In fact, it was he who located the burned-up console. The brother’s endeavor had attracted the attention of Don Dudley, the DJ, by this time. Many of the major labels released mono and stereo versions of albums to accommodate consumers who had not yet made the switch. FM radio is broadcast in stereo and it was expanding. In the early ‘60’s the recording industry was switching over from monaural to stereophonic recording. Their building had been a radio studio, so their two-channel mixer could be bounced from the left to the right studios. They had it cleaned up and it sounded good. They found a console that had suffered some damage in a fire at radio station WSPA. Through this fortuitous alignment the boy’s technological ambitions grew from the glorified rehearsal space they had imagined. Rigby was an electrical engineer who had done some work with the father of the electric guitar, Les Paul. Sam’s neighbor at the plating company was a man named Robert Rigby. He lent the guys a little money (with interest) at the start. Their other brother, Sam, owned the Carolina Plating Company out on Highway 253. They had keys to a place where they could play all night. Bill and Harold went off to Atlanta to pick up some used Ampex recording equipment. Having proven themselves on stage, the young musicians marshalled all their money and rented the spot on Mayberry with the hope of recording their own playing. But don’t tell Bill Huffman they were playing rock’n’roll. There is a photo of Country Earl with Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana, two of Elvis Presley’s bandmates. These groups were hep to what was happening. Floyd Edge took the alias Don Dudley for his Uncle Dudley program and fronted a band called the Tunetoppers. Earl Baughman with his Gospel Train and Country Earl shows had a band called the Circle E Ranch Boys. Bill and Harold played in outfits led by two DJ’s from WESC who played the records the kids were wild about. They emerged on the music scene in Greenville while they were yet schoolboys. A lot of people can play a lot of notes, but he never left you guessing where he was in the melody.” “Nobody plays with the speed, with the quality of tone and the beautiful melodic line (he plays with). The admiration for Garland was particularly apparent. “If you weren’t those three people you didn’t play guitar, in our minds,” said Joe Huffman. The brothers had learned to play together listening to Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, and Spartanburg native Hank Garland. Three brothers named Huffman Harold, Bill, and Joe, rented a building at 78 Mayberry Street. The studio’s first location was in the middle of Greenville’s Unity Park. First organized in 1961, Mark V recorded the sounds of the south for the next thirty years. Mark V Studios of Greenville, South Carolina was one of these early independent studios. The possibility of fortune and fame enticed many and kicked off a proliferation of performers. Small-time independent record labels followed by the hundreds. For the first time, the local singer, guitar picker, or church choir could immortalize themselves on a record that they paid to have recorded. These studios were a big step towards the democratization we see in the recording industry today. Studios sprung up in cities across the country. Technical innovations like magnetic tape recording and multi-tracking made higher fidelity possible at a lower cost. In the 1940’s a new hustle emerged in the form of the independent recording studio. If the record did something locally you might hit the road, playing night after night, concerts promoting the records, records promoting concert appearances the ouroboros of the stardom machine. Maybe then they would be offered the chance to make a record. Before MP3’s, before streaming, before laptop recording software, there were records and there was radio.įrom the church or the club, performers might make it lucky and get on the radio.
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