Home recording and other changes are taking a toll
by Joe Tarr
Oliver Springs is not known for a bustling night life. It's a small community with a traditional downtown and old Victorian homes lining the streets. The kind that middle-aged people drive through and declare they're going to retire there one day.
But, in a modest house on Spring Street, you can often find 78-year-old Hal Duncan sitting in an impressive sound studio, recording musicians from all over the region. In many ways, Duncan was a pioneer. The owner of Cumberland Sound Studio, Duncan has been recording musicians since the late '60s.
"In '69, there wasn't many recording studios. Today, there's one on every corner. It's worse than service stations and just as bad," he says. "I've got equipment probably worth more than some people's studios."
Today, studios like Duncan's are not rare. Wherever music is being made, people have a desire to record and document it. Some of the music might be great; some of it awful. In either case, studios like Duncan's document and preserve the music being made in a region.
However, as home recording becomes cheaper and easier, the days of the small studios might be coming to an end.
Semi-retired now, Duncan says if he had to do it over, he wouldn't. "I could still make a good living at it," Duncan says. "But knowing what I know now about this business, I wouldn't touch it."
Like a lot of studio owners, Duncan branched into recording after a career as a musician didn't quite work out. A World War II vet, he returned to Oliver Springs after the war and tried to make a living as musician.
Duncan was friends with Luke Brandon, who eventually became a successful studio musician in Nashville. In the mid- to late-'50s, the two toured with a number of rock 'n' roll bands and country acts, working for Fraternity Records. It was the label that Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Waylon Jennings and others were on. The label would send acts out on the road every six weeks (Duncan was in the group touring just behind Valens, Holly and the Bopper on their ill-fated tour).
Duncan played behind the likes of Duane Eddy, Jesse Lee Turner, the Kalin Twins, and Link Ray. "All of these people had top 10 hits," he says. "The biggest one we accompanied was Frankie Avalon."
"I was never a musician of the caliber of some of these guys. I was able to carry my weight," says Duncan, who played guitar.
But it was grueling life and with a wife back home he quickly tired of it.
"It was rough. In '59, the buses were a lot different than the ones they have now. You couldn't sleep on a bus like you can now. We had different engagements every night for six weeks," Duncan says. "We'd do a show and we'd load up on the bus and the driver would take us to the next place.... Sometimes it would take almost until showtime to get to the next place."
He returned to Oliver Springs and went to work in a brake and radiator shop in Oak Ridge. He opened his own place in 1966, but he hated the work. The job was more to pay the bills, and he kept his hand in music, playing part-time around the area.
In 1968, a company in Clinton was getting rid of two recording machines and Duncan bought. "I guess it's something I could do here at home," he says.
Since then, he's been slowly accumulating tens of thousands dollars worth of equipment. Among his prized possessions are two old solid state Limiters, which balance out the high notes of a voice. He bought them both for $500 and although these kinds are no longer made, they're prized in the recording industry. "I could have sold these thousands of times to big companies. They're just fine pieces of equipment," he says.
He's also kept with the times and now has 24-track digital recording equipment.
He's moved the studio a number of times over the years. For a long time it was located in downtown Oliver Springs. Today, his studio is located in part of his house. There are a number of small booths to isolate musicians from each other and get the best sound out of the place.
Duncan mostly records gospel groups, but he's recorded several other genres, including country, folk, rock 'n' roll, and some vocal groups. Some of the better-known people he's recorded include Danny Hutchins Jr., a piano player for country musician Charlie Pride; Gary Prim, who became a sessions player and producer; and Woody Wright, who also went on to become a producer. He recently recorded nine 80-minute CDs by Dr. Dale Henry, a motivational speaker from Harriman. He also recorded an odd album of songs and spoken-word pieces on hunting, by Jim Bowman.
"I've done so much I almost forgot what I've done," he says.
Most of the people he records are unknown and will remain in obscurity. The gospel groups he records don't have the skills or the ambition to make it in the business.
"You've got to have some talent and most of them don't," he says. "And you've got to sell out."
"It's harder to satisfy people than it used to be. I get groups that are not very good that are a big problem. I think they dream about how they're supposed to sound. But they're not qualified to make that sound," he says. "They don't understand anything about how to put something together. I'll get guys who have been practicing together for a couple of months but they can't start [a song] together."
There are several other rural studios around Knoxville, including Click Productions in Crossville, Round Mountain Studio in Jamestown, and Hickory Hill Recording in Maryville.
Ressie Pearson, owner of Hickory Hill, was in a bluegrass band in the '80s and wanted someplace to record its music. "We really wanted to make our own records. To do it right, we had to go commercial," she says. By 1992, the studio had replaced the band and became Pearson's sole income. Hickory Hill specializes in acoustic music, but they record all types, Pearson says. "[For acoustic music] you need a good sounding room and you basically need an ear and good-sounding microphones. And you need to know where to put the microphones," she says. "It helps to be familiar with the instrument. When people come to you and say I want my mandolin to sound like David Grisman's, you know what they're talking about."
"The thing you always strive to do is get the energy of the band on the album.... The most difficult part is making sure you give the client the energy they want."
Hickory Hill is a larger-budget operation than Cumberland Sound. "Most people come here when they want to do a project they can make money on," she says.
But it's becoming increasingly easier for artists to record their own music in their home. Equipment is dropping in price and editing and mixing can be done on computers. "Every time someone does it they take that much work away from a studio trying to make it," Duncan says. "I don't have as much booked up as I used to have. There's so many places people can go."
Some do-it-yourselfers still use professional studios, just less so. "There's a lot they can do by themselves. But then they might bring it to me. Unless they have all the equipment I have, it's doubtful they can get high-quality recordings," Pearson says. "A lot of the artists feel more comfortable recording in their own home and then coming to me to do overdubs or mastering in the studio."
Sitting in the control booth of his studio, Duncan picks through a box of CDs he's recorded. Most of them are gospel artists, some of them great singers, he says. Amazingly spry for a man approaching 80, Duncan is philosophical about the business. He learned it by trial and error, making lots of mistakes along the way.
"I wasted a lot of money trying to figure it out. You get your education one way or another. I wouldn't advise anyone going into this business without an education. People would be an absolute idiot to go into it without an education."
March 12, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 11
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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