Dallas: Tempo 2 recording studio

Tempo 2 was a prominent Dallas recording studio that became an important hub for regional and national music production during its operation. The studio gained recognition for its high-quality recording facilities and was utilized by a range of artists across different genres, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s.

Key Aspects of Tempo 2 Recording Studio:

High-Quality Equipment:

• Tempo 2 was known for its state-of-the-art recording equipment, which attracted both local and national artists. The studio provided a professional environment that catered to the needs of musicians and producers, making it a sought-after location for recording sessions.

Notable Recordings:

• The first studio recording of Stevie Ray Vaughan was made at Tempo 2. The then-14-year-old played on the sessions of a local group called A Cast of Thousands, which included Dallas-born actor Stephen Tobolowsky. A Cast of Thousands had been invited to record two songs, “Red, White and Blue” and “I Heard a Voice Last Night”, for a compilation of local Dallas garage bands called A New Hi.

Stephen Tobolowsky on Stevie Ray Vaughan:

Actor Stephen Tobolowsky told this anecdote to podcaster Patrick Scott Armstrong in 2020:

“Well, we were a really terrible folk rock group. We were really bad. We were called Cast of Thousands, because that was in movies at that time, like Ben Hur and Spartacus, cast of thousands.”

Tobolowsky said his bandmate Bobby Forman, “who was the only real musician among us,” arranged a recording session at Tempo II Studios in Dallas to record two songs for a compilation album.

“So we’re on our way over to record, and Bobby says, well, I got a kid from the neighborhood, Stevie Vaughan, to play lead guitar on our two songs, and I’m going, ‘Wait, wait, wait, Stevie Vaughan. How old is Stevie Vaughan?’ And yet, you know, because I knew … Jimmy and Steve … kind of from around the neighborhood. And he goes, well, he’s 14. I go, Bobby, Bobby — look, we could play guitars — we don’t need any kid playing on our guitar. Now this is on the way to the studio to record. Bobby’s in the front seat. I’m in the back and Bobby turns around and looks at me and says, Stephen, shut up. He says, ‘This kid, Stevie, he’s so good. He’s going to make us sound like we know what we’re doing.’

“Steve was sitting there in a metal folding chair with a red Gibson in his lap with the dual humbucking pickups and he was kind of like just leaning back in the chair looking like he needed a haircut or something and he said, ‘So guys I don’t know like what we’re doing here so why don’t you play a little bit your song so I can figure out what I’m doing.’

“And we did so we started playing our first song, ‘Red, White and Blue’, which is what that song was and Stevie stopped after about eight seconds — ‘Okay, okay, okay, okay, hold it okay. I got it so this is kind of a crappy song so what if I start with kind of a crappy lead and then go into a good lead?’ And uh we said, ‘Oh, well, sure Stevie whatever and we recorded it like the Beatles. This is the only, uh, kind of analogy I’m gonna make to the Beatles in the entire recording here — but we stood, we all stood around the microphone and we recorded the whole damn song with the guitars and everything all at once in one take — we got the master take. Stevie didn’t play, you know we just did all of our rhythm guitar and bass and vocals and harmonies, etc. Then the engineer said, ‘Okay son you ready to do a lead and Stevie goes ‘yeah sure’. You know he kind of stood up and they played it and then he started doing this real crappy lead, you know, really funny stupid crappy lead, and then he goes into this blistering Eric Clapton sort of lead and we’re like huh huh and I’m looking at Bobby and Bobby is like nodding at me going like you see what I told you … I told you man.

“So anyway Stevie does that lead and the recordist — I’m looking now through the glass window and it’s a grown-up, you know, they have grown-ups back then who are doing recording — and he’s kind of, his mouth is agape. And he goes, ‘Uh, son, that was pretty good. Do you have another one you want to do?’

“And Stevie goes, ‘Well, do you want it, do you want it more Eric Clapton or you want it more Jimi Hendrix?’

‘Well, just, yeah, just do something different.’

‘Okay, man.’

“So … Stevie played another amazing blistering lead. And now the guy who’s recording, the guy who’s behind the desk stands up and I’m watching him run to the door, open the door and yell silently down the hallway and gesture, come here, come here, you have to see this. And other grown-ups started running into the recording room behind the double-pane glass and they start looking and Stevie finished that lead and the recordist goes, ‘Uh, son, got any more in you?’

“And Stevie goes, ‘I could do this all day.’ ‘Why don’t you play a few more?’ So then Stevie did one of those leads where he goes way low on the low bass notes, then zips up way up to the high notes and does a counter-pasto kind of thing of doing the low and the high and back and forth.

“And now I’m standing beside the recording window. I’m looking in there. There are about eight grownups in there with their mouths open with the light of the recording studio on their faces looking like they’ve just been hit by a revelation.

“And I realize it was the first time any of us, anyone in that room had seen the real thing. And by the real thing, I don’t mean like a real good guitarist. I mean, it was the first time we saw genius.

“And when you see that for real, there’s no coming back from it. You realize: one, that it exists and that’s good news. And then you realize how far away you are from that. And that is sort of bad news, but it is true that Stevie did make us sound like we knew what we were doing.