Who was Wally Heider?
Stephen Barncard: “Wally Heider was a Washington State recording enthusiast in the 50’s and followed big bands like Woody Herman and Stan Kenton’s with an Ampex 350-2 and a few mics in his station wagon. This grew into a remote business in Hollywood, eventually with fixed studio rooms, mastering, and rentals. The Beatles changed everything. By the time “Sgt. Pepper’s” came out, every music act wanted artistic control of their music. The major studios at the time were all unionized and had rules that prevented artists and producers to touch the equipment in any way, not to mention being a non-creative environment. This led to the creation of the independent studios in LA. The first one, of course, is Radio Recorders (now Studio 55), followed by Gold Star and Sunset. Sunset was created by injection of Disney money for the creation of records for Buena Vista star Annette. But I digress. By 1968 Wally had a business that rivaled the other independents in LA — Gold Star, Sunset, United, We
