![]() ![]() In 1962, Capitol signed The Beach Boys, who were considered at first to be a novelty act, though Brian Wilson had grander ideas. There was plenty of reverb on Gene Vincent’s greatest hits, and the label found a new use for orchestral sophistication on records by Glen Campbell and Bobbie Gentry. He oversaw the development of eight concrete echo chambers 30 feet underground, each with their own sound characteristics, allowing engineers to add reverb, lending the studios the aural qualities of a cathedral.Ĭapitol also reframed the career of Frank Sinatra - who oversaw the first recording session in the Tower - reinventing him as a saloon bar balladeer adrift on his own misfortune.Ĭapitol was startled by rock’n’roll, and relied for income on its country division, which laid the foundations for the twanging Bakersfield sound with the classic recordings of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. Les Paul was also responsible for the quality of the sound of the Capitol studios. Kay Starr was a big success, as were Les Paul and Mary Ford. The epitome of the Capitol sound is Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa, an after-work cocktail of the sweet crooning which dominated the pre-rock’n’roll period. While Capitol was initially unsure about The Beatles' commercial prospects in the US, American audiences were less reticent. The interior was state of the art, when the art was making and marketing hit records in which restrained good taste could be measured by the quality of the sound reproduction.Ĭapitol issued a company promo film in 1958, narrated by Tennessee Ernie Ford, which eulogised the movable sound panels in the building’s three recording studios, with wood on one side and fibreglass on the other, while also noting that the floors were a blend of concrete and cork to deaden the possibility of interference. But the design, by young architect, Louis Naidorf, was space age, standing 150 feet high, with a 90 foot spire on the roof, with a red light beaming out the word “Hollywood” in Morse Code. The circular exterior was said to be a matter of efficiency. That, though, is an accidental byproduct of the architect’s desire to create an ultra-modern structure. The building itself is often said to resemble a stack of records. But, looking through the photographs of Capitol’s golden age, you can see why this Pisa-like structure, half a block from Hollywood and Vine, has come to symbolise that short, beautiful period where the words “music” and “business” were able to co-exist in the same sentence. ![]() That’s a lot of explosive imagery for a 13 storey office block. A rocket-age Hadron collider spiralling out of showbiz ground zero.” Turning poetic, Beck then calls the tower “a stack of vinyl on the Hollywood skyline. ![]()
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