- Château d'Hérouville
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The Château d'Hérouville is a French château of the 18th century (1740) located in the village of Hérouville, in the Oise valley near Paris. The castle was built in 1740 by Gaudot, an architect of the school of Rome. In the 19th century, it was used as courier relay station (between Versailles and Beauvais) and stabled a hundred horses.[1][2]
The composer Michel Magne purchased it in 1962. He was best known in the U.S. for having been nominated in 1962 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment for Gigot.[3] He converted it into a residential recording studio after a fire devastated the left wing of the building in 1969. The musician, director and sound engineer Laurent Thibault took over management of the studio in June 1974.[4]
Legal and financial problems surrounded Magne's sale of the château in 1984. The studio closed on July 25, 1985,[4] one year after the suicide of Michel Magne, Laurent Thibault and his team having been expelled by the liquidator of Michel Magne's estate.
The Grateful Dead were there on June 21, 1971 for one of their most exotic gigs. Jerry Garcia tells the story:[5]
We went over there to do a big festival, a free festival they were gonna have, but the festival was rained out. It flooded. We stayed at this little chateau which is owned by a film score composer who has a 16-track recording studio built into the chateau, and this is a chateau that Chopin once lived in; really old, just delightful, out in the country near the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, which is where Vincent Van Gogh is buried.
We were there with nothing to do: France, a 16-track recording studio upstairs, all our gear, ready to play, and nothing to do. So, we decided to play at the chateau itself, out in the back, in the grass, with a swimming pool, just play into the hills. We didn't even play to hippies, we played to a handful of townspeople in Auvers. We played and the people came — the chief of police, the fire department, just everybody. It was an event and everybody just had a hell of a time — got drunk, fell in the pool. It was great.
Many artists recorded there, of whom many were English, beginning with Elton John, who dubbed it the "Honky Château", which was also the title of the album he recorded there in 1972.
Sweet recorded part of their final album Level Headed here as a four piece group as Brian Connolly later left. The single 'Love is Like Oxygen' was taken from this recording, a top ten hit around the world and nominated for an Ivor Novello Award.
Partial list of albums recorded at Château d'Hérouville
- Gong – Camembert Electrique (1971)
- Elton John – Honky Château (1972), Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (both 1973)
- Pink Floyd – Obscured by Clouds (1972)
- Joan Armatrading & Pam Nestor - Whatever's for Us (1972)
- T.Rex - The Slider (1972)
- Jethro Tull – Nightcap: The Unreleased Masters 1972-1991 (recorded 1972, released 1993)
- Cat Stevens – Catch Bull at Four (1972)
- MC5 - "Thunder Express" (1972)
- Uriah Heep – Sweet Freedom (1973)
- David Bowie – Pin Ups (1973) and Low (1977)
- Bad Company – Burnin' Sky (1976)
- Iggy Pop – The Idiot (1977)
- Bee Gees – "How Deep Is Your Love" and "Stayin' Alive" from Saturday Night Fever (1977)
- Jacques Higelin – Alertez les bébés (1976), No Man's Land (1977), Champagne pour tout le monde, and Caviar pour les autres... (1979)
- Sweet – Level Headed (1977)
- New Trolls - Aldebaran (1978)
- Fleetwood Mac – Mirage (1982)
- Michael Schenker Group – Assault Attack (1983)
Notes
- ^ "Honky Château - Hérouville 75". http://fernould.club.fr/herouv75.html. Retrieved 2008-06-29.
- ^ "HEROUVILLE - 95300 Val d'Oise". http://www.herouville-en-vexin.net/content/heading1046082/content1094893.html. Retrieved 2008-06-29.
- ^ "allmovie (((Michel Magne > Awards )))". http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=2:100753. Retrieved 2008-06-29.
- ^ a b "Michel MAGNE". http://fernould.club.fr/magne.html. Retrieved 2008-06-29.
- ^ Blair Jackson. "Garcia: An American Life". Blair Jackson. pp. 217. http://www.blairjackson.com/chapter_eleven_additions.htm. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
Categories:- Châteaux in France
- Recording studios in France
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