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Categories: Clifford Herring Sound Equipment Co., Fort Worth, Sound City (Fort Worth), Texas

Clifford Herring and Sound City Recording Studios, Fort Worth

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Receipt from Clifford Herring Sound Equipment for the Motovators session

Clifford Herring and Sound City were two separate recording studios at the same address, 1705 W. 7th St. at the corner of Fournier St. in Fort Worth.

Clifford Herring opened his studio in the 1930s or early ’40s, a large room that could fit an orchestra or big band. Herring recorded many country, rockabilly and pop records, most famously Bruce Channel’s “Hey! Baby” and Paul and Paula’s “Hey Paula”, both produced by Major Bill Smith.

Besides the recording studio, Clifford Herring Sound Equipment Co. sold, rented and installed film, dictating and sound equipment, and also had a Muzak business.

The Motovators recorded a demo there on March 4, 1965, one of the last artists to use Herring’s studio.

On April 2, 1965, the Star-Telegram reported:

Radio station KXOL has purchased Clifford Herring Sound Equipment Co. for more than $200,000, The purchase includes the Herring firm’s recording studio and sound equipment operation said Wendel Mayes Sr. of Brownwood, president of the broadcasting station.

Earle Fletcher, the station’s vice president and general manager announced Thursday. Extensive remodeling of the Herring building at 1705 W. 7th will begin immediately with occupancy expected about June 1. The building will house the station’s AM and FM broadcasting studios, news facilities, sales offices and other departments.

Fletcher said remodeling of the Herring building will give the station more than double its present space at 3004 W. Lancaster.

Sound City Inc. logo May 3, 1965

KXOL renamed the Herring business Sound City, Inc. I believe Herring’s large recording room was converted into KXOL’s studios or office. The new Sound City Recording Studios opened in the basement below KXOL’s studios.

KXOL sold off the equipment and rental parts of the business to Thomas Electronics at the end of 1965. I’m not sure when KXOL sold the basement studio, but I’ve read the owners were Jim Rutledge and, apparently, T-Bone Burnett (Joseph Henry Burnett III) though he was only 17 in 1965.

Phil York became a house engineer at Sound City. York had worked with Dewey Groom at Echo Sound in Mesquite and would go on to work at Autumn Sound in Garland. While at Sound City he cut his own demo as Philip & the Yorkshires, “Once Again” / “Someone To Love You”, that was not released to my knowledge. York’s name appears in many classified ads run in 1966 and 1967 trying to drum up business for the studio.

A November 27, 1968 article notes that the studio was “recently sold to Don Schafer Promotions of Dallas”. Frank Henderson was another engineer at the studio about this time.

Perhaps the biggest hits recorded at Sound City were by the Van Dykes, such as “Never Let Me Go”, “No Man Is an Island”, “I’ve Got to Go On Without You”, and “You Need Confidence”, all produced by Charles Stewart and released on Mala.

T-Bone Burnett was usually referred to as Jon T. Bone on record labels during his Sound City time.

The Loose Ends included Burnett, Don McGilvray and David Graves, their singles “Free Soul” / “He’s a Nobody” (produced by Stan Rieck) and “Dead End Kid” / “Verses” were released on Mala, with co-producer credits to Burnett and Charles Stewart.

It would be interesting to assemble a discography of releases made at Sound City, but it’s an impossible task without documentation. Besides the ones mentioned above, it would include:

Brownfield BF-33 – The Rondels – “I Lost My Love” / “Crying Over You”
Brownfield BF-1034 – Arthur Noiel ‎- “It’ll Make You Holler” / “She Don’t Love Me”
Brownfield BF-1035 – The Barons – “Don’t Burn It” / “I Hope I Please You”
Brownfield BF-1037 – The Rondels – “You Made Me Cry” / “I Cry Cause I Care”
Brownfield BF-1038 – Bruce Channel ‎- “Don’t Go” / “The Actor”
Brownfield BF-1040 – Jerry Williams & the Epics – “Whatever You Do” / “Tell Me What You See”

Cee Three – The Mods – “Days Mind the Time” / “It’s for You”

Cherry 101 – Charles Christy and the Crystals – “Cherry Pie” / “Will I Find Her”

Emcee Records ‎- E-014 – The Gnats – “That’s All Right” / “The Girl”

Fat 12966 – Little Joe and the Gentlemen ‎- “This Land” / “Stagger Lee”

Hue 375 – The Musical Training School – “Don’t You Fret” / “I’ll Go” (arranged by Jon T. Bone, produced by Charles Stewart)
Hue 377 – James Mays – “Nothing’s Bad as Being Lonely” / “Gotta Make A Move”

Jan-Gi T-91 – The Trycerz – “Almost There” / “Taxman”

Psycho-Suave’ ‎- PS-1033 – The Legendary Stardust Cowboy – “Paralyzed” / “Who’s Knocking at My Door” (picked up by Mercury)

Soft S-1008 – Roman Chariot ‎- “Five Sensations” (arranged by John T-Bone) / “Cool”
Soft S-1033 – Johnny Nitzinger – “Plastic Window” / “Life of John Doe” (produced by John Burnett and Charles Carey)

Souls Sound City Acetate 45 Green Eyes
Unknown group the “Souls”

Sound City acetates or tapes:

Charles Christy & the Crystals – various titles (info to come)

The Cynics – “I’ll Go” / “Don’t You Fret”

Jackie Layne (with the Pathfinders) – “Give a Little, Take a Little” / The Galaxies – “Someone To Love You”

Larry & the Blue Notes – “In and Out” (early version)
Larry & the Blue Notes – “Train Kept a Rollin'”

The Mods – “Evil Hearted You”

Rising Suns – “I’m Blue” / “Little Latin Lupe Lu” + two other cuts

Souls – “Green Eyes” / “Why”

Trycerz – “She Said Yeah” (2nd version) / “It’s Gonna Change”

Some tracks on the Galaxies CD collection Think About The Good Times were cut at Sound City, but I don’t have that release on hand.

LPs:

The Abstracts on Pompeii

The Yellow Payees cut one song from their Volume 1 album, “Never Put Away My Love For You” at Sound City.

Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit, and Greenhill ‎– The Unwritten Works of Geoffrey, etc. , a Sound City studio group of two former members of the Mods, Scott Fraser and Edd Lively, with Phil White, David Bullock and John Carrick. Produced by Burnett.

Thank you to George Gimarc for help with this article.

Sources included: Frank Gutch, Jr., “Lost in Space: The Epic Saga of Fort Worth’s Space Opera” from the No Depression site is an excellent read with detailed information about later Sound City sessions.

David Campbell and Larry Harrison – notes to Fort Worth Teen Scene! volumes 1-3 on Norton Records.

Categories: Reviews

Review: Teen a Go Go (DVD)

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Teen a Go Go DVD cover

In the mid-’60s, Fort Worth, Texas had an almost ideal teen band scene. The city was large enough to support dozens of semi-professional bands, it had several clubs that catered specifically to teens and even a few small studios and record labels. Most of all, it had a lot of musical talent, aware of the city’s own rhythm and blues heritage but soaking up the edgy sound of the English bands on the charts in ’64-’65.

Fort Worth bands cut incredible covers of British Invasion bands: the Cynic’s take on the Yardbirds’ version of “Train Kept a Rollin'”, the Mods’ version of “Evil Hearted You”, the Jades take on Van Morrison and Them’s “Little Girl”. They recorded great original songs as well. As a guitarist I can tell you how much fun it is to play Larry & the Blue Notes’ “In and Out”, with its bent-string breaks between every line of lyric. Other classics that come to mind: “Alibis” by the Bards, “My Confusion” by the Elite, “Don’t Burn It” by the Barons, “Be Nice” by the Nomads.

The records these bands cut were sold to the local teens and played on local radio. Few of the bands made it out of Fort Worth, and only a handful of Fort Worth records broke out to limited national exposure, such as “One Potato” by the Elite or “Night of the Phantom” by Larry & the Blue Notes.

Despite the lack of national recognition at the time, these records have made the Fort Worth Teen Scene legendary among garage fans in the years since. Now there is a DVD release to document it in detail, Teen a Go Go, a film by Melissa Kirkendall, Mark Nobles and James Sterling Johnson.

The filmmakers have done a spectacular job of interviewing many participants in the scene, including members of most of the important bands along with DJ Mark E. Baby (Mark Stevens), studio engineer Phil York, and Sump’n’Else producer/director Bud Buschardt. The interviews are casual and in-depth, with high quality audio and video. With so many interviews, it helps that the editing breaks them up so we return to the participants throughout the film, making the faces familiar to viewers who might not know the different bands.

Teen a Go Go starts with a general overview of the mid-60’s band phenomena, which surprised me by featuring a number of interviews with members of non-Fort Worth bands like the Novas from Dallas, the Excels of McKinney, the Vipers from Henderson, Arkansas and Eric & the Norsemen of Lawrence, Kansas. However, these interviews do a good job of showing the similarities between the teen band scenes throughout the United States.

After this introduction, the movie focuses on Fort Worth, briskly moving through discussions of the teen clubs, go-go girls, TV appearances by the bands and more. There’s a good segment on Major Bill Smith with footage of him in the studio from the ’70s. It’s fun to watch the Elite describe the making of their “One Potato” / “Two Potato” single – I could only wish there was more on about the making of records, the studios and the labels. There is a short discussion of the rivalries between different sections of Fort Worth which I’m sure is enough for most viewers, but I would like to have seen explored in more depth.

The film brings up the complicated shadow of Dallas, a larger city with more resources and commercial possibilities than Fort Worth. Ron Chapman’s Sump’n’Else TV show was influential throughout the region, and since footage of any Fort Worth bands on the show is lost, the film shows clips of the Five Americans (an Oklahoma band signed to the Abnak label of Dallas) lip-synching to “Western Union Man” and “I See the Light” and the Kingsmen doing “Louie, Louie”.

Returning the focus to Fort Worth, the film gives good background on some important Fort Worth acts that influenced the teen bands, notably Ray Sharpe and Bruce Channel, who cut “Hey Baby” with Delbert McClinton for Maj. Bill Smith.

Although the filmmakers have gathered a huge collection of photos and clippings, I found there to be too much panning across photos and not enough use of the little surviving film footage from the time. We see all-too-brief glimpses of the Cynics, the Elite and The Bluecoats. There are a few seconds of the Jades and the Sundown Collection from the Panther Hall, but I would like to have seen more of the fragmentary footage that survives – such as a ferocious half minute of the Phaze V performing “7 and 7 Is”. This is a minor quibble and after all, we can turn to the internet for that kind of video.

I highly recommend Teen a Go Go. For more information on the film, or to order a DVD, check out Teen-a-Go-Go.com.

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