05/24/2024
A Commemorative for Don Caldwell:
In 1987, I was in a band. We thought we had Warner Brothers connections, so we needed a demo. We had been recording at South Plains College while learning sound technology with Mark Murray, a recording engineer at Don Caldwell Studios. Like many in Lubbock, Texas, at the time, we took our gig money and whatever else we could scrape up and booked time at Caldwell Studios. Although we had what we thought were some great songs, there was no Warner Brothers connection and no record deal.
Those sessions were my first encounter with Don Caldwell negotiating the terms of the recording: $65 an hour, no discounts, but he allowed us to make payments. Several years passed for me playing in bands and working day jobs when I decided to return to South Plains College and finish my Sound Tech degree. In 1994, I was nearing graduation, and I needed experience. I asked Caldwell if I could be an intern. He agreed, but I was surprised when he said he would pay me $5.25 an hour; I was ecstatic! I did the usual intern gig, making the coffee, cleaning the bathrooms, running errands, making cassette dupes, and occasionally engineering some easy sessions in Studio B.
At Caldwell Studios, I began to meet the many legendary Lubbock music icons that would shape my love for West Texas music. I remember coming into work one day and walking to Don’s office, and there set Joe Ely and Stubb. I was somewhat starstruck, so I didn’t even say a word. The world-renowned producer and steel guitar player Loyd Maines worked at Caldwell Studios. I had the privilege of learning the wheeling and dealings of Lloyd for several musical instruments while learning much about guitar techniques from him. It was at the studio that I first met Terry Allen, who would also have a lasting impact on me and someone I was able to continue to work with over the years. Many people often visited the studios that were mainstays and quite the characters, folks like Sylvester Rice, Tommy Anderson, Robert Hudnall, and many others.
Changes began to occur within that first year of working at Caldwell Studios. Mark had set up a MIDI studio at the front of the building, while in the back, I was organizing the storeroom area and turning one smaller room into a reverb chamber. Across the hall from Mark’s studio was a room that housed an enormous master analog tape library of past recording projects. In that tape room, I began to help assemble some shelves and organize the collection along with Alan Crossland; that work would change my life for over twenty years.
In 1995, Don began working on outside projects that significantly changed the studio. Along with Mayor David Langston, Don helped coordinate and launch the 4th on Broadway celebrations, which continue annually. His most significant undertaking since opening the recording studio was organizing a group of Lubbock citizens to transform and open the historic Cactus Theater into a performance venue. With the launch of the Cactus Theater project, Mark moved to Jungle Studios, and I went to the Cactus Theater. Alan stayed as the chief engineer at Caldwell Studios, and soon after, Lloyd moved to Austin.
On the grand opening night of the Cactus Theater, as people were walking in, I was taping down the recently arrived carpet and hurrying around with the rest of the staff with other last-minute preparations, but we pulled it off. I stayed at the Cactus Theater until 1997 when I took a part-time teaching job at South Plains College in the Sound Tech program. At this time, Alan Crossland transformed the studio into a digital and analog studio and significantly upgraded the layout. Also, in 1997, I took history classes at Texas Tech and soon began part-time work at the Vietnam Archive, which became my full-time job in August 1999. At the end of 1999, the original location of Don Caldwell Studios, 1214 Ave Q, shuttered its doors.
The Caldwell master tape collection was moved to some storage units and a barn at the Caldwell family farm in Slaton; I knew the tapes had to be saved from the West Texas elements. I arranged a meeting with Don, the Dean of the Texas Tech Libraries, and the Director of the Southwest Collection. The decision was made to move nearly 5000 analog master tapes to the Southwest Collection; thus, the Caldwell Collection became the cornerstone of the Crossroads of Music Archive. I was the archivist for the collection until my retirement on May 31, 2023.
After a few months of retirement, I was asked to become the Ross Ragland Theater Executive Director in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where I currently reside. I initially said no, but then I began to think back on the days of working with Don at the Cactus Theater and what he would do: go for it and put in the long hours, day in and day out.
Don may have left us physically from this world, but his spirit will remain forever. He is a part of the West Texas Walk of Fame. However, it is his blood, sweat, and tears that dwell in the master tape recordings housed at the Southwest Collection and the countless albums, cassettes, and CDs that emanated from Caldwell Studios productions.
An original Terry Allen mixed-media art piece hung on the studio walls for many years. It shows a painting of a mountain named Caldwell Studios rising from within a grand piano surrounded by Polaroid pictures from along the Amarillo Highway. On each picture was a stenciled music note. Over the years, the Polaroids began to fade, but the painting and musical notes remained vibrant. As we grow older and new generations come and go, like those Polaroids, memories may fade. Still, the music from Caldwell Studios, like those stenciled notes, will remain, reminding us that Don Caldwell built the only mountain in Lubbock.
