We drove through the night from Albuquerque to Denton, Texas, where we will be playing tonight at Dan’s Silverleaf. We passed through Wichita Falls, Texas, and I had to take a little detour to see the building where Nesman recording studios used to be, back in the day. The Sprague Brothers were from Wichita Falls and they were the first ones to tell me about Nesman Studios.
Buddy Holly recorded some of his first recordings here, when he had a hillbilly duo named “Buddy and Bob.“ Some of those early classics like “Down the Line,” “Gotta Get You Near Me Blues,” and “Flower of My Heart” were recorded here.
Slim Whitman also recorded several of his earliest records here. I’ve never been able to figure out if “Indian Love Call” was recorded here, but it might have been.
There were also several Texas rockabilly classics recorded here, including Bill Mack’s “It’s Saturday Night,” issued on Starday.
We came through Wichita Falls with the Sprague Brothers on a tour in 1997, and we set up a recording session at Nesman Studios. Louie Nesman had built the studio himself, and the equipment was a mixture of really great vintage gear and things he had built himself. By the time we got there, Louie was quite old, and the equipment was not in the best of shape. But somehow, he was able to cobble it all together for us to record. And he was a good engineer!
Louie and his wife Sally were very sweet people, and they put up with the Sprague Brothers’ and my exuberance (Shorty Poole was there, too) about recording in a real vintage recording studio that Buddy Holly recorded at. After our session, Sally told me they were selling their equipment and getting out of the recording studio business. I bought an EV655 captive cable microphone that they told me was one of three or four microphones they had in the mid-1950s and was definitely used on the Buddy Holly recordings, although they couldn’t remember if it was used on vocals, guitar, or bass. They also sold me a pair of original 1967 Universal Audio blue stripe 1176 compressors, which I still have today. Every time I look at them in my studio, I remember Nesman Studios.
It’s a real trip to come back through Wichita Falls and see the building today. Louie and Sally are both gone, but those recordings have traveled around the world, and probably will for centuries to come.
See more photos and a video narrated by Deke at Deke’s original Facebook post!
