page_title: Gary Kellgren
section_title: Record Plant
hierarchical_section_title: Gary Kellgren / Career / Record Plant
caption_attribution_description: English: Cake cutting celebration for the opening of Record Plant Los Angeles on December 4, 1969. Pictured: Tom Butler (Record Plant East Coast lawyer), Tom Wilson (RP client and partner, retained Frank Zappa and Bob Dylan and produced them, first black A&amp;R person for Columbia Records), Ben Johnson (investor), Ancky Johnson (investor), Chris Stone (co-founder), Gary Kellgren (co-founder).
context_page_description: Gary Kellgren was an American audio engineer and co-founder of The Record Plant recording studios, along with businessman Chris Stone.
context_section_description: In 1967, Kellgren and Stone built the first of the three Record Plant Recording Studios in Manhattan. Kellgren was the creative and recording side, Stone the business side, and their third partner, Ancky Johnson, Revlon heiress, provided the financial backing.  Kellgren had already been working with many of the top artists of the day, like Hendrix, so when he opened the Record Plant, they followed.  Mitch Mitchell: "We went there [the Record Plant NY] because Gary Kellgren, who we'd worked with at Mayfair, had raised the money with a partner and managed to start the Record Plant."  The NY Record Plant was booked solid for three months in advance at the time of the opening.
  The very first album to come out of there was Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix. Stone later said in an interview that "Gary, having worked all night, would very often be out cold on the couch, with Jimi still in the studio glaring through the haze at the speakers.  They would sometimes go three and four days without stopping.  Out of those sessions came 'Electric Ladyland', the Record Plant's first record.  Other people have taken credit for the record, but about ninety percent of it was done in Studio A in New York with Gary and Jimi." One of the last to record there being John Lennon, who left the studio to go home the night he was murdered.
  Almost two years after the launch of the New York Studio, Kellgren and Stone opened up the Los Angeles Record Plant.  The first big mix session was for the Woodstock soundtrack.  It was also where John Lennon and Paul McCartney played together for the last time during an all night jam session in 1974.
  Record Plant Sausalito opened in 1972, where Fleetwood Mac's Rumours was recorded as was Bob Marley & the Wailers' Talkin' Blues which was done live in a closed session for an in-studio broadcast from San Francisco radio station KSAN.
caption: Opening celebration for the Record Plant in Los Angeles, December 4, 1969. Pictured L to R: Attorney Tom Butler, producer Tom Wilson, investors Ben Johnson and Ancky Johnson (cutting cake), founders Chris Stone and Gary Kellgren.
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