Bearsville Studios
Encyclopedia
Bearsville Studios was a recording studio at Bearsville, New York
Bearsville, New York
Bearsville is a hamlet in Ulster County, New York, USA. Bearsville is in the town of Woodstock, New York and is located along New York State Route 212, within Catskill State Park and just to the west of the hamlet of Woodstock. The highest known temperature in Bearsville was 101°F, which...

 just west of Woodstock, New York
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 at the 2000 census.The Town of Woodstock is in the northern part of the county...

.

The studio was opened in 1969 by Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...

, manager of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...

, Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...

 and Todd Rundgren
Todd Rundgren
Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...

.

Most of Grossman's artist roster from Bearsville Records
Bearsville Records
Bearsville Records was founded in 1970 by Albert Grossman. Artists included Todd Rundgren, Elizabeth Barraclough, Foghat, Halfnelson/Sparks, Bobby Charles, Randy VanWarmer, Paul Butterfield's Better Days, Lazarus, Jesse Winchester, and NRBQ. The label closed in 1984, two years before Grossman's...

 recorded at the studio. Notably including (alphabetically) The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...

, Elizabeth Barraclough
Elizabeth Barraclough
Elizabeth Barraclough is an American musician whose songs span the genres of folk, country, rock and pop. She is best known for having played both live and on record with Paul Butterfield, Charlie McCoy, Kenny Buttrey, and Todd Rundgren. She was managed by Bob Dylan's manager Albert Grossman...

, Brian Briggs, Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival...

, Bobby Charles
Bobby Charles
Bobby Charles was an American singer-songwriter.An ethnic Cajun, Charles was born as Robert Charles Guidry in Abbeville, Louisiana and grew up listening to Cajun music and the country and western music of Hank Williams...

, Foghat
Foghat
Foghat are a British rock band that had their peak success in the mid- to late-1970s. Their style can be described as "blues-rock," or boogie-rock dominated by electric and electric slide guitar. The band has achieved five gold records...

, The Johnny Average Band (The Falcons), NRBQ
NRBQ
NRBQ is an American rock band founded in 1967. It is known for its live performances, containing a high degree of spontaneity and levity, and blending rock, pop, jazz, blues and Tin Pan Alley styles. Its best known line-up is the 1974–1994 quartet of pianist Terry Adams, bassist Joey Spampinato,...

, Todd Rundgren
Todd Rundgren
Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...

 and Utopia, Randy VanWarmer
Randy VanWarmer
Randy VanWarmer was an American songwriter and guitarist. His biggest success was the pop hit, "Just When I Needed You Most". It reached #8 on the UK Singles Chart in September 1979 after peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart...

, Nicole Wills, Tony Wilson, and Jesse Winchester
Jesse Winchester
Jesse Winchester is a musician and songwriter who was born and raised in the southern United States. To avoid the Vietnam War draft he moved to Canada in 1967, which is where and when he began his career as a solo artist. His highest charting recordings were of his own tunes, "Yankee Lady" in 1970...

.

"Bearsvile Sound Studio", as it was commonly called, built a client roster outside of Bearsville Records
Bearsville Records
Bearsville Records was founded in 1970 by Albert Grossman. Artists included Todd Rundgren, Elizabeth Barraclough, Foghat, Halfnelson/Sparks, Bobby Charles, Randy VanWarmer, Paul Butterfield's Better Days, Lazarus, Jesse Winchester, and NRBQ. The label closed in 1984, two years before Grossman's...

 including (alphabetically) 10cc
10cc
10cc are an English art rock band who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1970s. The band initially consisted of four musicians -- Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley, and Lol Creme -- who had written and recorded together for some three years, before assuming the "10cc" name...

, Rory Block
Rory Block
-Festival appearances:*Long Beach Blues Festival - 1993*San Francisco Blues Festival - 1999*Notodden Blues Festival - 2006-See also:*List of blues musicians*List of contemporary blues musicians*List of Austin City Limits performers-External links:****...

, Jeff Buckley
Jeff Buckley
Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley , raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician...

, Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of members Robin Zander , Rick Nielsen , Tom Petersson , and Bun E...

, Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...

, Crack The Sky
Crack the Sky
Crack the Sky is an American progressive rock band formed in Weirton, West Virginia in the early 1970s. In 1975, Rolling Stone Magazine declared their first album "debut album of the year", and in 1978, Rolling Stone Record Guide compared them to Steely Dan; their first three albums charted on the...

, The dB's
The dB's
The dB's are a jangle pop/power pop group who came into prominence in the late 1970s and 1980s. The bandmembers were Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Will Rigby and Gene Holder, all of whom were from Winston-Salem, North Carolina...

, Fear Factory
Fear Factory
Fear Factory is an American industrial metal band. Formed in 1989, they have released seven full-length albums and a number of singles and remixes. Over the course of their career they have evolved from a succession of styles, as well as steadily pioneered a combination of the styles death metal,...

, Foreigner
Foreigner (band)
Foreigner is a British-American rock band, originally formed in 1976 by veteran English musicians Mick Jones and ex-King Crimson member Ian McDonald along with American vocalist Lou Gramm...

, Danny Gatton
Danny Gatton
Danny Gatton was an American guitarist who fused rockabilly, jazz, and country styles to create his own distinctive style of playing. A biography, Unfinished Business: The Life and Times of Danny Gatton by Ralph Heibutzki, was published in 2003. It has a voluminous discography...

, The Isley Brothers
The Isley Brothers
The Isley Brothers are a highly influential, successful and long-running American music group consisting of different line-ups of six brothers, and a brother-in-law, Chris Jasper...

, New York Dolls
New York Dolls
The New York Dolls is an American rock band, formed in New York in 1971. The band's protopunk sound prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era; their visual style influenced the look of many new wave and 1980s-era glam metal groups, and they began the local New York scene that later...

, Orleans
Orleans (band)
Orleans is an American pop-rock band best known for its hits "Dance with Me" , "Still the One", from the album Waking and Dreaming and "Love Takes Time" . The group's name evolved from the music it was playing at the time of their formation, which was inspired by Louisiana artists such as Allen...

, Phish
Phish
Phish is an American rock band noted for its musical improvisation, extended jams, and exploration of music across genres. Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983 , the band's four members – Trey Anastasio , Mike Gordon , Jon Fishman , and Page McConnell Phish is an American rock band...

, The Psychedelic Furs, Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

, R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...

, The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...

, John Sebastian
John Sebastian
John Benson Sebastian Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000...

, Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....

, They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...

, The Tubes
The Tubes
The Tubes are a San Francisco-based rock band, whose 1975 debut album included the hit single, "White Punks on Dope". During its first fifteen years or so, the band's live performances combined quasi-pornography with wild satires of media, consumerism, and politics...

, The Vines
The Vines
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:LandingCheck?landing_page=L11_1121_WMUK_Jimmy_DDOptimised&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=C11_1121_WMUK_DDvOneOff&utm_source=B11_1121_WMUK_Jimmy&language=en&country=GB...

,and Spirit
Spirit (band)
Spirit was an American jazz/hard rock/progressive rock/psychedelic band founded in 1967, based in Los Angeles, California.- The original lineup :...

, XTC
XTC
XTC were a New Wave band from Swindon, England, active between 1976 and 2005. The band enjoyed some chart success, including the UK and Canadian hits "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Senses Working Overtime" , but are perhaps even better known for their long-standing critical success.- Early years:...

 and many others.

The studio did a great deal of demo work; and very little commercial advertising work; catering to its star-powered pedigree. The two hour drive from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, a "retreat" for some artists, combined with residences owned by Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...

, amplified this value.

In-house studio staff production and engineering talent included (alphabetically): George Carnell, George Cowan, Tom Edmonds, John Holbrook, Ian Kimmet, Chris Laidlaw, Ken Lonas, Mark McKenna, Ray Niznick, Jim Rooney
Jim Rooney (music)
Jim Rooney is an American music producer whose credits include Nanci Griffith's Other Voices, Other Rooms , Hal Ketchum's Past the Point of Rescue, Iris DeMent's Infamous Angel, John Prine's Aimless Love and many other widely hailed albums...

, and others.

The Speare Road facility contained two studios: Studio B, fitted with a heavily modified Quad-8 in the late 1970s and early 1980s; and Studio A, a much larger and unique acoustic space. Until 1980, the control room for Studio B was the primary mix location. Initially designed by John Storyk
John Storyk
John Storyk, a registered architect and acoustician, is a founding partner of Walters-Storyk Design Group. He and the firm’s associates have provided design and construction supervision services for the professional audio and video recording community since the 1969 completion of Jimi Hendrix's...

, the B control room was modified to replace the quad 8 console with an SSL 6000E to suit changing client sonic beliefs. There were originally quad Westlake/601-style monitors oriented such that each looked like the iconic Bearsvile Bear logo; the LF drivers as "eyes", their ports as "ears", the HF driver as a "nose", and the horn as a "mouth". The Turtle Creek barn was located down the hill off of Ricks Road. A separate Utopia Video facility behind the Bear Cafe became operational in 1981 after it outgrew the logistics operating within Studio A in 1979 and 1980.

The Studio A space was used for pre-production of the Rolling Stones "Some Girls" tour. The Studio A control room was fitted with a custom 40 channel Neve 8088 that had originally been built for The Who.

The studio owned an acclaimed Bosendorfer
Bösendorfer
Bösendorfer is an Austrian piano manufacturer, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha. The brand is known for producing pianos with a uniquely rich, singing, and sustaining tone...

 piano that was tuned and maintained by Dick Cambell.

Adjacent to Woodstock NY
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 at the 2000 census.The Town of Woodstock is in the northern part of the county...

, artists recording at Bearsville would frequently perform, often under a pseudonym, at local venues such as the Joyous Lake.

Studio managers included (chronologically) Susan Palmer, Jim Marron, George James, Griff McRee, Ian Kimmet, Mark McKenna, Chris Laidaw, and Todd Vos.

Chief engineers included (chronologically) Ted Rothstein, Michael Guthrie, Eddie Ciletti, Shep Siegel, Ken McKim, and George Cowan.

Bearsville Sound Studio shared the record company logo designed by Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser is a graphic designer, best known for the I Love New York logo, his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet" logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.-Biography:Glaser was born into a Hungarian...

.

The studio was converted into a private residence and an adjacent complex, including a 250-seat theater and a second recording house, was offered for sale in 2004 by Sally Grossman, the widow of Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...

, who died in 1986.

External links

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