Three weeks after graduating from San Francisco State College in June of 1977 I found myself working at Filmways/Heider Studios in Hollywood. The job paid minimum wage and in those days you could still rent a place in Hollywood on that salary. Ok, a little overtime was required, but we were all young and eager. We couldn’t get enough of it.
While I was ecstatic much of the time, the place was riddled with contention. There were the Heider people and the Filmways people, each having a different view of how the company should move forward. This small family oriented recording studio was now part of a large corporation and people just didn’t like the shift. We had walls lined with certified gold. Ray Thompson was a legend and each week Ray, Biff Dawes, Dennis May and Paul Sandweiss would storm the studio. They would grab all of the best gear and off they would go to record another great live album.