Plaque goes up on first record studio
mainThis is where Fred Gaisberg set up shop in August 1898.
Music has never been the same since.
The only other studio at the time was Edison’s in New Jersey.
The wording on the plaque hardly conveys its historic importance. The ground floor is now home to a pizza parlour called Fire & Stone.
Caryn Tomlinson, Chair, EMI Archive Trust adds: ‘The pioneering work of Fred Gaisberg and The Gramophone Company expanded the emerging music industry rapidly across the globe. He was part creative, part scientist, part explorer, skills he traversed with ease. His personality and expertise still shine through in his beautifully preserved diaries, held by the Trust. Seeing London’s first recording studio acknowledged with this plaque and by Roger [Taylor]’s presence, reminds us of how today’s inventive musicians, producers and engineers continue to capture our imaginations.’
Where is this?
Maiden Lane, off Fleet Street, London
Off the Strand in London (it’s further west than Fleet Street), just south of Covent Garden.
The painter Turner was born in this street
So they went from making one kind of disc (recordings) to another (pizza).
Excellent biography by Jerrold Northrop Moore:
Sound Revolutions: A Biography of Fred Gaisberg.
For those interested in the fascinating and essential Gaisberg story.
I was surprised to learn that both Fred Gaisberg and his brother were Americans who came to Britain and worked for The Gramophone Company. His brother died young, but Fred worked for successor companies HMV/EMI until after WWII, helping with sessions of artists he’d known for decades.
It was Fred Gaisberg who on his own hook and expense went ahead to record those precious first masters with Caruso in Italy, after his bosses had forbidden him to. He paid Caruso’s fee from his own pocket, but no-one lost money by it in the end.