Record Plant Sausalito Archive

A look back at the history of the Record Plant and Plant Studios, with a view to the future.

Stacked Record Plant and Plant Studios master tape boxes — Grateful Dead, CSN&Y Déjà Vu, Fleetwood Mac Rumours — with a studio log sheet and reel-to-reel tape.

Explore

The Record Plant and Plant Studios Archive

A researched list of sessions, broadcasts, and recording events at 2200 Bridgeway — a sourced record of what was made here and who made it. Nothing like it exists anywhere else.

—Studio sessions from the opening night in 1972 through the closing in 2008, traced album by album.

Explore the archive Read the method

Marantz 2275 walnut-cased FM stereo receiver with backlit tuner dial — the Record Plant Radio player

LIVE SESSIONS NO COMMERCIALS

Plant Radio is dialed to stream 64 historic KSAN and KFOG broadcasts like Steve Miller, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Marley, Bonnie Raitt, Journey, Jerry Garcia, and many more surprises.

Turn on the radio

Fleetwood Mac Rumours vinyl label — Burbank, Home of Warner Bros. Records, K 56344, Side 1.

History

Fleetwood Mac at the Record Plant

Two nights, two years apart, two different bands. In 1974 they were fighting a fake version of themselves. In 1976 they made Rumours in the same rooms.

Mosaic of album covers from KSAN's live broadcasts at the Record Plant, Sausalito (1973–1978).

KSAN Live at the Record Plant - Listen

From 1973 to 1978, KSAN broadcast live from the Record Plant's Sausalito sound stage. The surviving tapes are a Bay Area rock archive hiding in plain sight.

File No. 055, the Grateful Dead Records tape log for the August 1973 Wake of the Flood sessions at the Record Plant Sausalito. Primary source, recovered from the 2200 Bridgeway warehouse. Tap to read the full card. Photo courtesy of 2200studios.com.

History · Featured

Wake of the Flood: The Grateful Dead at The Record Plant

Nine days at the Record Plant that launched a revolution in independence, improvisation, and the American studio album.

Archive · KSAN

Old & In the Way at the Record Plant

An early Old & In the Way performance from the Record Plant captures Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Peter Rowan and John Kahn as the band was still taking shape out of the informal bluegrass scene around Stinson Beach.

Carlos Santana seated with a gold guitar in front of the wood geometric wall of Studio A at 2200 Bridgeway

History

Carlos Santana and the Studio He Calls Home

From the studio's first year in 1972 through the making of Supernatural, Santana kept coming back. This is why.

Sly and the Family Stone group portrait, early 1970s.

History · Featured

Sly & the Family Stone at Record Plant Sausalito

Sly Stone commissioned a room at Record Plant Sausalito built to his exact specifications. Then he moved in. The room is still underneath the studio that replaced it.

Stevie Nicks, c. mid-1970s — Record Plant Sausalito era

History · Featured

Stevie Nicks Wrote "Dreams" at Record Plant Sausalito

At the Record Plant, Stevie Nicks was in someone else's room, on someone else's bed, with a cassette player running. She wrote Dreams in ten minutes. This is what happened next.

The Rick James conference room at 2200 Bridgeway — where Street Songs was recorded.

History · Featured

Rick James & "Street Songs": Inside the Record Plant Sessions

Rick James drove to Sausalito in 1980 with a guitar, a bass, a drum machine, and a problem. He lived in a conference room at the Record Plant and made Street Songs. The room is still here.

Record Plant Sausalito live room — psychedelic swirl mural, staggered acoustic panels, vintage console and grand piano, a guitarist mid-take on the Persian rug.

History

Gary Kellgren: The Man Who Built Record Plant Sausalito

Gary Kellgren opened the Record Plant Sausalito in 1972 and threw a party. John Lennon and Yoko Ono came dressed as trees. Nobody questioned it.

History

Metallica at the Plant

Load, ReLoad, and the room they reshaped to get the drum sound they wanted. Metallica's stretch in Sausalito left a permanent mark on Studio A.

Studio B control room — API console with the live room visible through the glass

Room Theory

The Sound of a Room

Tom Hidley built the rooms at 2200 Bridgeway in 1972. This is what he put inside the walls — and why it still matters.

Mosaic of Internet Archive collection covers — Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, Creative Computing, Oregon Trail, NASA, Alice in Wonderland, and more.

People · Internet Archive

Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive

How a search engineer built a public memory for the web, and why Record Plant radio shows live inside it.

Studer A800 MkIII multichannel tape recorder at 2200 Bridgeway

History · Featured

The Record Plant and Plant Studios — A Chronology

From a wartime shipyard office to the studio where Dreams was written, where the government once ran the mixing board, and where the last surviving Record Plant still stands.

The carved redwood sunburst wall in Studio A at 2200 Bridgeway

A walk through 2200 Bridgeway, room by room.

Walk the rooms