The three classic folk albums that were recorded in the same studio at the same time
The property at Hollywood’s 1416 N La Brea Avenue has held an impressive list of prestigious owners. Located just beyond Sunset Boulevard’s southeast corner, its English-style cottage studios were conceived and funded by silent comic star Charlie Chaplin in 1919. The lot’s former orchard turned film backlot, the site of some of his biggest hits, including The Kid, City Lights, and The Great Dictator.
Currently standing as the official Jim Henson Company Lot after its purchase by the Muppet empire in 1999, the recent reports of a $60million buyout from singer-songwriter Joh Mayer and film director McG looks set to spark another chapter in the lot’s storied history.
It’s also served as a key location for scores of classic album sessions. Bought in 1966 by Tijuana Brass band leader Herb Alpert and music executive Jerry Moss, eager for a professional studio arm of their A&M Records venture, its converted soundstages have attracted a disparate array of artists from The Police, The Moody Blues, Take That, and the studio of choice for USA for Africa’s turgid ‘We Are the World’ charity single.
A&M Studios’ multiple facilities resulted in many legendary artists cutting seminal work simultaneously, all only a few doors away. Up there with Pink Floyd recording their debut alongside Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band‘s magical gestation at Abbey Road or Queen’s tussle with Sid Vicious at Wessex Studios during their respective News of the World and Nevermind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols sessions, one holy trinity of 1971’s folk and soft pop all produced some of their most acclaimed work.
Occupying Studio A while crafting her signature Tapestry LP, Carole King reminisced in 2012’s A Natural Woman memoir: “A constant stream of singers, musicians, friends, and family flowed in and out of the recording studios along Sunset Boulevard. At A&M, we commuted down the hall. Sometimes we commuted between A&M and Sunset Sound…”
Having become acquainted through the Laurel Canyon artistic community, King became good friends with fellow folk singers James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, further revealing the mutual creative support they enjoyed: “Periodically, James came over to A&M to play acoustic guitar and sing background on my record. Physical proximity to me and romantic proximity to James brought Joni’s beautiful voice to both James’ and my albums. Sometimes, it seemed as if James and I were recording one massive album in two different studios.”
Jumping between his own Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon at Crystal Sound Studios, Taylor also lent a hand to Mitchell in Studio C as she was producing her lauded Blue album, contributing guitar to ‘All I Want’, ‘California’, ‘Carey’, and ‘A Case of You’. King found time to sneak into C to see for herself the studio’s legendary reddish-wood Steinway piano, rushing her team a three-hour break at C to record ‘I Feel the Earth Move’. All in the spirit of friendly competition, Mitchell clearly harboured no grudges over King’s surreptitious Steinway operation, gifting Tapestry with backing vocals on ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow?’
To top things off, easy-listening duo The Carpenters were recording their third LP Carpenters in Studio A. Aloof and divorced from the hippie-leaning happenings between King, Mitchell, and Taylor, Tapestry engineer Hank Cicalo remarked to King: “The Carpenters had it locked up. I didn’t like A for you anyway. It was too big. We could never get the intimate feel. And C was too small. B was just the right size. All the great studios in town were the size of B.”
