If you saw Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 movie “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” you noticed one thing right off the bat. The film, which tells a fascinating fact-meets-fiction story about a brief period of time during the late-1960s in Los Angeles, was set to a wall-to-wall soundtrack featuring numerous songs from the era. As cars rolled down Hollywood Boulevard and through the canyons with their tops down and radios turned up, audiences were treated to a musical pastiche of what people were listening to at the time.
This concept added to the authenticity of the L.A. depicted, for not only was rock and roll radio the music that defined this point in history, but also because so much music was and continues to be recorded in and around Los Angeles.
This has been the case for years. At one time, up until about the late 1950s, it was jazz and the popular music of the time. Formally trained musicians in shirts and neckties arrived at one of the many studios that dotted the L.A. area and recorded tracks to accompany the stars of the day. Then, as the 1950s began winding down, things changed. Rock & roll made its presence known, bands with recording contracts were flocking to the local studios in droves and musicians were driving from studio to studio to record tracks, many of which would become AM radio hits. Most prominent among these musicians were the Wrecking Crew, an affiliated studio band composed of the finest players on the west coast who played on many of your favorite songs.
There were lots of studios in those days — GoldStar Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard and Capitol Records on North Vine, to name just two. Unfortunately, things changed over time and many of the studios from the glory days closed.
That’s not to say that the recording industry went away. Far from it. The Los Angeles studio scene today is as busy and vibrant as ever. Records are being made every day. We just don’t call them records anymore. They’re now known mostly known as “streaming music.”
One studio that’s been extremely active since the 1970s is the Evergreen Stage in Burbank. Formerly owned by DiaDan Holdings Ltd., the Evergreen Stage has hosted many recording sessions featuring a vast and diverse range of clients. Everyone from Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand to Billy Joel and Ozzy Osbourne has recorded there. If the building’s walls could talk, they’d tell you lots of amazing stories.
They might tell you about the studio’s 3,000-square-foot live room, which can accommodate up to 60 musicians at a time (including a large projection screen, which comes in handy when major Hollywood films are scored there). Or maybe they’d tell you how musicians can record either digitally or in analog, to get the specific sound they want. Possibly, they’d talk about the Evergreen Stage’s large collection of vintage microphones, acquired by DiaDan Holdings, Ltd. a few years ago, that date back several decades and were used on numerous recording sessions by some of the top names in early rock & roll.
Music has always been a part of our social heritage, and southern California has for many years played a key role in the soundtrack of our lives. It continues today with new artists emerging every day, being discovered and signed to contracts as a result of appearing on television shows that feature vocal competitions.
And then, there’s the 15-year-old noodling on the guitar in his bedroom or recording basic tracks on his computer with his garage band who will one day find him or herself sitting in a studio and recording an album that, with luck, will eventually go double platinum.
In any event, Los Angeles will continue to play a major role in the recording industry, and it’s certain that some new exciting artists will continue to emerge.