André Perry remembers...

James Blunt reminds me of Cat so I see the musical influence.

Thanks for this great follow-up, Glaucus. Terrrific picture! I checked out the website and found that Cat Stevens recorded Numbers, Izitso, and Back to Earth at Le Studio in Morin Heights. Were those his last 3 albums as Cat Stevens?

BTW, the Bee Gees recorded Saturday Night Fever there. The soundtrack from the film Saturday Night Fever was just ranked number eight among the "50 greatest soundtracks" chosen by the editors of Vanity Fair magazine. Here is the article: Vanity Fair Ranks Film Soundtracks.

Le Studio was a top-notch studio. Really impressive. And it's really nice to know about this part of Cat's history.

~Sun~

Edited to change "is a top-notch studio" to "was."

One last thing about the original article. Perry says that he visited "Le Studio" one last time recently. The place is abandonned now and is about to be torn down to make way for condos.... A sacrilege if you ask me. The two security guards watching the place joked (?) to Perry that ghosts of music past can be heard there at night!!! Imagine, you're in the woods, the wind is blowing, and you can hear Whistlestar coming from the haunted studio!!

For those of you who can read French, the article is now on-line here:

www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20070916/CPARTS/709150682/-1/CPARTS

Bringing this back up as I've just finished typing the following article about Le Studio. Hope you like it.

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Multi-million-dollar facility on lake: Morin Heights: Grade 6 dropout built one of the world's top studio.

by Lucinda Chodan
Montreal Gazette
November 17, 1984


At first glance, there isn't much to alert a visitor to Le Studio in Morin Heights that this is one of the best-known recording studios in the world. Just outside the unadorned cedar walls of the facility, bucolic Lake Katarie laps against the shore, and the atmosphere is filled with the crisp silence of the Laurentians and the smell of tamaracks.

It's just the albums on the inside surface of those plain cedar walls that give the game away: 54 gold and platinum records, the ultimate symbols of success in the recording industry, gleaming quietly in their stark frames.

A gold record indicates sales of 500,000 units throughout the world. Platinum denotes sales of 1 million. There are 54 of them on the walls because those 54 albums were recorded here, on the outskirts of a village of 1,600.

A partial list of the artists who have driven down the winding main street of this little town reads like a who's who of the rock world. David Bowie. The Police. Chicago. Rush. Bryan Adams. Nazareth. Asia.

Luxurious guesthouse - Since Le Studio was established in 1974, they've all driven past Mickey's Coffee Shop, Shirley's Super-Snack and the Trinity Church Hall to get to this multi-million dollar facility and fork over as much as $2,500 per day to be guests of a Verdun-born Grade 6 dropout named André Perry.

For that $2,500, the performer is cossetted in a luxiourious guesthouse with such amenities as a Jacuzzi, a wet bar, VCR equipement and a cappucino-maker. He or she also has access to some of the best equipment and technicians in the recording world.

How much has the presence of Le Studio meant to Morin Heights? Well, Le Studio is on a street named Perry. There are two industries here - skiing and Le Studio, and Le Studio generates more money.

It is a 48-track studio. Sound is recorded on a state-of-the-art Studer solid-state logic console. André Perry was only the second man in the world to own one.

There is also the latest in audio technology, a digital recorded and editor, and a rapidly expanding video centre Perry started working on about 1 and a half years ago. And if there's anything missing, the highly trained staff can probably remedy it: when the band Nazareth decided it wanted a natural echo, a creative Le Studio technician bounced the sound off the mountain that looms over Lake Katarie.

Started as drummer - André Perry started his career as a drummer in a jazz band, but he says he was always interested in what went on behind the glass of the studio control room. He built his first studio in 1962 in the basement of his house in Brossard, and it quickly became the focus of the Un-quiet Revolution in Quebec music - Robert Charlebois recorded his first hit, Lindbergh, there.

It wasn't until 1967, though, that Perry won international attention when he recorded Give Peace A Chance for John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Montreal.

Seven years and another Montreal studio later, Perry decided he'd had enough of the city. He retreated to the 100 acres he'd bought years earlier and put up Le Studio.

It didn't take long for word to get around about a creative centre nestled in the Laurentians. Montreal musician Lewis Furrey, a friend and colleague of Perry's, played some music recorded at Le Studio for Cat Stevens, and Stevens booked the facility for five days. He stayed 3 and a half months.

Different approaches

Then the Bee Gees recorded Saturday Night Fever there, and part way into that album's 30 million sales, Le Studio became one of the places for rock musicians to record.

Perry says performers have two different approaches to recording. Some, like David Bowie, use Le Studio for periods of six to eight weeks. The others, such as Rush and Asia, book the studio for five or six months. For an international recording act, the average cost of making an album in Morin Heights ranges from $175,000 to $800,000.

Each year, three or four internationally known stars come to Le Studio to record. Perry says the rest of the year is usually taken up with four English-Canadian projects and six French-Canadian projects, groups who get a special, reduced rate of about $1,500 per day.

Some of that money finds it way back into Morin Heights. Most of Le Studio's 20 staff members rent houses in town, and if groups are to large to star in the five-bedroom guest house, they're billeted in a pool of houses that Perry rents in town.

In return, the villagers are fiercely protective of the privacy that draws the rock stars to Morin Heights. Locals often deliberately confuse star-seekers asking for directions. The town constabe "will ask you what the hell you're doing" if he notices a stranger, Perry says.

As for the celebrities in their midst, Moring Heights natives have adapted with admirable aplomb. Slightly to the group's chagrin, according to one reliable observer, no one swooned or flocked around for autographs when the Police recorded at Le Studio last winter.

Sat in with band - Sting went cross-country skiing unmolested by fans, and the group's drummer, Andy Summers, sat in with the band at the local bar. When the group finished recording Synchonicity, Summers donated all his old cymbals to the bar band's regular drummer.

As for Cat Stevens, he and his car were rescued from a snowdrift by two Morin Heights women, and by the end of his stay, he was affectionately known as "Steve" in the village.

The townspeople aren't likely to lose their celebrity neighbors in the foreseeable future. Never content to rest on his laurels, the 47-year-old Perry has begun construction of a "2-million video centre, complete with such new technologies as computer graphics, that will be as advanced in its field as his audio studio.

"I don't just look at this as a businessman," says Perry. "If I were going to do that, I would do it where it makes sense - in Montreal of Toronto or New York or L.A.

"Basically, we're a service business, and we participate in the mix, in the energy".

Yet another interesting and informative article, Glaucus, thank you.

And for the fact that you took the time and care to type-out the entire story? An appreciative 'double-thank you', my friend!

I'm so glad, too, that you boosted this thread back to the top: it's the first time I have read it, and it is truly fascinating.

The sad part for me was learning that Le Studio was to be torn down to make way for condos.... a sacrilege, indeed!

I suppose that this did eventually happen?

Such a pity if it did.

-Bud

Bringing this back up because much to my surprise, Le Studio in Morin Heights was apparently still standing last Spring (05/29/10). This fan made a video looking in from the outside. It's quite sad to see how the place has deteriorated over the last few years, when you think of all the great acts that recorded there and the international reputation the place had.

Steve recorded "Numbers" there in March and April 1975, and then worked partly on "Izitso" and "Back To Earth" a couple of years later. You can see a grand piano still inside! Must be in very bad shape.

I can’t tell you the ache this video puts in my heart – as hollow as this deserted and lonely studio. Can you feel the ghosts? They may be friendly, but they’re sad.

Seems like the old "Studio" is still there as of October 2011. This band decided to record a video on the surroundings. Gives you an idea of what the place is like. They even show you the road to get there!