When Clay Blair first laid eyes on the old recording space on Hollywood Boulevard and Gower Street in 2010, what he saw was … underwhelming.
“Dingy” is how Clay describes the studio’s lounge. It “smelled like mildew and smoke.”
But you don’t pick a music studio based on your eyes or your nose. It’s your ears that matter. And “the live room sounded so good."
He signed a lease that day, excited to provide “a room where people can make things together," not realizing exactly what a treasure he now had – or how hard it would be to keep it.
In Boulevard’s control room, Clay Blair works on a song with Justin Baren from The Redwalls. Photo courtesy of Clay Blair.
Clay Blair says he started recording and mixing music when he was 11 years old. In 2010, he’d just moved from Asheville, North Carolina, and was looking for a small space where he could mix music.
He found this spot, he says, on Craigslist. “I’m not even kidding.”
“[The posting] said ‘recording studio,’ but I didn't realize until much later that it was built in 1967,” he remembers.
As it turned out, “there were historic records done here, like Pink Floyd's The Wall, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Steely Dan's Aja, and Gaucho,” Clay says. "Ringo Starr worked on his first album here. Carly Simon, James Taylor, Barbra Streisand. In my opinion, it was probably the pinnacle of analog recording in the late 70s, early 80s.”
Pink Floyd kept these instruments at Producer’s Workshop, now Boulevard Recording, where “The Wall” was finished and mixed. Courtesy of Clay Blair.
“I just was like, this is insane. I remember being obsessed with Los Angeles when I was a kid because I had so many albums that were recorded here,” Clay says in a slight Carolina drawl.
He spent years scouring audio engineering forums and searching the liner notes of records he knew had been made in the Hollywood studio he now ran. He contacted people who had worked there in the 60s and 70s, including the guy who recorded Steely Dan, famed recording engineer Bill Schnee.
"I've connected with as many of them that are still around as I possibly can," Clay says.
He even met with Larry Brown, who built the studio with his dad in 1967. "Larry Brown brought a folder with the lumber receipts, which was unbelievable, and I couldn’t believe he still had it.”
Clay put all of his energy into what became a long journey to restore the studio.
Initially known as a psychedelic rock haven for bands such as Quicksilver Messenger, it was founded as Continental Recorders. In the 70s, the studio switched hands to become Producer’s Workshop, and would go on to become historically significant, hosting Ray Charles, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, and each former member of The Beatles.
But perhaps what made the room so well known back then was when producer Bob Ezrin deemed it “acoustically perfect” and brought Pink Floyd in to finish The Wall, recording overdubs and mixing the iconic record.
Finally, in the late 80s, the space was purchased and became Westbeach Recorders, which hosted beloved pop-punk tracks from the likes of Blink-182, Bad Religion, and NOFX. Even Mazzy Star recorded “Fade Into You” here.
Despite this success, Westbeach went out of business in 2008 and fell into disrepair.
Enter Clay Blair’s discovery in 2010.
Now, he says, “I'm kind of the official-unofficial holder of knowledge on this place. You know, I've compiled it from all the eras.”
Producer’s Workshop, where seminal records were made in the 1970s and early 80s, had a logo featuring a house with the Hollywood sign in the background. Courtesy of Clay Blair.
The restoration process was laborious and costly, involving everything from rewiring and signal routing to sourcing both vintage and new equipment to match the needs of the space. Clay’s dedication to this new project was ignited by a deep respect for the studio’s history and a desire to restore its place in the music industry.
Like the legendary Abbey Road or Sunset Sound Studios, Clay named the space after the place: Hollywood Boulevard, hence Boulevard Recording.
By 2015, Boulevard was hosting popular recording sessions.
Adam Granduciel of The War on Drugs describes the studio as "a classic sounding room ... one of the unheralded classic LA studios."
His band initially met Clay when he was working as a recording engineer at the now-shuttered Altamont Recording in Asheville, N.C. Clay and Adam Granduciel stayed in touch and reconvened at Boulevard where The War On Drugs recorded much of their Grammy-winning album A Deeper Understanding.
Adam Granduciel, with his acoustic guitar, recorded in Boulevard’s live room for what would become the album “A Deeper Understanding.” Photo courtesy of Clay Blair.
However, the music industry was undergoing a massive shift. Streaming services and an unregulated industry were making it difficult for musicians to make a living.
Then the pandemic halted in-person recording, leaving studios like Boulevard nearly empty by 2020.
“It was so slow because none of the labels were interested in spending any money, because of all the unknowns,” Blair says.
During this period of more questions than answers, Clay got a call from the musician Chris Pierce, who was looking for a place to record.
“We did an album called American Silence in 2020, and it's just him and a guitar, and it's incredible,” Blair says.
Chris Pierce records “American Silence” at Boulevard Recording in 2020. Photo by Saroyan Humphrey.
Reflecting on the pandemic's impact on his own life and the world, Pierce says, "I feel like 2020 was a time where there was a blistering lens on social injustices, and a time where I feel like folks really had the time to listen. And I knew of Clay's place to be a place of refuge and togetherness, and a place that a lot of musicians went for the feeling of the place."
American Silence became a reflection of the times, Pierce’s personal stories becoming a conduit for the struggles and hopes of an uncertain era of isolation, and cultural and political upheaval.
Making a record a year doesn’t keep the lights on in a recording studio, but Clay has a knack for turning his hobbies into careers. So while the studio remained mostly silent, he turned to making Carolina-style pit barbecue for his neighbors.
“It was just like, I'm gonna do what makes me money to support my family and to pay bills,” Blair says.
Edna Jane’s BBQ, named after his maternal grandmother’s famous pulled pork barbecue sandwich with a side of slaw and hushpuppies, received attention from LA Mag, and you could find a line of cars down nearby Gower Street as Blair was smoking “full hog” style BBQ from the parking lot of Boulevard Recording “that went on up until November ‘21,” Blair says.
November 2021. That's when the fight for the future of Clay’s historic space truly began.
“I got a call at like 1:30 in the morning from my neighbor here that said, ‘Your studio's on fire,’” Clay remembers. “I drive down and there's fire trucks all over Hollywood Boulevard. And I was just like, what’s going on? And so I walked in and I couldn't see much 'cause the power had been shut off.”
He continues, “It just burnt. The lounge was completely toast. And the console didn't look so bad, but then when you got close to it, it was like, oh my god, it's so messed up. Like, the heat and the smoke ruined everything. And everything was caked with this gooey, like hard soot. Everything was gone.”
The lounge contained what was suspected to be the culprit of the fire, a coffee maker. The official cause of the fire is still unknown. Photo by Clay Blair.
Clay’s insurance deemed the space a total loss. The fire was a devastating blow, erasing much of the work he had painstakingly put into the studio over the previous decade.
Boulevard sat in the dark for a full year. But then Clay’s sister-in-law started a GoFundMe campaign, and to their surprise, over 400 people pitched in to help the historic space get back to making music again.
Clay partnered with local studio builder Josh Nyback of Nyback Builds to recreate the space based on documentation, photos, and memory. “We had to gut the studio down to the studs,” Clay says.
After over two years of restoring the space for the second time, Boulevard Recording reopened in February with a celebration that marked a new chapter in its storied history.
“Let's be frank, I mean, a lot of people wouldn't have rebuilt a studio, you know?” says Adam Granducial of The War on Drugs. “I mean, 2024, studios are closing all over the place, especially in Hollywood. And then there's a guy who's building one. It's like, ultimate props to Clay.”
Granducial adds, “This is important that studios exist, and that there's a live room that sounds great, and has a pedigree to it.”
But maintaining operations remains a constant battle. To keep the studio financially viable, Clay has slashed rates this summer, making the space accessible to a wider range of musicians.
For Clay, reopening Boulevard isn’t just about repairing walls or fixing wires; it's about preserving a legacy and bringing people together.
“I don't know anybody that gets into the studio business that expects to make a bunch of money on it,” Clay says. “Cause that's just like, not what it is. We do it because we love it, and we pour our whole beings into these places. This room is so much of me and my life in the past 14 years.”