The thrill is gone: House of the Blues Studio D moves to Nashville

Photo by Alan Spearman // Buy this photo

The legendary House of the Blues Studio D in Memphis is prepared for a move to Nashville. Tom Freitag (foreground), house engineer at the House of Blues recording studio in Nashville, and Curtis Atchison of Toothman Structure help with the move.

It started with Sam the Sham, and continued with everyone from Isaac Hayes to Three Six Mafia recording there, but on Tuesday, the legendary House of Blues Studio D ended its 40-plus year run in Memphis.

The building, located at 898 Rayner St., began a 200-mile journey to Nashville, where it will begin anew as part of owner Gary Belz’s House of Blues studio complex in Music City’s Berry Hill section. The main House of Blues studio, at 904 Rayner, will remain in operation.

Photo by Alan Spearman

The legendary House of the Blues Studio D in Memphis is prepared for a move to Nashville. Tom Freitag (foreground), house engineer at the House of Blues recording studio in Nashville, and Curtis Atchison of Toothman Structure help with the move.

The Memphis-born Belz, who has lived in the Los Angeles area since early 1990s where he operates the House of Blues West facility, says the move was a concession to the hard-hit studio business in the Bluff City.

“Memphis has been very good to us over the years, but at the same time Nashville has a base and is still growing,” says Belz. “We’ve had a surplus of (recording) rooms in Memphis for a while and a lack of rooms in Nashville, so the move made sense.”

Belz — a noted Memphis preservationist who also helped redevelop the Peabody Hotel and save the Galloway Mansion — says the decision to pull up stakes was a difficult one. “But, frankly, it’s just harder and harder to get business to come to Memphis,” he says. “I didn’t want to see (Studio D) going to waste. It was just sitting there, not producing any income and I couldn’t afford to subsidize it any longer.”

The Studio D building itself has a rich history dating back some five decades. Born as the then state-of-the art Sounds of Memphis studio in the late 1960s, it was built by MGM and Memphis label owner Gene Lucchesi as a home base for hit maker Sam the Sham, and funded by the success of his worldwide smashes “Wooly Bully” and “Little Red Riding Hood.”

After the Sam the Sham era ended, the studio, which continued to be owned by the Lucchesi family, was operated by various people through 1980s, including Memphis soul/funk band the Bar-Kays.

In 1986, Belz bought the building and teamed with Eagles/James Gang guitarist Joe Walsh to expand it — adding a newer, bigger complex at 904 Rayner — into a full scale recording and talent production facility dubbed Kiva. While Kiva’s talent operation never quite took off, the studio did attract considerable out-of-town business, with Stevie Ray Vaughan, Collective Soul, Matchbox 20 and Travis Tritt all recording there.

In the mid-’90s Belz then partnered with his friend and House of Blues nightclub founder Isaac Tigrett. The studio was renamed and rebranded under the House of Blues entertainment umbrella, and continued to enjoy success.

However, in more recent years, and despite attracting a legion of high profile rap acts to the studio (including Three 6 Mafia and Yo Gotti), the industry-wide downturn caught up with Studio D, and eventually slowed its business to a trickle.

Meantime, Belz’s studio operations in Nashville — he built the renowned Ocean Way in 1995, before launching a House of Blues location there in 1997 — have been thriving.

For the past couple years Belz says he’s been faced with a decision on what to do with Studio D. He notes that sentiment stopped him from simply gutting it or shuttering it. “I didn’t have the heart to do that,” says Belz. “Every time I walked into the building and saw how special it was I just fell back in love with it. To me, it’s still the best sounding studio that I’ve been involved in.”

After working out the logistical hurdles, Belz finally decided to transport the entire structure, and make it part of his massive studio complex in Nashville. “In terms of moving, what was so appealing and exciting to me was I was bringing part of the great Memphis heritage to Nashville,” he says.

Crews began work preparing the building in late July; the roof and parts of the sides had to be dissembled in order to meet legal requirements for the move.

The process concluded on Tuesday afternoon as the building was loaded on a customized vehicle for the nearly 200 mile journey east on I-40, with a banner draped along its side noting: “From Memphis with Love.”

Belz says the vacated lot on Rayner will remain empty for the time being, while the main House of Blues studio will continue to operate normally. The relocated Studio D is expected to be up and running in Nashville before the end of the year.

— Bob Mehr: 529-2517

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