Easley McCain Recording
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Easley McCain Recording began as Doug Easley's rudimentary, four-track studio in the woods near the Wolf River bottoms in Memphis in the late 1970s recording blues musicians like Mose Vinson, as well as some local rock bands. In the early 1980s Easley operated "Easley Recording" out of a hand-built garage studio behind his home near University of Memphis. During this period, numerous local musicians and bands such as Tav Falco's Panther Burns came in to occasionally record; Alex Chilton produced an album for a Detroit group called The Gories there the last year the studio was located in Easley's garage. The studio was by then the place to go in Memphis for local bands to cut demos and indie rock recordings.
By 1990, Easley, with new partner Davis McCain, had found a larger midtown Memphis facility for the studio and moved into it by the next year. McCain had been the sound man at a 1980s local alternative music nightspot called The Antenna Club. The new Easley studio site was originally built in 1967 as "the Onyx" for Don Crews, who had been a business partner at American Sound Studios with famed producer Chips Moman. Crews parted from Moman at that time to start his own studio at the Onyx location, which some dubbed "American East" in the late 1960s. The facility was originally one of the few studios in Memphis built from the ground up as a studio with foot-thick walls and echo chambers.
Easley McCain Recording's business began to pick up more clients from outside Memphis in the early 1990s, after a local group called the Grifters grew in popularity and advertised the studio's phone number in their liner notes. Indie rock bands from around the country including Pavement, Sonic Youth, Come, and others began recording there. By 2001 the White Stripes had become a client, which led in turn to a Jack White-produced album by Loretta Lynn to be mixed there.
Others recording at this indie-oriented studio have included Townes Van Zandt, Jeff Buckley, Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion, Guided by Voices, Lydia Lunch, Box Tops, Rufus Thomas, Wilco, Cat Power, Modest Mouse, and many more.
On March 2, 2005, the studio's lobby and control room sustained serious damage in a fire whose origin was suspected to be a power surge.
[edit] References
- Earles, Andrew (July 2, 2004). Indie Magnet: How Easley-McCain Recording became a key player in the indie-rock explosion. Memphis Flyer.
- Lisle, Andria and Davis, Chris (March 3, 2005). Fire at Easley-McCain Studio. Memphis Flyer.
