Recording studio in Nottingham built by Colin F. Horton and Geoffrey Hall Ford.

In the sixties the recording industry was booming. We are all familiar with the great studio’s of Olympic, Trident and EMI (something we now know as Abbey Road) but provincially it was a different story. The independent studio that is best remembered is the one at 304 Holloway Road, Islington owned and run by the great maverick and innovator Joe Meek. Small studio’s did exist and there were places you could record and cut a demo disc and while these studios served the purpose they were not made for a major record release.

In the late fifties Nottingham, although it was a fair sized city, there was no recording studio for a prospective group to go to. I have heard, anecdotally, of a place/garage on Loughborough Road, West Bridgford close to Trent Bridge where jazz players could cut a disc. This is possibly true, as such places existed up and down the country. However, one of Nottingham’s earliest jazz groups, Mick Gill’s Imperial Jazz Band went to Birmingham to record in the late 1940’s so if there was a studio in Nottingham it was probably extremely rudimentary.

In nearby Derby there was a place you could go and cut a disc. It was at Victor Bucklands store.

Here there was a room where the group would set up with rudimentary amplifiers and record in real time, while the staff would put a couple of microphones at floor level, and while recording cut straight from lathe to disc. You can hear three such recordings from 1964 and 1965 in the John Maslen article.

In early sixties Nottingham most groups were signed to Philip K. Smith’s Agency. Phil Smith was the leading group manager in the area. He worked for “City Enterprises” before leaving them in August 1964 to form his own “Banner” agency. A studio that was used by many Nottingham and east midlands groups was “Studio 36” in Northampton. Phil Smith had a working relationship with the proprietors of the studio and it was here small runs of a demo disc could be made. This could be between 5 to 200.

Colin Horton, who was playing in the Reg Guest Trio was signed to City Enterprises. In November 1964 Colin announced he was building a studio.

Firstly, the studio was built, and demos could be recorded and cut to an acetate disc. This recording studio was built by Colin Horton and Geoffrey Hall Ford who both came from Cinderhill in Nottingham. Situated at 652 Nuthall Road, this is where they set up this studio with the aim of recording mainly club acts and trying to capture the sound of how they were live. So, there was no studio trickery or particular innovation. Colin Horton was a professional drummer, now with his own trio. Geoffrey Hall Ford was a professional organist and was responsible for the musical arrangements. Another friend Dave Smith remembers “I lived across from Colin Horton the drummer and Reg lived with him for a while l helped Colin convert his garage into a recording studio and went many times with them to the radio station. for the Bernard Herman 1 o’clock show fantastic experience”. Another friend Michael Lakin plastered Colins recording studio.

1966

The first recording that survives is by “Anthony Dares Progress”, a local beat group who played from 1966 to the early seventies. This record was eventually released by on a compilation album “The Technicolour Milkshake” by “Diggthefuzz” records in 1995. The band remembered recording it with Bob Rowe on Alfreton Road. That was a studio set up, I think, by Phil Smith and his Banner agency in the mid sixties with Bob Rowe as engineer. He had been a musician in local groups The Globetrotters and The Straykats and would later produce the 1974 “Nottingham Castle Rock” album. It may be that the group actually recorded at the “Banner” studio and had the disc cut at “Nottingham Sound Studio” because they didn’t have the facility to do so at “Banner. Read about and hear the brilliant song “Devil” here.

1968

It wasn’t until the beginning of 1968 until they launched a record label just for clubland singers.

Their first record release was for Stu Stevens, the local up and coming Country and Western club singer in February 1968. It was advertised as “Sherwood Records” with the arrangement by Hall-Ford. You can hear “Nottingham City” here.

Stuart Becket

There was another record on a label called “Sherwood Records Limited” by Stuart Becket but this seems just to be coincidental and I have no other information about it, other than it sounds mid sixties and one of the songs is a cool Mod Beat dancer supposedly from 1966.

MJB Recording and Transcription Service

An unusual record appeared around this time with Colin Horton’s “Nottingham Sound Studio” address on it. There is an acetate or short run pressing of a record on MJB with the Nottingham Sound Studio contact address printed over it. Unfortunately there is no group name.

A small independent studio from Maidenhead founded by Mike Beville who cut acetates and small private press records from 1965 through to the early/mid seventies. Whether it was a studio in the sense that groups would record in there I don’t know. A lot of the recordings seem to have been done “in the field”.

There are a few possibility’s here. Colin Horton, who ran the Nottingham Sound Studio, might have used MJB for an acetate or short run demo before his studio was up and running. It may have even been a group he was in. The Reg Guest Trio or his own Colin Horton Trio.

Or maybe Colin Horton bought some of the equipment from the people at MJB that he would subsequently use his own studio which opened around 1967/68 and inherited some blank acetates with MJB labels still on.

An e.p. was released with picture sleeve by the Reg Guest Trio using Colin’s initials (CFH) as part of the label number. The “68” leads me to believe it was made in 1968.

This grainy image looks like another Reg Guest Trio record but it is hard to make out.

As with many local studios there was the obligatory School records.

All other acetates I have or have seen were cut for the prospective groups with a label that was titled either “Nottingham Sound Services” or “Nottingham Sound Studio”.

The Mint were a clubland group from Leicester.

The Chaesers were a group from Clay Cross. Read their story here.

1970’s

The Limelights were a clubland act from 1967/70. Hear the four tracks here.

Medicine Hat were a psych rock band verging on the heavy rock scene. Read and hear them here.

Medicine Hat became Pancho in late 1971 and they cut a disc too.

Nottingham Sound Studio kept running well into the seventies.

Other Nottingham studios

“Nottingham Sound Studio” wasn’t the only studio in Nottingham at the end of the sixties.

There was “Codolar” on Middle Pavement from 1968 and run by Clive Gamble. It was used by Radio Nottingham to record groups before they got their own facilities. Read about Codolar here.

The aforementioned Phil Smith, head of the “Banner” Agency set up a studio which was run by musician and electronics wizard Bob Rowe sometime in the mid sixties. Bob Rowe recorded and produced the very excellent “Nottingham Castle Rock” album in 1974 from there. It was known as (I think) or became “Arrow” studio. As is mentioned in the “Anthony Dares Progress” story above, Colin Horton may have used the “Banner” studio and Bob Rowe to fulfil some of his obligations.

Later Paddy Flynn and Andy Terry would set up Rainbow studio and label in the late seventies and early eighties.

That’s about as much as I know. Any help to illuminate the story further would be appreciated.