ISSUE 1.2
WINTER | 2022
Lady Couch HITS IT WITH
THE FUTURE LOOKS FINE
EXCLUSIVE!
PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE OF
STARDAY-KING SOUND STUDIO
CITY ROAD PROVIDING HOUSING TO HOMELESS CHAPEL MADISON'S
THE ROOTS BARN
MADiSON, TN A campus for music based in the historic heart of Madison, TN. The Barn serves as a platform to emotionally connect performers with the audience, music and events venue. Opening 2022.
2 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 3
4 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
Founder & Publisher
Creative Director
Editor-in-Chief
Layout & Design
Lisa McCauley Chuck Allen
Managing Editor
Randy Fox
Contributing Writers
Leslie LaChance Tommy Womack
Chuck Allen
Ad Design
Benjamin Rumble Advertising
Benjamin Rumble
sales@theeastnashvillian.com
Photo Editor
Marketing Consultant
Illustrations
Distribution Manager
Travis Commeau Benjamin Rumble
Will Mandell Whit Hubner
Contributing Photographer
Jim Herrington
The Madisonian is a quarterly magazine published by Kitchen Table Media. All editorial content and photographic materials contained herein are “works for hire” and are the exclusive property of Kitchen Table Media, LLC unless otherwise noted. This publication is offered freely, limited to one per reader. The removal of more than one copy by an individual from any of our distribution points constitutes theft and will be subject to prosecution. Reprints or any other usage without the express written permission of the publisher is a violation of copyright. ©2022 Kitchen Table Media P.O. Box 60157, Nashville, TN 37206
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 5
New Year New Website meet your new web guy WE'VE WORKED WITH THESE GREAT NASHVILLE BUSINESSES: GRIMEYS RECORD STORE OCHOA BROS HIFI COOKIES ROTIERS RESTAURANT BUTTONS AND PEARL MUSIC CITY EVENTS THE VOLTAGE EXCHANGE BMI GET IN TOUCH AT JUSTINMABEE.COM 267-632-4103
6 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
Contents
winter | 2022 | Issue 1.2 commentary features
cover story
Rock & Soul LadyCouch hits it with The Future Looks Fine
12
Publisher’s Letter 9 BY LISA MCCAULEY
The “MAD” Frontier 11 Not tracing time … BY RANDY FOX
BY TOMMY WOMACK
in the know
A Real Church Home
32
City Road Chapel provides housing to some of Madison’s homeless BY LESLIE LACHANCE
on the cover
L EXC
USI
VE!
Get On Up!
24
The saga of Starday-King Sound Studios {in three parts}
Keshia Bailey & Allen Thompson
BY RANDY FOX
PHOTOGRAPH BY TRAVIS COMMEAU
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 7
8 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
Publisher’s Letter BY LISA MCCAULE Y
My
senior year in high school, I had the coveted position of a movie rental clerk at “Movies to Go” on Dickerson Road. Even back then, I wanted to be in show business and figured it was a good place to start. There was nothing special about the building where I worked, which shared a parking lot with another “not so special building” owned by the company. That building had a flat level and two stories on the back portion and housed all kinds of music-related items, including a bunch of Gusto Records, which were sold at the store and I also knew from late night TV commercials. Other than that, I had no idea what had happened there decades before my “movie” career. It was an odd job with strange employees (think adults living in their parent’s basement), and it’s the
only job I ever applied for that required a passing grade on a polygraph test. I wondered, “Why on earth would they go to such lengths for a movie rental job?” Many years later, I discovered the significance of the place and realized why the owners wanted to make sure the people they hired were on the up and up. You may be asking yourself, “Why is Lisa sharing the story of her high school job and wasting valuable editorial real estate?” You see, the building that shared the lot with “Movies to Go” was none other than the home of Starday-King — one of the most significant record labels and recording studios Nashville has ever known. It’s been off-limits for over two decades until now, and it’s our honor to share its history and future in this issue.
A Nashville Original Since 2003. Madison Proud Since 2018.
COME VISIT US - OPEN EVERY DAY! 900 River Bluff Drive · Madison, TN 37115 Ya z o o B r e w . c o m Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 9
10 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
The Mad Frontier: B Y R A N DY F OX
I
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y B E N J A M I N R U M B L E
Not tracing time…
’ve been thinking about change a lot lately. Not the kind that rattles in your pocket, but CHANGE. The big kind. The kind that’s always waiting around the corner like a discarded banana peel ready to send you for a tumble; the kind that you might dodge for while or force back temporarily but will return — perhaps in a different form; the kind that inevitably alters your life or ends it. There are lots of reasons it’s been on my mind. The fact that I’m inching closer to six decades on this planet is an obvious one, but the city I live in and love has gone through more than a decade of “It City”/“New Nashville”/“Nashville is losing its heart”/“Save Music Row”/“Save the Rock Block”/“I’m Done With Nashville” ... And I’m not even getting into the political insanity of the last few years: the decline of democracy; a global pandemic that has changed everything about social interaction; and the possible mass extinction event that we seem to be barreling toward like a 16-year-old at the wheel of a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport. Despite all the frustrations, naysayers, and doom and gloom, it’s important to remember that not all change is bad, and sometimes change that appears bad can lead to something pretty wonderful. Science fiction author Phillip K. Dick, who often wrote of the shifting nature of reality and the essence of humanity in novels like The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, once observed, “Do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life.” When I moved to Nashville in 1986, I was excited about the local punk and alternative rock scene. I truly believed Nashville was about to break out as a “rock & roll city” and, as an aspiring music journalist, I would be on the front lines of a vibrant and exciting scene that
would be here to stay. What I didn’t realize was local rock scene of the early ’80s was already in decline for a multitude of reasons. Over the next 25 years, new bands, new venues, and new loci for local scenes rose and fell — Lucy’s Record Shop, Five Star General Store, Radio Cafe, The Slow Bar, The Muse, Logue’s Black Raven, Fond Object, and more. I eventually came to the understanding that everything — a band, a venue, a radio or TV show, a neighborhood scene — loved and special will eventually go away. It might last a few months, it might last years, it might even last decades. But no matter what the lifespan, you had better savor it while it’s here because one day it will be gone. In our hubris, humans like to think we create objects of permanence but like the works of Ozymandias, one day nothing will remain as “boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.” This isn’t a cause for sadness; every “death” can hold the seeds of a new life. You can fight to save something you hold dear and sometimes you can succeed, but if you don’t, despair and surrender aren’t the answer. Get to work on creating something new and different. In the mid-’70s, the music that would become known as punk was crawling out of the wreckage of the 1960s in small clubs in New York, Cleveland, Akron, L.A., and other locales. In Boston, John Felice was tired of people complaining about how the city’s music scene had lost its cool, despite the presence of new bands like his own, The Real Kids, who were setting fire to small clubs. In the song, “Better Be Good,” Felice captured one of the purest expressions of the DIY punk ethic ever, in words that should become a mantra for the “New” New Nashville, whatever form it may take. Don’t wanna hear you puttin’ down this town now Get off your ass and go downtown And dance again like it just might happen again Shake it hard and it just might happen again Fall in love and just might happen again
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 11
ROCK
LadyCouch HITS IT WITH
STORY BY TOMMY WOMACK
12 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
& SOUL The Future Looks Fine PHOTOGRAPHY BY TRAVIS COMMEAU
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 13
It's
a typical Wednesday night at Dee’s, fairly bustling considering the times we live in. As usual, on the bar side of the room are the longneck regulars and off-duty musicians shooting the breeze. On the show side are the fans; all the tables are full, and other folks are standing and swaying to the rock and soul rhythms, their eyes concentrated on the
14 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
postage-stamp stage in front of the hanging gold tinsel. Amid a weekly December residency at this music and beer haven, LadyCouch commands a devoted fan base, even on Wednesday nights; even more impressive given how a band born barely two years ago has soared from nothing to the front cover of this magazine. LadyCouch is that rare bird for which the pandemic
hasn’t totally wiped away their touring schedule. Leading up to the September release of their debut album, The Future Looks Fine, they did 20 road shows in 40 days. “As far as in town,” co-lead vocalist and majordomo of the band, Allen Thompson says, “I guess about once a month we played, and then decided to end the year with this weekly thing at Dee’s.” On their solid and surprisingly mature debut, coproduced
"
by Thompson and bassist Gordon Persha and released on the Blackbird Record Label, LadyCouch tastes like an amped-up Delbert McClinton, or Southern rock mixed with Muscle Shoals swagger and some Little Feat gone aggressive. Throw in some Otis Redding and Alabama Shakes for good measure. Visually, LadyCouch is unadorned in the extreme. Denim is the order of the day. The two females in the band apparently didn’t get the Casual Friday memo and have dressed up some, with keyboardist Susan Hull resplendent in a maroon sundress and co-lead singer Keshia Bailey well-comported in nice brown sweater and slacks. (They’re also the only two band members without beards.) Bailey and Thompson share center stage, wreathed in smiles, clearly enjoying what they’re doing. She sings a song, and then he sings a song, back and forth. And, of course, they alternate verses a great deal too. Thompson is a genial presence in jeans and a T-shirt who likes to bop around a bit but is constrained by the fact that you would have to knock out the back wall if there were any more musicians on the stage. The two guitarists, Clint Maine and Mike Ford, Jr., are stretching out with bends and peals, blending nicely and swapping rhythm and lead roles without stepping on each other. They flank the band on opposite sides and, given how they look almost exactly alike with their long straight hair and Les Pauls, frame the visuals nicely. Behind Maine on stage right is Hull and her keyboards, and behind her is the barely visible brass section: Paul Thacker on sax and Diego Vasquez on trombone. Behind Ford on the other side of the stage, cloistered in the back, is bassist Persha sporting a White Sox ball cap, and between him and the brass section is the bookish, sober-vibed drummer Ray Dunham, unassumingly holding down the beat while being swallowed up behind all the other bodies. And on this night, this isn’t even all of ’em! Jake Blumberg has been known to man the keys as well, and on some nights, The LadyCouch Horns swell to four fellows instead of two (those other two being Robert Gay and Kirk Donovan on cornet and
A couple of friends moved into my house, and someone gave us this ridiculous giant Yankee Candle. The scent was called ‘Man Town.’ It smelled like AXE body spray and there was a picture on it of a dude watching football. It was disgusting. And that became the house nickname: Man Town. At that point we were all working at The 5 Spot and lived within walking distance of there just behind the high school. Everyone would come over after the bars closed. And every party at Man Town, the couch in the living room would be the ‘lady couch.’
>>>
— Allen Thompson Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 15
trumpet, respectively.) Also missing this night was the band’s multi-instrumentalist and “musical guru,” Grayson Downs, who mainly works in the studio with them — only occasionally onstage, as doctoral studies take up much of his time. While the record doesn’t provide the visual component, it kicks off with the upbeat, New Orleans-flavored “Do What You Gotta Do,” and from there goes into the horn-driven, big-soundballad “Foolish & Blue,” with its shades of Tina Turner and Stax Records. Impressive vocal tradeoffs occur between Bailey’s considerable pipes and Thompson’s gritty, convincing delivery; guitars, saxophone, and organ also get a chance in the spotlight. (These aren’t three-minute songs.) “Delightfully Devilish” is just that, with a witty lyrical character study you don’t often find in this kind of music. It’s like a grits-and-gravy Ray Davies, even if it is a portrait of Seymour Skinner from The Simpsons. (“He’s Agnes’s boy but he’s Edna’s man. He’s an odd fellow but he steams a good ham.”) The record goes minor-key with the riff-laden “Good God,” which carries a whiff of Amy Winehouse (if said dearly departed chanteuse was as full-throated as Bailey) while Maine and Ford shine with some good six-string gut punches. “As Long as I’ve Got You” could beat up anything else on the radio and showcases Bailey letting fly with her personal-best vocal (along with able backup from singer Olivia Burnette). “Heartache” shows off shades of Clapton and a vocal from Thompson that Slowhand couldn’t deliver if you put a gun to his head. “Purple Rose and the Black Balloon” provides a chance for each horn to step up to the plate alone for a second: A big, blurty, bossy trombone, a Dixieland-sounding cornet, the trumpet, the sax, all hitting phrases in turn and then moving forward all together like dance steps in Little Richard’s band back in the day. And then there’s the auto-wah guitar lead that would have jam-fans losing their knickers. “Learn to Lose” is a firebrand departure, with words for the times we live in so direct that they must be quoted at length:
Fire in the streets. Fire in your eyes Deconstructing Reconstruction’s lies Take a look inside yourself Heritage of hate isn’t good for your health Pride don’t come from statues Mountains fall, oceans rise We’ve changed the color of our skies Are you tired of winning yet? Whatcha gonna do when there’s nothing left? Nothing left to abuse Gonna have to learn to lose Thompson is from Virginia; Bailey is from Eastern Tennessee and African American. Sometimes it takes Southerners to tell other Southerners what’s what. If you had to pick one or the other, the record is soul with rock, and the live show is the other way around. Do they sound like the Allmans? Yeah, a little bit. Do they sound like Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes or Sly & the Family Stone? Yeah, a bit. St. Paul & the Broken Bones? To a degree, yes, insomuch as both bands give a wide berth for both guitars and horns to live together in peace and harmony. All that said, do they sound like anybody else working right now? Not really, no. It’s rare for a regular soul band to know what
>>>
"
We ended up with shows booked before we had a name, so we were sitting at the 3 Crow and thinking, ‘Well, we’ve got three shows coming up and we don’t have a name.’ So, after a couple of cocktails and deep thinking, LadyCouch became it.
— Keshia Bailey 16 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 17
Not everything is a total bummer, but it’s not always great either. It’s that push and pull. That’s something that was important to me: to have our shows and our recordings reflect that.
— Allen Thompson
18 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
"
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 19
20 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
to do with the guitars, and it’s equally rare for a rock band to know what to do with the horns. Essentially though, LadyCouch is its own animal and, unless it has escaped this humble scribe’s attention, nobody else in town is doing what they do. They’re also a hell of a lot of fun. Back at Dee’s, the first set of originals is followed by a set of Black Crowes covers, a fun twist in the “this is a love song I co-wrote with Paul Overstreet” type of show original-music acts in Music City generally offer up. When pressed about the Crowes cover set, Thompson explains, “Grimey [Mike Grimes] booked us to do a set of their tunes at the East Nashville Beer Fest, and it got rained out. We’d learned all these songs, and they’re fun to play, so here was our excuse to do them.” It’s not Thompson’s first foray into the Nashville tribute tributary; he’s helmed an annual Last Waltz tribute since before there was a LadyCouch when he was leading the Allen Thompson band. “The death of my band and the birth of LadyCouch was at The Basement East in August of 2018 when we were on the bill for a Music City Roots taping,” Thompson says, as he and Ms. Bailey sit sipping joe at the Frothy Monkey the following fine morning. “I had been trying to book a first gig for LadyCouch, and I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to kill my band, announce on [WMOT Roots Radio] that this is what we’re doing next, and have everybody there, so that’s what we did.” “I’ve made four records under my own name,” he says, “but this is our first as ‘us,’ and it’s one of the easiest records to make that I’ve ever done. We believe in each other, and we believe in what we’ve created, and I think that comes through. This is the first release I’ve
ever done that I listen to, and there’s not a single thing that I’d change or fix. There’s nothing that makes me cringe or gets me angry.” “Foolish and Blue” sounded the knell of a new direction. “I feel like that one was the beginning of us really understanding the mode of the record and what we wanted,” Thompson explains. “Once that song was done, and we’d done it with the entire band, it was like, ‘Okay, we’re honing into exactly what we imagined and envisioned,’” Bailey elaborates. “It was there in a matter of minutes.” Thompson adds, “I think it probably took us about 20 minutes to write the whole thing. And that’s when we knew that if it was that easy for us, we should keep doing this.” Do they write everything together? “We try to, for the most part,” Bailey says. “During the pandemic when it got a little difficult to get together, we did a lot of ‘I’ve got this idea, let me send you half of this,’ then Allen sending me something and us trying to put it together.” “Two of the songs on the album I co-wrote with Bob Lewis,” Thompson says. “He’s got the band Slow Force. But even with those songs, Keshia would be the first person we’d show it to. If it gets her seal of approval, then it’s a LadyCouch song.” With songs in hand and recorded, they turned their attention to getting them released. “We released two of the songs that we recorded in Franklin, Kentucky, [which] came out on Café Rooster Records,” he says. “During quarantine, they were thinking about restructuring, so they introduced us to their friends at Blackbird Record Label in L.A. We decided to release the package with them. It’s been a really good relationship. They’re really cool.”
>>>
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 21
When discussing the record’s buzz, Thompson admits the attention from radio and the press has exceeded expectations. “It’s hard for a baby band to release a record in the fall, especially in a year when there are so many people who had a full year to make records.” And about the band’s name? Thompson explains, “A couple of friends moved into my house, and someone gave us this ridiculous giant Yankee Candle. The scent was called ‘Man Town.’ It smelled like AXE body spray, and there was a picture on it of a dude watching football. It was disgusting. And that became the house nickname: Man Town. We were all working at The 5 Spot and lived within walking distance of there just behind the high school. Everyone would come over after the bars closed. And every party at Man Town, the couch in the living room would be the ‘lady couch.’” Bailey takes up the thread, “We ended up with shows booked before we had a name, so we were sitting at the 3 Crow and thinking, well, we’ve got three shows coming up, and we don’t have a name. So, after a couple of cocktails and deep thinking, LadyCouch became it.” No one seems to know how it became LadyCouch as one word, but perhaps it’s best not to overthink these things. Thompson says, “I think there’s something about it — when I see our posters or hear our name, the band I imagine in my head sounds a lot like us, and I think it’s that way for most folks. It’s like how the first time I heard the name Little Feat, I kind of actually knew what they sounded like!”
22 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
The Future Looks Fine is a record with an arc, starting with upbeat danceable numbers, then to the angst of “Good God” and other moments of trouble, and then it rises back up to the sunshine of tunes like “Free to Breathe” to wrap things up on a high note. Thompson assesses it this way: “That sense of dynamics for me – all the bands I loved growing up and still do — there’s a jam band, and there’s this dance music happening, but when you get into the meat and potatoes of these tunes, there’s some real shit going down. You’re not just getting high and twirling around. There’s something to pay attention to as well. “That’s always been important to me because that’s how life works. Not everything is a total bummer, but it’s not always great either. It’s that push and pull. That was important to me: to have our shows and our recordings reflect that.” In other words, hope springs eternal. And there you have it. Horns, guitars, keys, dance rhythm, soaring vocals — there’s not much more needed to make LadyCouch your gutbucket charming soul-rock, one-stop shopping place. The Future Looks Fine, the For Thompson, Bailey, and the rest of debut album from LadyCouch, is the gang, the future looks fine even in available now at ladycouch.com these uncertain times. via Blackbird Record Label.
Build long-lasting relationships, Not just contact lists. Apply Today at madisonrivergatechamber.com/apply
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 23
T E G 24 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
N P! G N I K Y A D S R O A I T D S ND STU SOUTHREE PARTS}
F O A G A THE S {IN
OX F Y D N A BY R
U
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 25
THE HOME of the HITS
D
STARDAY RECORDS BROUGHT THE MUSIC TO MADISON
riving South on a sparsely occupied stretch of Dickerson Pike between Old Hickory Boulevard and Briley Parkway, you’ll whiz right past the dilapidated, mid-century commercial building at 3557 Dickerson Pike. The tall, decaying cement block building behind it probably won’t even register — just one more abandoned commercial property awaiting the arrival of the wrecking ball. But those cement block walls hold the story of Starday Records, one of Nashville’s most important indie labels, and it’s a tale that stretches from Nashville’s most prominent Possum to the Godfather of Soul. Like many upstart indie labels founded in the 1950s, Starday Records was sparked by the pursuit of hot hillbilly music, records sales, and cold hard cash. Founded in 1952 by Beaumont, Texas-based talent manager Jack Starns and Dallas-based jukebox operator Harold “Pappy” Daily — Starday initially focused on the wild and woolly sounds of the Lone Star State. With the addition of California-based record executive Don Pierce as a partner (Pierce would quickly buy out Starns’ shares in the company), the infant record label scored its first hit before its first birthday. Two years later, with Daily handling the talent and Pierce the business, the label struck honky-tonk gold with a young possum-eyed Texan named George Jones. In January 1957, Daily and Pierce talked their way into a deal with Mercury Records to run the label’s country division. Pierce relocated Starday’s offices from L.A. to Nashville, purchasing a one-story, stonefronted building on Dickerson Pike in Madison. The deal with Mercury lasted slightly over 18 months, and neither side was happy with the results. Shortly thereafter, Daily and Pierce also ended their partnership. Daily left with Starday’s biggest hitmaker, George Jones, while Pierce kept the label, the catalog, and the Dickerson Pike property. With the label’s cash possum gone, Pierce made two critical decisions: (1) He doubled down on Starday’s image as THE country label and (2) began construction of a state-of-the-art studio behind the company’s offices in Madison. The first decision was a case of recognizing a market and targeting it with maximum firepower. As the major labels began to chase crossover hits with the smooth “Nashville Sound,” Pierce realized there was still a healthy market for hardcore hillbilly in the hinterlands. He unleashed an ongoing salvo of country LPs in garish and kitschy covers with a dizzying array of niche sub-genres: bluegrass, hillbilly
>>>
26 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
Above: The home of Starday Records and Starday Sound Studios at 3557 Dickerson Pike, Madison, Tennessee, circa 1965. Courtesy Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum
Left: Starday Sound Studios in the 1960s. Tommy Hill at the recording desk with Junior Huskey on upright bass. Courtesy of Kent Blanton
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 27
comedy, steel guitar instrumentals, and more. He was quick to sign fading Opry stars, and, through aggressive radio promotion, he revived the careers of artists like Red Sovine, Cowboy Copas, and Johnny Bond. As new stars emerged on major labels, he quickly bought masters to their early recordings from small indie labels. He pumped out cheapo LPs of formative material by Buck Owens, Dolly Parton, Roger Miller, and Glen Campbell, among others, along with the repackaging of George Jones’ Starday recordings under dozens of various titles. Pierce created new outlets for country record sales with the mail-order Country Music Record Club of America and created a unique “rack jobber” distribution network, selling Starday LPs through small record racks in country stores, five-and-dimes, truck stops, and supermarkets throughout the South. Pierce’s second decision, Starday Sound Studios, opened in May 1960 and was soon booked around the clock. Although reduced recording costs for Starday Records was the intent, the studio became a significant resource for the many small, independent labels springing up like mushrooms in Nashville. Along with this steady crop of country sessions, the studio also hosted pop, rock & roll, soul, and black gospel sessions, including some of the earliest studio work by a young Jimi Hendrix. In 1968, Pierce sold Starday to the LIN Broadcasting Corporation, which had recently purchased the Cincinnati-based R&B and country label, King Records. As Starday-King Records, the new company was the largest independent record label globally, and King’s biggest star, James Brown, began cutting records on Dickerson Pike. Brown loved the studio and recorded such classic hits as “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine,” “Super Bad,” and “Hot Pants” at Starday-King. Starday continued as a working studio until 2002, when the building was shuttered following the death of its longtime manager, Tommy Hill. Since that time, it has remained abandoned and neglected, a fading monument to the days when hip hillbilly cats and funky soul brothers came together to make classic music in Madison.
For more on the history of Starday Records, check out Nathan D. Gibson’s excellent book, The Starday Story: The House That Country Music Built (University Press of Mississippi) and watch for more “Starday Stories” in future issues of The Madisonian.
STARDAY SUPERHERO! RANDY FOX OUTSIDE STARDAY-KING PHOTOGRAPH BY CHUCK ALLEN
GIDDY up, GO!
RAGGED bu t
RIGHT
A NEW DAY DAWNING FOR THE HISTORIC STARDAY-KING SOUND STUDIOS PROPERTY
L
ocal historic conservationists, Madison community activists, and Nashville-centric music history nerds are all breathing a sigh of relief and feeling optimistic over the news that one of Madison’s most historically important music sites is now under new ownership. The former Starday-King Sound Studios facility at 3557 Dickerson Pike was sold in November to the non-profit Woodbine Community Organization, which announced plans to develop the property into an affordable housing community that focuses on the unique musical and historical legacy of the property. The sandstone-fronted, mid-century-modern office building became the home of the country music record label Starday Records in 1957, while construction on the adjacent studio began in late 1959. One of the most
HOW FATE SMILED ON A MUSIC CITY LANDMARK
putting the finishing touches on the Starday While Records history story, I decided to check the
Davidson County Property Assessor database for any extra property information worth including. As soon as I pulled up the record, I noticed a new owner’s name and recent sale date. Knowing that multiple people tried to buy the property over the years for historic preservation — only to be flatly refused — my initial reaction was, “WHAT?!”
Tommy Hill, Starday-King Sound Studios manager, in his office late 1997. Photograph by Jim Herrington
prominent independent record labels in the 1960s, Starday Records played a vital role in the history of Music City, and the attached studio space was the birthplace of recordings that ran the gamut from country and bluegrass to Southern soul and James Brown funk classics. (The adjacent story provides a more in-depth history of Starday Records and studio.) Gusto Records purchased the label and studio in 1976, and the studio continued operations until the death of longtime studio manager Tommy Hill in 2002.
For the last 19 years, the offices and studio remained unoccupied while both buildings fell into disrepair. In 2016, Historic Nashville, Inc. added the Starday-King Studios to its “Nashville Nine” annual list of the most endangered historic properties. But despite calls from community activists and concerned music fans for the preservation and restoration of the landmark property, Gusto Records expressed no interest in developing or selling the property. In November, the situation changed dramatically when the Woodbine Community
I immediately called my editor, and his response to my discovery was, “WHAT?!” This was followed by instructions to contact Councilperson Nancy VanReece, who had been involved in previous efforts to acquire the property. When I asked her if she knew about the sale, her response was, “WHAT?!” (It was a day for “WHAT?!” and interrobangs, apparently.) VanReece was familiar with the Woodbine Community Organization and immediately called Executive Director Tony Woodham. While I’m not privy to the exact text of their conversation, from what I later learned, his reaction to the news that Woodbine had just purchased the studio where classic records ranging from Red Sovine’s “Phantom 309” to James Brown’s “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine” were recorded was along
Organization purchased the property and an adjacent parcel at 3561 Dickerson Pike with plans to develop an affordable housing community of multi-family units. “We are still in the very early stages of the project, but we’re looking to create an environment that will target musicians, songwriters, and singers whose income qualifies,” Tony Woodham, Executive Director of Woodbine Community Organization, says. “The legacy of the location combined with the diversity of artists that recorded there will inform the
>>>
the lines of (you guessed it), “WHAT?!” Fortunately, as a non-profit, community-focused real estate developer, Woodham — along with the staff at Woodbine — immediately understood the importance of recognizing and preserving the unique history of the Starday-King Sound Studios, even if the building itself is beyond saving. They began work on a plan to weave its legacy into the new, affordable-housing community that will transform that section of Dickerson Pike. To that end, he and VanReece began assembling a team of local music community preservationists to advise on the plan. While the final details are still in the works, the story and legacy of one of Nashville’s most historically significant recording studios now has a bright future.
30 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
community we build. We hope to classical,” Corbitt says. “Stardayhave community studio space, eduKing Studio was a part of that rich cational classes, areas for people to history and included such artists perform, and other related activities.” as James Brown and Jimi Hendrix. Unfortunately, time and years of Woodbine Community is not only neglect have taken a toll on portions taking care of those at need in of the building. “It looks like the Nashville but also looking to help majority of the structure, especially preserve and share the legacy of the [studio] addition in the back, is Starday-King for years to come.” not able to be saved,” Woodham says. Metro Councilperson Nancy “There are holes in the roof, and with VanReece also expressed her the amount of flooding we have had enthusiasm for the project. “I Don Pierce (L) and unknown at Starday circa 1957. in recent years, water has been pouram so happy that Woodbine Courtesy Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum ing into the structure, but we’re going Communities has secured ownto do everything possible to retain the ership of this significant part of look and feel of the [mid-century design of the front building]. We may Nashville and Madison’s music history,” VanReece says. “I will be workhave to relocate it to another part of the project, but we do want to incor- ing with them to ensure that the history of Starday-King and the things porate the site’s unique legacy and history into our mission of creating that happened there are preserved in any way possible while still fulfilling low-cost housing.” their honorable mission.” Woodham is coordinating with a team of local community activists That mission is one that Woodham is not taking lightly. “We feel and musical landmark preservationists, including studio manager very fortunate to have acquired this property,” Woodham says. “I do Sharon Corbitt, who was one of the primary figures in the successful think Woodbine is a perfect non-profit to coordinate with others in the effort to preserve RCA Studio A. “Nashville’s recording community has community to preserve the historical significance of the site while also always wanted the world to know about our rich and diverse music his- bringing it forward in a way that will sustain it over time and have it really tory, which includes not only country but blues, jazz, rock, gospel, and serve the community.” Keep up with this story on our socials: @madisonianmag
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 31
AReal Church Home City Road Chapel provides housing to some of Madison’s homeless
W
hen Jay Voorhees signed on as pastor of City Road Chapel United Methodist Church in Madison nearly eight years ago, it was clear that his congregation and campus were at ground-zero for the homeless community in Madison. The church’s location on the corner of Neely’s Bend Road and Gallatin Pike is near the two busiest bus stops in Metro Nashville — the Madison branch of the Nashville Public Library and Walgreens’ Madison location. Many homeless Madisonians use these bus lines to get to downtown missions and food distribution points.
“People would come in all the time asking us for help,” Voorhees says. “And there came a point where we thought, ‘Why are people driving downtown to help the homeless while we have homeless folk right here?’”
Story by Leslie LaChance
32 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
have houses, but they actually have a home, and it’s that community,” Voorhees says. “They don’t want to go somewhere else to receive services. Transportation is a huge issue, and what if they get there and a place is closed, or they can’t find transportation back to their community? Logistically it’s really hard to get services.” Shelter guests at City Road Chapel will apply for housing through the Continuum of Care Homeless Planning Council, part of the Homeless Impact Division. The program is supported by federal funding administered through the Nashville Metro government for local impact. Voorhees expects a fair number of guests from Madison encampments, where he estimates up to 100 people are living. “I think most of the folks we’ll see will be chronically homeless,” he says. “If you think of it as a recovery model, I think of the Mobile Housing Navigation Center as the detox center,” Voorhees explains. “It’s the place you go to sort of get used to not being on the streets, as a transitional living space to help you get back to a bit of normality and to identify the things you need to do next or want to work on. From there, they may move to their own place or may go into a longer-term transitional community. And there really are people who just need permanent supportive housing, which is almost impossible to find. That’s what we’re trying to identify.
Hosting them at our facility is the first step.” The Mobile Housing Navigation Center is part of a more significant shift at City Road Chapel. Although it’s been in existence for over 170 years, demographic and societal changes have resulted in an aging congregation and declining attendance. “The high point was in the 1990s, and they were worshipping about 500 on Sunday morning,” Voorhees says. “Before COVID, we were worshipping about 150, after COVID, about 50 on average, which is true for all churches. Most protestant churches are running about 50% of what they were before COVID.” The decline in church membership — yes, even in churchy Nashville — reflects a national trend represented in data collected by pollsters like Gallup. Despite the rise of the megachurch, overall, fewer people are connected to specific churches or faith practices. The trend manifests locally in the number of empty church properties being razed or converted to other uses, like offices or boutique hotels. City Road Chapel has chosen another path, making itself a hub for homeless outreach groups in recent years by leasing space in its unused education buildings to organizations that share the church’s mission. Before signing on to host the Mobile Housing Navigation Center, the church had already made room on its campus for the offices of the Metro Nashville
>>>
Photograph by Chuck Allen
The mission to serve the needs of unhoused people right here in the neighborhood has led the congregation to partner with various homeless ministries over the years — like Room in the Inn, Community Care Fellowship, Open Table, and Layman Lessons. It’s a path that has led the church to host its full-time transitional shelter on the City Road Chapel campus. Through a partnership with the Metro Nashville Homeless Impact Division and the Community Care Fellowship, City Road will open a pilot Mobile Housing Navigation Center on its campus in January. Another opened on the west side of town at Bellevue United Methodist church late last year, and the city has plans to open a third center at McKendree United Methodist Church downtown in the coming year. “We’ll serve primarily the MadisonEast Nashville corridor, and we’ll be able to house up to 15 people,” Voorhees says. “We’ll have two dedicated full-time social workers on staff to identify what folks’ needs are and to help them complete applications to obtain further assistance and housing — like maybe to get a Section 8 voucher or whatever they need. The goal is to provide stable housing for 30-90 days, with the hope of helping people find more long-term, permanent housing.” The shelter will be open to men and women; each guest will have a private cubicle and footlocker. In some cases, couples can be housed together. “We really had a heart for doing that because very few shelters will,” Voorhees says. “One of the people in the homeless community who died in Madison a while back was a woman who froze to death staying with her partner in a car because they didn’t want to be separated. We’ve been really of the mindset that if there is a way to keep couples together, we’re going to try to do that at the church.” In addition to attachments to loved ones, unhoused people have attachments to places. “The homeless community in Madison, or the homeless community in southeast Nashville, or the homeless community in other parts of town, like Brookmeade Park, the people there don’t
Winter 2022 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| 33
Homeless Impact Division and Open Table, which provides meals to homeless people. No Exceptions, a prison reform organization, also operates out of the City Road facility. Two days a week, another organization, Layman Lessons, offers Showers of Blessing, a free shower and laundry service to homeless folks serving about 80 people a week. The church also buys and distributes 100200 bus passes to those in need and holds a free community meal each month. And the hope is that with renovation in another section of an education building, the Community Care Fellowship, which has a facility on 8th Street, will open another resource center on the City Road Chapel campus to provide additional services to the Madison homeless community. “My folks are all in,” Voorhees says. “They realized we’ve got this huge facility that we don’t use all of and that we’ll probably never use again at the level that we used to. It’s a great gift, so how can we use it for good? [Low-cost leasing to organizations sharing the mission of caring for the homeless] allows us to be good stewards of the facility we have
and to help people. That’s exactly what we want to do.” The pastor acknowledges that homelessness can seem an intractable problem, especially in Metro’s current housing market. He believes it comes down to city leadership dedicating significant time and resources to housing efforts. “We still don’t have the political will in this town to address the issue in the way it needs to be addressed,” Voorhees says. “Homelessness is a problem that most politicians just want to go away. It’s going to take a comprehensive plan and significant resources to address it. And the city leaders at every level are going to have to be on board.” He points to what many see as the ineffective and inhospitable way city government has dealt with homeless encampments over the years, clearing and shutting them down here and there only to see them re-emerge in another spot nearby. It’s a failure that many homeless advocates have fought to address. Still, without a comprehensive city-wide government effort to take on the more significant issues affecting housing, it falls to a
patchwork of faith-based organizations and other non-profits to do what they can. The reality is that Nashville doesn’t have affordable housing stock. “We don’t even have a good definition of affordable,” Voorhees says. “And we don’t have enough places that will take Section 8 vouchers [which provide a rent subsidy through the federal funding]. It’s true that a lot of the folks who are on the streets get government checks. Yeah, they get disability, $700 a month. You can’t get an apartment for that.” Disability and mental illness are also significant factors in homelessness. “It’s almost impossible to get somebody who is homeless with a mental health issue the kind of assistance they really need,” Voorhees says. In the face of these challenges, the congregation at City Road Chapel United Methodist Church will keep doing what they can to help those in need nearby. As Voorhees says, “We can’t fix everything, but we can do something. We have to be faithful to what we hear God calling us to do right now. We take seriously that call to love your neighbor, and homeless people are our neighbors.” for more information, please visit cityroadchapel.org
marketplace
NETHERANIUM PHOTOS For the weirdo, for the artist, for the unconventional human
catch me on IG under the same name
pagination
RELAX
Nashville’s only WHOLE-HOME partner will take care of everything under your roof, to transform your house into a healthy home.
HVAC EXPERTS
WHOLE-HOME INSULATION
ELECTRIC CAR CHARGERS
RADON AND MOISTURE MITIGATION
NEW CONSTRUCTION SERVICES
...Renovations, Remodels, Air Quality Testing, Maintenance Programs, and so much more. E3 INNOVATE is your WHOLE-HOME partner and one source for everything related to your house. Give us a call, or visit our website for more information.
Scan the QR code to see how we turned this house into one of the
Healthiest Homes in Madison! 36 |
t h e m a d i s on i a n
| Winter 2022
E3INNOVATE.COM | 615-876-5479