RUSS GARY’S Recollections Part One
Hollywood
When Wally Heider was an assistant engineer at United/Western Studios on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, he was the biggest big band enthusiast on the planet and would take his portable tape recorder to gigs and record the show so the guys in the band could hear their performance. He kept the recordings for his own enjoyment. He made friends in all the big bands of the day, and when bands came to United/Western to record, they would ask for Wally as their engineer. Thus, Wally’s career took off.
Wally opened his first studio, Studio One – an overdub/mixing room, at the corner of Cahuenga and Selma in Hollywood. Remote recording came first, however, and other stories will be told about the company’s remote recording adventures.
In: Firsthand Stories, Russ Gary
Memories of W-W-Wally
I was probably one of Wally’s earliest associates in Los Angeles/Hollywood. In 1959 I was the tech service guy for Ampex in Los Angeles. Late one afternoon I got a call from a guy in Oregon who talked so fast and stuttered so bad that it was difficult to understand him. Eventually I got the drift that he was to record the Terry Gibbs big band that weekend in Hollywood. Wally lived in Oregon and was having someone drive down, pulling his recording equipment in a trailer.
(Later, when we were better acquainted, I learned that in college he had known the son of the man who founded U-Haul. Wally got U-Haul to custom-build a closed trailer to his specs. The entire floor of the trailer was covered by a mattress, soft riding for delicate recording equipment.)
This frantic, stuttering guy wanted to have his Ampex 351-2′s checked over and carefully aligned for the recording sessions. The next day a guy showed up with the equipment. I carefully checked out the Ampexes and put a spit shine on the alignment. It was the beginning of a long-time, supremely interesting relationship with many ups and a few downs. If you knew Wally well, there was never a dull moment in your life.
In: Firsthand Stories
RUSS GARY’S Recollections Part Two
This is part two of this article. To see part one, go to http://wallyheider.com/wordpress/archives/rebel/39/
San Francisco
Russ Gary in Studio C in San Francisco, 1970
Between late 1968 and early 1969 I made several trips to San Francisco to help prepare the studios for opening day.
The original staff members included studio manager Mel Tanner, formerly an engineer at Coast Recorders in San Francisco. Ginger Mews ran the traffic office and Harry Sitam was the tech engineer. George Fernandez joined the group a short time prior to opening day. Although based in Hollywood, Frank DeMedio remained the chief tech engineer.
Wally put me up in the Lafayette Hotel (now the Midori) on Hyde Street, directly across from the studio. Well, the Lafayette was not exactly deluxe accommodations. I only slept in the Lafayette, however, and spent all my time working in the studios. Most weekends I went home to Southern California.
In: Firsthand Stories, Russ Gary
John Mullin’s Amazing Ampex Adventure
Narrative as told by the pioneer audio engineer John T. Mullin:
IN 1944-LIKE THOUSANDS Of other GIs just before D Day-I was in England.Because of my background in electronics, I was assigned to the Signal Corps, troubleshooting a probem the Army was having with radio receivers that were picking up severe interference from the radar installations that blanketed Britain.
I became so intrigued with what I was doing that I would work until two or three in the morning. I wanted music while I worked. The BBC
broadcasts filled the bill until midnight, when they left the air. Then, fishing around the dial in search of further entertainment, I soon discovered that the German stations apparently were on the air twenty-four hours a day. They broadcast symphony concerts in the middle of the night-music that was very well played, and obviously by very large orchestras. I had some experience with broadcast music and knew what “canned” music sounded like. The American networks wouldn’t permit the use of recordings in the early 1940s, because they claimed the quality was inferior. You could always spot the surface noise and the relatively short playing time of commercial 78-rpm discs.Even transcriptions had some needle scratch and a limited frequency response. There was none of this in the music coming from Germany. The frequency response was comparable to that of a live broadcast, and a selection might continue for a quarter of an hour or more without interruption.
In: Other Recording Stories
Don Petty Wally Heider Hollywood
Wondering if any of ya’ll remember my very good freind Don Petty from the Hollywood Heider?
He passed away last year and I am just letting people that may have known him know.
Don was, like so many Heider alumni, an incredible value to the recording industry.
Mentored me my start in the 80′s.
The First LP Record
An interesting interview with the man responsible for creating the LP record.
The following narrative was told by Edward Wallerstein (1891-1970) about the development of the LP record in 1948.
IN 1938 I HAD persuaded William S. Paley, president of the Columbia Broadcasting System, to purchase the old American Record Corporation, which controlled Columbia Records, for the sum of $700,000. On January 1, 1939,this purchase became final, and I found myself president of the newly acquired company. As soon as we had moved from the small place American Records had at Broadway and Fifty-seventh Street to 799 Seventh Avenue, there was discussion of a joint rese arch project with CBS for the purpose of making a longer-playing record. Nine years later this was to culminate in the LP.
In: Other Recording Stories
The Wally Heider Orchestra
Wally had a dance band in the 40′s and Biff Dawes found an acetate (one-off-disk recording) of the band live:
check out THE WALLY HEIDER ORCHESTRA
My sister was Ginger Mews….
Ginger Mews
Ginger passed away May 19, 2000 at the young age of 59. (She came to be with us on Christmas Day 1999 with the hope treatment for her cancer would buy some time.) We later flew to SF and had a wonderful celebration of her life. There is a memorial bench in Golden Gate Park with her name that reads “for the city she loved, etc.” I would love to hear any and all stories you might have about Ginger. We visited every year and spent many hours with her at the Fillmore, Heider Studio (Christmas party), and enjoyed all the stories–Airplane/Starship, Doobie Brothers, Grateful Dead–hope to return again this year–what a wonderful time! Thank you in advance! Vicki
In: Firsthand Stories