New Orleans recording legend Cosimo Matassa to join Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Published: Wednesday, December 07, 2011, 2:30 AM
By Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune

Cosimo Matassa, the New Orleans recording engineer and studio maestro who functioned as a midwife at the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, is among the 2012 inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He will be enshrined via the hall’s Award for Musical Excellence, which is reserved for non-performers who made significant contributions to the music’s evolution.


Times-Picayune Archive
Cosimo Matassa at a recording studio control board in 1981.

Matassa joins fellow 2012 honorees the Beastie Boys, Guns ‘n’ Roses, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Small Faces/the Faces, Donovan, Laura Nyro, the late Chicago blues guitarist Freddie King, TV concert impresario Don Kirshner and producers Glyn Johns and Tom Dowd.
The 27th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony is April 14 in Cleveland. Highlights will air on HBO in early May.

Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack, who as a young man observed how records were made at Matassa’s studio, was a member of the 2011 class. Previous New Orleans inductees include Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, Allen Toussaint, Lloyd Price, Jelly Roll Morton, Professor Longhair, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson and drummer Earl Palmer. Fewer than 650 bands and individuals have been voted into the Hall of Fame since its 1986 inception.

Matassa, now 85, opened what was reportedly New Orleans’ first recording studio at 838-840 North Rampart Street in 1945 after dropping out of the chemistry program at Tulane University. He was not yet 20 years old.

His family’s J&M Music Shop, a record and appliance store, occupied the front of the building. He installed J&M Recording Studio in a back room. It measured 15 by 16 feet, with a control room that Matassa has described as being “as big as my four fingers.” The “J” and “M” referred to the initials of his father, John Matassa.

Though modest in size, J&M Recording played a major role in popular music. Several records cut there facilitated the transition of rhythm & blues to rock ‘n’ roll, including Fats Domino’s 1949 debut, “The Fat Man,” Roy Brown’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti.”

During the golden age of New Orleans rhythm & blues, J&M was ground zero for musicians, songwriters, producers and record label representatives. Its pedigree rivals that of the better-known Sun Studios in Memphis, Tenn. Essentially, Matassa provided the framework for the creation of the “New Orleans sound.”


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Cosimo Matassa, center, is flanked by Fats Domino, left, and Dave Bartholomew in 1999, when an historical plaque was placed on the former North Rampart Street site of Matassa's J&M Recording Studio. The trio recorded many classic records there.

In the early days, he used one microphone and a direct-to-disk system, which didn’t allow for overdubs of additional instruments — or corrections. The sonic qualities of singles now considered timeless derived from his skill at placing microphones and musicians around the room, and manipulating whatever primitive equipment was at his disposal. He has described his methodology as “OJT — on the job training.”

In addition to scores of sessions with Domino and his co-writer and producer, Dave Bartholomew, Matassa’s various studios hosted Ray Charles, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Sam Cooke, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ernie K-Doe, Professor Longhair, James Booker, Guitar Slim, Smiley Lewis, Lloyd Price, Lee Dorsey and many others.

In September 2010, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame designated the former site of J&M as one of 11 official rock ‘n’ roll landmarks nationwide. The city of New Orleans had formerly placed an historical plaque on the building, now home to a launderette. At the time, Hall of Fame president Terry Stewart said that when rock ‘n’ roll was in its infancy, “the baby got rocked right here in this building.”
In 1955, Matassa moved his studio to Gov. Nicholls Street. The last of his studios was at 748 Camp Street. After retiring from the music business in the 1980s, he worked at his family’s French Quarter grocery.

A 2007 boxed set, “The Cosimo Matassa Story,” collected 120 recordings engineered by Matassa, barely scratching the surface of his output. He was the subject of a tribute during the 2011 Ponderosa Stomp festival in New Orleans. He is a member of the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, but boosters have long advocated for his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Matassa is in esteemed company amongst the other 2012 non-performer inductees. Longtime Atlantic Records engineer and producer Tom Dowd recorded Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers, Cream, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler and Chicago. The British-born Glyn Johns has produced the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, the Band, the Who, the Faces, Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton and the Clash. Don Kirshner helped create the Monkees, the Archie and the long-running ABC music program “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.”

http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2011/12/new_orleans_recording_legend_c.html

Ok, I am STOKED that Laura Nyro made it!! Awesome.....and MORE than well deserved...GREAT about Donovan and the Small Faces/Faces too. Makes me a happy girl....

The only band looked over that needs to be in, to me, anyway, is Heart. Maybe next year....