OUR STORY

1953

BREAKING GROUND

Alan Bubis aka “The King of the Cheapies” builds the 33,000 square foot record pressing plant at the corner of 48th and Tennessee in west Nashville. Alan and his brother Reynolds ran Tennessee Records until the mid-50s. His business plan was to record knock-offs of hit songs then press and sell the pirated versions though his mail order catalog, which was highly illegal!

1953

1963

MID SOUTH RECORDS

After a few brushes with the Federal Government, Bubis decides to sell his pressing plant to Motown Records and it becomes a legitimate pressing plant called Mid South Records. Motown and Chess Records are the majority of records pressed during this historic music era. Leonard Chess frequents the building and even has a barber chair installed in the area that is now the studio’s dining room.

studio mid south records

1963

1963

GENERAL RECORDED TAPE

Motown sells Mid South Records to GRT Records (General Recorded Tape) and it becomes the record pressing plant for GRT. GRT begins pressing albums for RCA, Columbia, Capitol, Atlantic, Arista, K-Tel & Ronco Records. At that time, it was estimated that 90% of all retail stores carried music that was manufactured by GRT.

 

1963

1970

ELECTROPLATING

GRT purchases the adjacent 7,000 square foot building from Lanahan Plastics and turned it into an electroplating facility to service their growing record pressing needs.

studio history

1970

1973

8-TRACK

GRT does a major overhaul to the operations in the building by adding 8-track duplication. All the record presses were upgraded to automatic SMT presses, allowing GRT to pump out a stunning 50,000 records per day.

studio

 

1973

1977

ELVIS DIES

Elvis Presley Dies. GRT begins pressing only Elvis records, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next 7 months.

1977

1978

HAY DAY

GRT resumes pressing for it’s other clients, and records by artists such as The Grateful Dead, Kenny Rogers, Eric Clapton, Crystal Gale & The Bee Gees are pressed.

1978

1979

END OF AN ERA

GRT declares bankruptcy and closes down their Nashville operations. As a result, vinyl records cease to be pressed at this location.

1979

1981

NATIONAL TAPE & DISC

Chuck Duncan purchases the space and starts NTD Corp, manufacturing cassette tapes. Later the company became National Tape & Disc Corporation, or NTC (you can still see where these letters were on the outside of the building.)

studio ntc

1981

1987

DIGITAL AGE

NTC enters into the digital age by duplicating Compact Discs.

1987

2005

NTC CLOSES

Due to increasing competition in the CD duplicating market from such companies as Disc Makers and Oasis, NTC is forced to close its doors.

2005

2008

NEW BEGINNINGS

Chris Mara leases 7,000 square feet of the building from Chuck Duncan and forms Welcome To 1979 as a recording studio. Mara is unaware of the building’s history at this time, the name of the studio is purely coincidental.

studio chris mara cameron henry tape op

2008

2009

MARA MACHINES

Welcome To 1979 adds an additional 1,500 square feet and forms Mara Machines, an analog tape machine restoration company focusing on restoring MCI tape machines that were originally manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s. These are the same tape machines (and consoles) that Welcome To 1979 utilizes.

2009

2013

VINYL MASTERING

Welcome To 1979 adds a vinyl mastering room equipped with a Neumann VMS 70 lacquer cutting lathe in order to serve its growing vinyl needs. A whopping 3,000 vinyl projects are completed in the next two years.

studio vinyl mastering suite

2013

2014

RECORD YEAR

Mara Machines becomes the world’s largest tape machine restoration company, restoring & selling 50 machines in a single year.

MIX Magazine Welcome to 1979 Feature

2014

2015

EXPANSION

Chris Mara, Yoli Mara & Lori Hines form Welcome To 1979 Industries and lease an additional 3,800 square feet in the same building. The new company is formed to serve the vinyl industry via their new, state of the art electroforming plant. This new company brings vinyl manufacturing back into the building for the first time since 1979.

Electroplating Facility Press Release

2015

TODAY

BACK TO OUR ROOTS

Welcome to 1979 now operates 4 separate business under one roof, much like in the golden days of GRT in the '70s. 1979 is the only recording studio in the world where a record can be tracked, cut, and plated all in the same day.

Jason Isbell Live at Welcome to 1979

Jason Isbell

TODAY