AL.com has a great read on the destruction of a building in Mobile that was at one time a music studio where Buffett recorded some of his earliest stuff.
Jimmy Buffett is best known for his easy-going Key West lifestyle, but his musical roots began in Mobile inside a second-floor recording studio devastated by a Christmas Day tornado.
The studio’s building was torn down on Thursday, and rubble is being cleared from what had long been Cantrell’s photography studio at 1916 Airport Blvd., in an area referred to as “The Loop” where Airport, Government Street and Dauphin Island Parkway converge.
While it has not been occupied by a sound studio for decades, the location had become a popular sight-seeing stop for devoted “Parrot heads,” or loyalists to Buffett’s music. It was inside the studio where Buffett recorded his first songs.
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“I could run (the studio) from 11 to 2 (a.m.) and during that three-hour period, we’d demo 10 songs,” Brown said. “That is unheard of today. I only had about seven of those songs ready to go and Jimmy was, by then, a good friend. I said, ‘hey, do you want to record some of yours?’ Jimmy said, ‘yeah, I want to do that.’”
Buffett, in the late 60s, was performing at the Admiral’s Corner at the Admiral Semmes Hotel in downtown Mobile.
“They were paying him $10 a night and he could put out a tip jar,” Brown said. “He wanted to get back (to work) so he didn’t lose that job.”
Said Thompson: “He was just one man with a guitar and a stool. He had not gotten the persona as the guy from Key West, yet.”
It was at Product Sound Studio where Buffett recorded two songs, “Don’t Bring Me Candy” and “Abandon On Tuesday.” Those two songs were released in 1970, but were not part of Buffett’s debut album, “Down to Earth.”
Be sure to read the full article here.