BOGALUSA, La. (WGNO) — Tucked away behind the trees and down a country road in Bogalusa is Studio in the Country, a priceless music recording studio in America. In the early 1970s, recording engineer William Bleu Evans built Studio in the Country. In 2023, Studio in the Country turns 50-years-old.
The recording studio has a lot of history, and quite a few artists have used it over the years. Jay Wesley is a musician and a sound engineer at the studio and explains the legacy of the studio.
He said, “I tell people all the time, this is about as close as you can get to recording in an actual museum as you can get. All of these albums are little snapshots of these different bands in moments in time.”
Studio in the Country was built to record music. There aren’t a lot of right angles to the walls. There are separate foundations to each room, so that the sound doesn’t travel from one room to another. Over the years, the ownership has changed, but the studio remains a steadfast gem in the rich tradition of recording music in America. It still has the same integrity of sound.
One day, Stevie Wonder visited Bogalusa. Wesley explains what happened during this visit, saying “Stevie Wonder rented Studio in the Country for eight months. He was out here working on his album ‘Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants.’ A tour bus showed up one day, while he was here. It was Willie Nelson. Willie Nelson said he wanted to record and book the studio for ten days. Stevie went on Willie Nelson’s bus and came off the bus. Stevie had sold Willie Nelson ten days of us studio time and that overlap of those two artists here at Studio in the Country happened. I heard they had a fun time.”
But the studio is intergenerational. Newer artists like PJ Morton use it today. PJ used the studio last year to record his “Watch the Sun” album.
“One of the things that I really liked about PJ is he really has an appreciation for this kind of place. As the jam evolves, the song evolves, and they are picking up the pieces all along the way. That is a really cool way to work. My favorite thing about this job is the people. It’s being in the room with artist and trying to see a project through their eyes and create what they hear in their head,” explains Wesley.
Learn more about the studio on the Studio in the Country website.
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