Rabadash Studios in Mandeville, Louisiana, will host an open house on Saturday, July 16, from 1 to 5 p.m.
Rabadash Records, one of the oldest independent labels in the country, celebrated its 35th anniversary year of making music in 2019. The label’s primary focus since its very first release has been a commitment to preserving the music of New Orleans and southern Louisiana with works by legacy artists and new performers who embody the region’s rich musical traditions.
Rabadash started almost by accident; it wasn’t even conceived until label cofounder John Autin found himself on the outside looking in on a spoiled album deal. “We just fell into it,” Autin said. “I started Rabadash with singer, Nora Wixtead, who was my girlfriend at the time. We had negotiated a deal for Nora’s album, were ready to sign, and the label called us up at the last second and told us they were signing a different singer instead. Since we already had all the tapes, the artwork and everything, we decided to start our own damn label! We released Nora’s CD and then immediately recorded legendary piano player and singer, Al Broussard. He was almost 78 at the time and had never been recorded before even though he’d been playing on Bourbon Street since the 1920s.
“Those two records came out in 1984 and we were off and running. We started off doing two or three releases a year, but we had to go dark for a while due to Hurricane Katrina. We didn’t do anything for a few years, but we came back about 10 years ago. Three years ago we partnered with studio builder Dirk Billie and builtRabadash Recording Studio, and now we’re able to do about six releases a year and record other non-Rabadash artists in our world class facility.”
Studio A of Rabadash Recording Studio was designed by the legendary audio architect and recording studio designer John Storyk of Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG)and constructed by Rob Chalmers of R.L.C. Management, L.L.C. for Balance Studios and Grammy-award winning Producer, Dave Fortman. Shortly after, the studio was taken over and run for the next 15 years by Master Engineer Jonathon Treeby. Rabadash Records took over in August of 2021, interfacing the facility’s heart and soul, a vintage Harrison analogue 32/48 console.
The studio consists of one large acoustically perfect recording room with hardwood floors completely isolated from all outside noise. The facility includes two beautiful isolation rooms and a large, comfortable control room. Triple glass makes the isolation totally complete between each room.
The monitoring is a custom designed system by Dynaudio. Near fields, midfields, and the large up top monitors offer one of the best mixing environments in Louisiana.
Artists who have recorded at Rabadash include Waylon Thibodeaux, Big Al Broussard, Tom McDermott, Amanda Walker, Anders Osborne, Theresa Andersson, Big Daddy “O” and Tex Townes, among many others.
Rabadash Studios is located at 1755 South Lane in Mandeville. For more information, visit here.
