![]() And through an arrangement with Houston entrepreneur Harold W. To say the studio was makeshift would be an understatement: Quinn converted the first-floor kitchen of the family home into the primary recording studio.ĭue to the success of The Big Bopper and a few other musical acts, Quinn constructed a larger building around the existing family home on Brock Street, more than tripling the size of the studio, adding newer recording equipment, additional bathrooms, and a proper engineering room that overlooked the main studio. Throughout the 1950s, Quinn recorded hundreds of gospel, country, blues, and Zydeco/Cajun musicians who would eventually find their way onto small, independent labels, including the likes of Dixie, Starday, and D Records (some of the first George Jones tracks were recorded there for Starday and Dixie Records, and the very first Willie Nelson song on D Records was also recorded at Gold Star). With his wife and son living on the second floor, he created a larger studio, albeit primitive by today’s standards. In 1946, he founded Gold Star Records with the intent of recording independent musicians, and in 1950, he relocated his operation to his family home at 5628 Brock Street. When William “Bill” Russell Quinn moved from New Jersey to Houston in 1939, he built a small studio on Telephone Road in a former gas station with the goal of recording ads and jingles for the radio. While Houston has always had its fair share of famous musicians, it has never had a national reputation like Nashville or Memphis when it comes to recording studios and facilities. Meaux’s obsession with young girls would eventually land him in prison in 1996, but on that day when he rebranded the old Gold Star Recording studio “Sugar Hill Studios” and started recording groups in the summer of 1972, his future seemed bright. ![]() ![]() In 1972, when he purchased the vacant Gold Star Studios building on Brock Street, his career in the music business was stalled, after spending much of 1967 and some of 1968 in a Texas prison for violating the Mann Act and transporting underage females over state lines. Meaux was also in the studios in 1965 when another musical act he was managing, Sir Douglas Quintet, recorded their famous track “She’s About a Mover.” According to several sources, it was Meaux who dubbed the band “Sir Douglas” in an effort to gentrify the San Antonio rockers into a British-sounding group who could better compete with the onslaught of British bands on the radio.įrom his earliest days in radio, the Crazy Cajun had a knack for promoting groups and even penning an occasional song (Meaux’s song “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” was recorded in 1959 by Jivin’ Gene and The Jokers for Mercury Records but failed to score success). Meaux was informally managing The Big Bopper at the time, though that relationship ended abruptly when Richardson died in a plane crash (as did Buddy Holly and Richie Valens). “The Big Bopper” Richardson to the Gold Star studios where the famous track “Chantilly Lace” was recorded, eventually climbing the charts where it remained for over 22 weeks. It appears that his very first visit to Brock Street was on June 30, 1958, when Meaux accompanied fellow DJ from Beaumont J.P. Meaux was very familiar with the studio space in Pine Valley, just six blocks south of the Gulfgate shopping center, as he had visited it multiple times throughout the late 1950s and 1960s. Used with permission from Sugar Hill Studios
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