Capricorn Recording Studio is in Trouble

The legendary Macon, Ga. recording studio that served as home to the sessions of many southern-rock legends may not have much longer.

The Georgia Trust has put the Capricorn Recording Studio on its “Places in Peril” list for 2010.

Capricorn Records’ founders, Phil Walden and Frank Fenter, wanted to create their own studio with its own lineup of skilled musicians a’la Muscle Shoals in Alabama. They made rock history when they discovered a young Duane Allman, then a session guitarist, and gave him a recording contract in 1969. The success of the newly-formed Allman Brothers Band led Capricorn to become its own label in 1971. Other southern rock greats who recorded at Capricorn in its heyday include the Marshall Tucker Band, the Charlie Daniels Band, Dixie Dregs, Johnny Jenkins and many more. Capricorn’s greatest achievement, however, was still an Allman Brothers album, their acclaimed 1971 live double LP At Fillmore East.

Capricorn went under in 1979 but was reborn (temporarily) in Nashville under the Warner Records umbrella in 1991, signing Athens, Ga. jam band Widespread Panic as its first artist, and also working with artists Cake, 311 and Kenny Chesney before the label permanently folded in 2000.

Despite its rich musical heritage, the studio’s fate was in flux for nearly 30 years, going through a number of owners (including Mercer University) until the building was foreclosed upon in November 2009.

According to the Trust’s website, there are a number of reasons the building’s status is in jeopardy: excessive weather and water damage, vandalism and stolen items (including copper wiring) and the studio’s presence in the middle of a mass of abandoned structures and vacant lots gives the area a run-down, unsafe feel.

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