singer Elvis Presley. It was released as a single on January 27, 1956, Presley's first on his new record label RCA Victor. It was written by Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden, with credit being ...

'' that would become his first gold record and the biggest-selling single of 1956.

Studio

Business offices resided in the single-story front of the building, with studio facilities in the rear. The studio measured , with a high ceiling. A

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, acquired from '' NBC's Tonight Starring Steve Allen'', sat in the corner. The small

control room A control room or operations room is a central space where a large physical facility or physically dispersed service can be monitored and controlled. It is often part of a larger command center. Overview A control room's purpose is produc ...

was only deep, and housed an RCA radio station tube console with 12 microphone inputs and four outputs, which fed an Ampex 2-track deck. An echo chamber occupied the second story. In March, 1959, Bill Porter replaced Bob Ferris, RCA Studio B's first chief engineer, and by June had mixed a number one hit: " The Three Bells" by

The Browns The Browns were an American country and folk music vocal trio best known for their 1959 Grammy-nominated hit, " The Three Bells". The group, composed of Jim Ed Brown and his sisters Maxine and Bonnie, had a close, smooth harmony characteristic ...

. Porter considered the studio's

acoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acousticia ...

problematic, with

resonant room modes Room modes are the collection of resonances that exist in a room when the room is excited by an acoustic source such as a loudspeaker. Most rooms have their fundamental resonances in the 20 Hz to 200 Hz region, each frequency being rel ...

creating an uneven

frequency response In signal processing and electronics, the frequency response of a system is the quantitative measure of the magnitude and phase of the output as a function of input frequency. The frequency response is widely used in the design and analysis of s ...

. To lessen the problem, he took some $60 from the studio's

petty cash Petty cash is a small amount of discretionary funds in the form of cash used for expenditures where it is not sensible to make any disbursement by cheque, because of the inconvenience and costs of writing, signing, and then cashing the cheque. ...

and bought

fiberglass Fiberglass ( American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cl ...

acoustic ceiling panels which he cut into triangles and hung from the ceiling at varying heights; these were dubbed "Porter Pyramids". Porter also marked "X"es on the floor where he discovered, by careful experimentation, the resonant modes to be minimal. Porter positioned lead

vocalist Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

s, background vocalists, and

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

ists at microphones placed directly over his marks. After these improvements,

Don Gibson Donald Eugene Gibson (April 3, 1928 – November 17, 2003) was an American songwriter and country musician. A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Gibson wrote such country standards as " Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Stop Loving You", and enjoy ...

recorded his album ''Girls, Guitars and Gibson'' in the studio. Porter later told an interviewer: "Everybody said, 'God, what a different sound! Porter also preferred the luminous echo of the studio's EMT 140

plate reverb A reverb effect, or reverb, is an audio effect applied to a sound signal to simulate reverberation. It may be created through physical means, such as echo chambers, or electronically through audio signal processing. Echo chambers The first re ...

rather than its echo chamber, keeping the plates chilled in the air conditioned room to brighten their sound. In 1960 and 1961, an addition was built to provide office space and rooms for tape mastering and a lacquer mastering lab. Nashville painter and singer/songwriter Gil Veda—introduced to the Grand Ole Opry crowd as "The Spanish Hank Williams" in 1962—was the first Hispanic singer to record at RCA's Studio B. In her 1994 memoir, ''My Life And Other Unfinished Business'',

Dolly Parton Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman, known primarily for her work in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album ...

recounted how she was rushing to her first recording session at Studio B in October 1967 (shortly after having signed with RCA Victor) and, in her haste to make the session on time, drove her car through the side wall of the building. She noted that the spot where her car impacted the building is still visible.

Production style

Quonset Hut Studio, RCA Studio B, and later RCA Studio A, were essential locations to the development of the "''Nashville Sound''." Chet Atkins and the production team at RCA Studio B, notably Steve Sholes,

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 so ...

, Bob Ferguson, and Bill Porter produced studio recordings in the Nashville Sound style, a sophisticated style characterized by background vocals and strings. The Nashville Sound both revived the popularity of

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, whi ...

music and helped establish Nashville's reputation as an international recording center, with these three studios at the center of what would become known as Music Row.

Historic landmark

In 1977, the studio was made available to the

for tours, and in 1992 it was donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame by the late Dan Maddox. Until 2001, it was operated as an attraction when the new home for the Hall of Fame was built in downtown Nashville. From 2001 to 2011 the studio was co-operated by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Belmont University's

Mike Curb Michael Curb (born December 24, 1944) is an American musician, record company executive, motorsports car owner, philanthropist, and former politician. He is also the founder of Curb Records where he presently serves as the chairman. Curb also ...

College of Entertainment and Music Business program, which utilized the studio to teach students basic techniques of analog recording. In 2012, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properti ...

listed RCA Studio B on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. The same year, operation shifted solely to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which offers daily scheduled tours of the studio.

List of notable artists recorded

More than 47,000 songs were recorded at RCA Studio B, many by legendary music artists.

is known to have recorded more than two hundred songs at this location. Following is a list of some notable artists who recorded songs at Studio B. * Eddy Arnold * Chet Atkins *

Bobby Bare Robert Joseph Bare Sr. (born April 7, 1935) is an American country music singer and songwriter, best known for the songs " Marie Laveau", " Detroit City" and " 500 Miles Away from Home". He is the father of Bobby Bare Jr., also a musician. Earl ...

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* Jerry Byrd *

Floyd Cramer Floyd Cramer (October 27, 1933 – December 31, 1997) was an American pianist who became famous for his use of melodic "half step" attacks. He was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His signatur ...

* Skeeter Davis * Dottsy * Ronnie Dove *

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Hank Garland Walter Louis Garland (11 November 1930 – 27 December 2004), professionally Hank Garland, was an American guitarist and songwriter. He started as a country musician, played rock and roll as it became popular in the 1950s, and released a jazz al ...

Mickey Gilley Mickey Leroy Gilley (March 9, 1936 – May 7, 2022) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Although he started out singing straight-up country and western material in the 1970s, he moved towards a more pop-friendly sound in the 19 ...

Bobby Goldsboro Robert Charles Goldsboro (born January 18, 1941) is an American pop and country singer and songwriter. He had a string of pop and country hits in the 1960s and 1970s, including his signature No. 1 hit "Honey", which sold over 1 million copies in ...

* Billy Grammer *

Buddy Harman Murrey Mizell "Buddy" Harman, Jr. (December 23, 1928 – August 21, 2008) was an American country music session musician. Career Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Harman played drums on over 18,000 sessions for artists such as Elvis Presley, Jerry ...

* John Hartford *

Al Hirt Alois Maxwell "Al" Hirt (November 7, 1922 – April 27, 1999) was an American trumpeter and bandleader. He is best remembered for his million-selling recordings of "Java" and the accompanying album ''Honey in the Horn'' (1963), and for the theme ...

Homer and Jethro Homer and Jethro were the stage names of American country music duo Henry D. "Homer" Haynes (1920–1971) and Kenneth C. "Jethro" Burns (1920–1989), popular from the 1940s through the 1960s on radio and television for their satirical versi ...

* Norma Jean *

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* Hank Locklin * John D. Loudermilk * Bob Luman * Charlie McCoy *

Roger Miller Roger Dean Miller Sr. (January 2, 1936 – October 25, 1992) was an American singer-songwriter, widely known for his honky-tonk-influenced novelty songs and his chart-topping country and pop hits " King of the Road", " Dang Me", and "Eng ...

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* Charley Pride *

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* Ronny & the Daytonas * Samuelsons * Connie Smith * Hank Snow * Gary Stewart *

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* Nat Stuckey *

Sue Thompson Sue Thompson (born Eva Sue McKee; July 19, 1925 – September 23, 2021) was an American pop and country music singer. She was best known for the million selling hits " Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)", "Norman", "James (Hold The Ladder Steady)", all we ...

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* Country Johnny Mathis

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rca Studio B Recording studios in Tennessee Buildings and structures in Nashville, Tennessee Culture of Nashville, Tennessee RCA Records Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum