Bruce Springsteen is the most New Jersey artist alive. His first album was called Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. But the record was made in New York. So was the one after it. Both came out of a converted gas station about half an hour up the road from Yonkers.
A Gas Station on Route 303
914 Sound Recording Studios opened in October 1970 at 34 Route 303 in Blauvelt, Rockland County. A sound engineer named Brooks Arthur started the company that August. He built it inside a building that used to pump gas. He owned half of it. The other half was split three ways, between Phil Ramone, Art Ward and Don Frey. That made 914 part of a bigger company called A&R Recording. Ramone went on to become one of the biggest producers in music, working with Billy Joel and Paul Simon years later.
Named After the Area Code
Arthur called it 914 Sound Studios, after the telephone area code. Even the studio's own phone number carried it: (914) 359-7100. Rockland County was 914 back then. The area code changed to 845 in 2000. A studio with that name could not open in Blauvelt today.
Springsteen's First Two Albums
Springsteen's first documented session there was June 7, 1972. Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. came out of that building later that year. The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle followed in 1973. His last session at the studio came in early 1975.
Eight Months on One Song
The song "Born to Run" took most of 1974. Springsteen met his manager Mike Appel, Clarence Clemons and the rest of the band at the studio on January 8 to rehearse it. The backing track was recorded on May 21. The vocals went down on June 26. It was finished on August 6. Eight months of work. One song, recorded entirely in that room, with Springsteen and Appel producing it themselves.
The album Born to Run was a different story. Production moved to The Record Plant in Manhattan that April. The finished record came out in August 1975, and it turned Springsteen into a star almost overnight. That October, he landed on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in the same week, something no rock artist had done before.
Who Else Recorded There
The Ramones cut tracks at 914 in 1975. Janis Ian made Between the Lines there the same year. Dusty Springfield worked on an album called Longing that was never finished. Blood, Sweat and Tears and Melanie recorded there too. Heartland rock, punk, folk-pop and jazz-rock all came out of the same converted gas station within a few years of each other. None of those artists sound alike. They shared a room, not a sound.
What Happened to the Building
The partners sold 914 Sound in 1978. The corporation was dissolved in 1982. The old address, 34 Route 303, is not the car wash a few local history pages point to. That business, Blauvelt Auto Spa, sits at 585 Route 303, a different spot on the same road. In 2016, Rockland County put up a historical marker for the studio. Brooks Arthur, the engineer who converted the gas station in the first place, came back for the dedication.
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