IN THE ROOM: The Studios That Shaped Twin Cities R&B
In the 1960s and 1970s, recording studios played a central role in shaping the sound of Twin Cities R&B. From small independent rooms to advanced facilities like Sound 80, engineers, producers, and musicians worked to capture the music on tape. What follows is a look inside those studios.
The following is excerpted from the liner notes of our Twin Cities Funk & Soul compilation. Writers: Will Gilbert, Eric D. Foss, Danny Sigelman.
SOUND 80:
Tom Jung and Herb Pilhofer left Kay Bank Studios in 1969 and formed Sound 80. Their never ending quest to create the best quality recordings possible resulted in the most state-of-the art studio in Minnesota. Perhaps the most notable recordings made at Sound 80 come from the now legendary December 1974 sessions which yielded five songs for Bob Dylan’s Blood on The Tracks album, including “Tangled Up in Blue.” The Valdons, Prophets of Peace, Band of Thieves, and Lewis Connection all recorded at Sound 80, as did Prince for some early demos.
David Rivkin engineered the Lewis Connection sessions at Sound 80, as well as the second, unreleased, record from Band of Thieves. He remembers, “I wasn’t really on their staff so they didn’t give me anything other than provide a place to record. Later though, they did build a recording truck for Sound 80 that we used a lot. I was doing a lot of live radio broadcasts then.” Sound 80 was also an early pioneer in digital recordings.
It is often claimed that the first commercially released digital album came from the studio in 1978 – the fruits of a prototype machine brought into the studio by local company 3M. Another early digitally recorded album was Willie & The Bees’ second album, Out of The Woods. The studio shut down as the 1970s gave way to the 1980s. Today the building is used for audio testing and its current claim to fame is having an anechoic chamber that is the quietest place on earth, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
KAY BANK STUDIOS:
Though widely known as Kay Bank, the studio on Nicollet Avenue and 26th Street in Minneapolis began in 1955 as Swedien Recording, built by Bruce Swedien at just 19 years old. He developed his interest in recording while growing up in Minnesota and, after working at Schmitt Music Company’s recording facility, purchased their equipment to establish his own studio in an old movie theater—a space that still exists today. Swedien later moved to Chicago with his wife Bea in 1957, where he worked with Bill Putnam and went on to engineer, mix, and produce many legendary performers.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Swedien recorded major jazz and blues artists and received his first Grammy nomination in 1962 for “Big Girls Don’t Cry” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. He also began a long collaboration with Quincy Jones, later working extensively on Michael Jackson’s solo albums, including Off The Wall and Thriller. In 1957, Vern Bank purchased the Minneapolis studio and renamed it Kay Bank after his wife. Partnering with Amos Heilicher of Soma Records, the studio produced classic recordings by artists such as Dave Dudley and The Trashmen.
Tom Jung and Herb Pilhofer trained at the studio before founding Sound 80. In 1968, Vern Bank sold his share, and the studio was renamed Universal Audio Recording, followed by Micside around 1970 and Cookhouse in 1971. In 1983, Twin/Tone Records took over the space, establishing Nicollet Studios where Hüsker Dü and The Replacements recorded significant works. Today, the historic studio continues to operate under the name Creation Audio.
Davis Z on A.S.I.
A.S.I. stood for Audiotek Studios, Inc., a studio and label started by Dan Holmes, located in the heart of North Minneapolis at 711 W. Broadway Ave. David also worked there occasionally, as well as at Cookhouse (formerly Kay Bank). According to David, “A.S.I. was a great big room. The ceilings were so high, they must have been 40 feet at the least. There were microphone stands hanging from the ceiling on tracks—you could slide them, pull them down, and adjust the placement. It was the only studio I ever saw like that. It was a funky place and they didn’t have a lot of state-of-the-art equipment. We had an 8-track Scully at first and then a 16-track Scully. The board was homemade, modules put together by friends of Dan. I don’t think we even had a counter on the tape machine—we had to go by sound to figure out where the song ended.”
As for the music scene at the time, David recalls, “It was in North Minneapolis, so naturally we got a lot of people from North Minneapolis wanting to record. I did a lot of R&B, pre-Prince stuff, and people wanted to be on KMOJ—that was their big dream. It was cool. People were trying to get over, but there wasn’t really success back then. Nobody made any hit records.” Reflecting further, he adds, “I don’t remember any division of races at all, but I knew there were only a couple places that bands with Black members could play. That was the extent of it. I think Black music in Minneapolis was so frustrated because there weren’t all these clubs, like there were for the white bands, where you could make money and survive. So basically everyone was stuck practicing, woodshedding, and writing songs, and I think that’s the reason we had it break so wide open. When Prince broke the door down, everybody was ready to go—we all were frustrated to the fact that we had no outlet, and the only outlet was original music.”