Nashville RCA Studio A May Be Saved

Recently I wrote about what looked like the last days of the famous RCA Studio A in Nashville. The studio had been ground zero for hits from everyone from Willie Nelson to Keith Urban, but developers had purchased the property and had planned to convert it into luxury condominiums.

Ben Folds, the current tenant of the studio, couldn't afford to purchase the studio himself, but managed to organize a groundswell of people who wanted to preserve the site in the interest of history.

After lots of press, a new buyer emerged with the intent of keeping the studio as a studio, a most wonderful turn of events. On Friday, Bravo Development announced that it had entered into a contract for the sale of RCA Studio A to AMT Trust for $5.6 million, a tidy profit over the $4.1 million the company had originally paid for it.

AMT Trust is a non-profit organization led by Leiper's Fork philanthropist Aubrey Preston, with the specific intention of saving Studio A from the wrecking ball.

The deal finalizes today at 5PM, but other potential buyers still can submit a bid until that time, so it's not a done deal yet. That said, this looks like a great victory for keeping the venerable old studio alive.

So many of the great recording facilities of yesterday have died, mostly because of soaring real estate costs. The expense of owning a major commercial studio is more than ever, but the prices that you can charge a client have actually gone down over the last 15 years. Just about the only way to save a studio like this anymore is to have it declared an historical site.

Thankfully, it looks that the piece of history that is RCA Studio A will live to see many more productive days.

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Another Historic Nashville Studio May Fold

Industrial progress has been cruel to some of the great old recording studios where so much history was once made. We've seen wonderful rooms in every major city disappear because of rising real estate costs, while the amount of money that a studio can charge a client has actually dropped.

I was recently in what used to be the old RCA Studio B space in Hollywood to sit on a panel about YouTube. Everyone from Sinatra to The Stones recorded there at one time. Now it's a very nice theater owned by the LA Film School. Not one person I talked to knew they were standing on hallowed ground.

Now it looks like RCA Studio A in Nashville will meet the same fate. The studio is now rented by singer/songwriter Ben Folds, who has just been informed that the studio will be sold to a developer who plans to turn the space into new condos, an awful fate for a studio that once hosted the best of the best of Nashville, from Waylon Jennings to Eddie Arnold to Roy Orbison and many more.

Ironically, the studio is owned by Harold Bradley, a former member of the famed A Team of Nashville studio musicians who played on literally hundreds of hits. It was Harold and his brother Owen, along with Chet Atkins, who created the "Nashville Sound" and built the city into a music powerhouse.

Bradley is quite aware of the history of the place, but states that he's wanted to sell the studio for more than 20 years and it's only coming to fruition now. He's also not as sentimental about the space as many others are, stating that the music made there will still live on.

That said, Folds is trying to get the studio designated as a historic site and have the developer incorporate it into the project that will be built.

Many of the other great studios in Nashville have been bought by Mike Curb (like RCA Studio B and Oceanway) and donated to Belmont University when threatened with a similar fate. Will he come through again?

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