The five-time Tony-winning play Stereophonic opened this week at the Curran Theater on Geary St. Written by David Adjmi, with songs by Will Butler, and directed by Daniel Aukin, the show follows four rock musicians in the 1970s with plenty of talent but even more baggage. Taking place entirely inside a recording studio as the unnamed Anglo-American folk rock band attempts to cut its latest album, Stereophonic takes direct inspiration from the fraught musical and romantic dynamics of Fleetwood Mac as its members, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and Christine McVie attempted to keep the band and their relationships intact during the recording one of the best-selling albums of all-time: 1977’s Rumours.
This San Francisco run (through November 23rd) is a kind of homecoming: Stereophonic’s set, designed by David Zinn, is an immaculate reconstruction of Studio B at Sausalito’s Record Plant, the audiophile’s dream room where Fleetwood Mac managed to come together in perfect harmony to create classics like “Go Your Own Way,” even as they were coming apart in every other way.
Opened in 1972 at 2200 Bridgeway in Sausalito by Gary Kellgren (1939-1977) and Chris Stone (1935-2016), the studio was the third Plant after New York and Los Angeles. With its weathered wood-slat exterior, the Sausalito Plant looked like a funky beach house, which it sort of was with its guest lodging, jacuzzi, and access to a speedboat docked on the Bay.
Acclaimed producer and engineer Ron Nevison was employed as the Plant’s chief engineer for Los Angeles and Sausalito from 1975 to 1985. His credits are too numerous to name but include serving as an engineer on The Who’s Quadrophenia and Tommy and on Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti. The records he worked on at the Plant’s Sausalito location include Survivor’s eponymous 1979 release, Grace Slick’s Software, and three albums with Slick’s late career band Jefferson Starship.
During a recent phone call, Nevison confided that the mere idea of placing a studio in a quiet town like Sausalito sounded like madness when he first heard about it.
“Gary Kellgren had the idea to put a studio there,” Nevison explained. “No one else would ever think to put a studio in a place where the square footage is ridiculously expensive. You put studios in industrial areas, you don't put them in a tourist attraction area with no hotels.”
The absence of suitable hotels in the area led Kellgren and Stone to purchase a pair of homes in nearby Tamalpais Valley.
“They used to entice producers to come up to Sausalito by offering them these houses,” Nevison said. “They did it out of necessity but when I’d come up there, I also got to stay in those houses, sometimes with the bands.”
Nevison recalls one such experience when he was working with Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart on what would become 1985’s Heart.
“I took Ann and Nancy there to get them away from their friends and family in Seattle. They didn’t like LA, and I wanted a more captive audience to get the work done. Sausalito was a good place for that.” The resulting album contained the hits “What About Love?” and “These Dreams.”
Despite Sausalito’s sleepy disposition, the crew at the Record Plant still managed to ensure that those who wished to party would be served. Legendarily decadent artists like Rick James and Sly Stone took up residence at the Plant, which included a room where the floor consisted of a waterbed. (Talk about super freaky.)
The Plant was also known for its access to industrial-grade nitrous oxide — obtained under the pretense that it aided in the recording process — and colorful décor and fixtures that included, most notably, a room called the Pit. Designed at the request of Sly Stone, an office at the Plant was remodeled into a groovy circular studio space with plush carpeting covering every surface and the engineer’s controls located at a sunken center console.
That space, along with the room where Fleetwood Mac recorded Rumours, still exist in what is now known as 2200 Bridgeway Studios.
2200 Bridgeway Studios is co-owned by a group that includes Chris Skarakis, Jim Rees, and others, which attempted to buy the property in 2018 after it had failed to sell for over a decade.
Their plan to save the legendary studio was to turn it into a non-profit to ensure it can stay (largely) the same. “The 2200 Music Foundation is taking over operations of the studio and all the equipment and everything and moving the entire operation into a nonprofit,” Skarakis told me. “We feel that a nonprofit model is the best way to save historic studios like this one.”
The Plant remains a magnet for those who once spent time within its walls. As a result, Rees and Skarakis say that they’re constantly meeting people who want to share juicy rock gossip and rumors.
Skarakis told me about an ornate wooden “tree of life” pattern in the lobby that needed to be fixed. “It was worn down when we took over the project. We were trying to figure out who to hire to redo it when we got a knock on the door from this guy who was probably in his 80s. He said, ‘Hey, I'm Red. I was a woodworking apprentice in 1970, and I did all the flooring here on this tree of life.’ And we hired Red to redo the whole project. It was very full circle. He had some incredible stories. He claimed his first BJ was from Janis Joplin.”
Speaking of rumors, Nevison wasn’t behind the mixing board for Fleetwood Mac’s mega hit (Kan Caillat and Richard Dashut produced it), but came awfully close.
Fleetwood was flying high (so to speak) with 1975’s “Rhiannon,” which had gone platinum. Nevison had just finished his third album with Bad Company and he was at the Record Plant in LA to mix it when he got a call from drummer Fleetwood and bassist John McVie about doing their next album.
“I met them next door to the Record Plant in LA at a place called Chuck’s Steakhouse. We sat at the bar and schmoozed for a while. After that, we had another meeting and then I heard nothing. That is never a good sign,” Nevison said. “At the time, my girlfriend was working for [producer] Lou Adler at Ode Records. She knew Fleetwood Mac’s secretary, Judy Wong. I said, ‘Why don't you call up Judy and find out what's going on?’”
He continues: “She does it and then comes back and goes, ‘Ron, Judy told me not to tell anyone, but Stevie is breaking up with Lindsey and John is breaking up with Christine and they thought you were too handsome to be with in the studio.’
“And that's how I lost Rumours.”
Sounds like a story that has the makings of a play.
