A History Of Columbia Studio, Nashville

Columbia Studios in Nashville was originally called Bradley's Barn - attached in the back of a two-story house on 16th Avenue. It was structured as a metal Quonset Hut building, intended as a sound stage for film and TV production.

But the Quonset Hut studio wasn't the first recording facility Owen and Harold Bradley constructed at the 16th Ave. location.

The first Bradley recording studio was located in the basement of the house. Many classic hits were recorded in that basement setup, including Gene Vincent's "Be Bop A Lula" in 1956. Much of Patsy Cline's Coral Records catalog was also recorded in the basement, along with a plethora of other classic hits from the '50s.

However, the basement studio had a few sonic issues. There weren't any digital sound-measuring devices in those days, to "tune" the room. There were no sound panels to absorb sound reflection, nor proper sound insulation within the walls: thereby causing room echo. It was evident in the records.

For example, listen carefully to Gene Vincent's "Be Bop A Lula" record. It has a wide-open sound. Much of the reason is because there was very little separation between the instruments.
The drums 'bled' over too much into Gene's microphone. So they placed Gene's mic in the men's room located toward the front office - away from the studio - so that the engineer could have separation enough to balance Gene's voice into the mix, without an over-bleed from the band.

Soon afterward, they needed more room. So they moved the entire recording studio into the new metal Quonset Hut in the back, and called it "Bradley's Barn". In the barn, there was room enough to separate the voices and instruments by installing insulated rolling walls, as well as adding small open rooms for better separation.

Separation makes it better for the recording engineer to control the balance between all the elements in a recording. It makes the record sound more present and clean.

Bradley's Barn became one of the top recording studios in the nation. There were many top classic records from different artists and record companies produced there: fPatsy Cline. Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, and on and on.

Many Columbia Records artists were produced at the "Barn", so in 1962, Columbia bought it from the Bradleys.
In a short time, Columbia fortified the studio with new, custom, state-of-the-art equipment, and continued to churn out hit records up until the '80s before closing down.

The last record produced at the 16th Avenue Bradley's Barn / Columbia Studio was the mega-hit "Swingin" by John Anderson.

While the building stood for several years as the art department for Columbia Records, it later was completely refurbished to its original layout for the Mike Curb School of Music Business / Belmont College.

As I last heard, they have refurbished the old equipment and placed it into the new control room.