1920s–1940s

Originally a nine-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in 1831 on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey, the building was later converted to flats where the best-known resident was Maundy Gregory, who was famous (or infamous) for selling political honours.

In 1929, the Gramophone Company acquired the premises. The property benefited from a large garden behind the townhouse, which permitted a much larger building to be constructed to the rear; thus, the Georgian façade belies the true dimension of the building. Three purpose-built studios were constructed and the existing house was adapted for use as administration offices. Pathé filmed the opening of the studios in November 1931 when Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music.^[7][8] In 1934, the inventor of stereo sound, Alan Blumlein, recorded Mozart's Jupiter Symphony which was conducted by Thomas Beecham at the studios.^[9]

The neighbouring house is also owned by the studio and used to accommodate musicians. During the mid-20th century, the studio was extensively used by British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, whose house was located near the studio building.^[10]

The Gramophone Company merged with Columbia Graphophone Company to form Electric and Musical Industries (EMI) in 1931, and the studios later became known as EMI Recording Studios.^[11] In 1936 cellist Pablo Casals became the first to record Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites No. 1 & 2 at the command of EMI head Fred Gaisberg. The recordings went on to spur a revolution among Bach aficionados and cellists alike.^[12] "Fats" Waller played the Compton organ there.

Glenn Miller recorded at the Abbey Road studios during the war, when he was based in the United Kingdom.^[13]

In 1931 an echo chamber was built in the studios, in the early days of artificial reverberation.^[14]

1950s–1970s

Pianos used by many recording artists over the years in Studio Two of Abbey Road Studios

In 1958, Studio Two at EMI became a centre for rock and roll music when Cliff Richard and the Drifters (later Cliff Richard and the Shadows) recorded "Move It" there,^[15] and later pop music material.

EMI is closely associated with the Beatles, who recorded almost all of their albums and hits there between 1962 and 1970 using the four-track REDD mixing console designed by Peter K. Burkowitz.^[16] The Beatles named their 1969 album Abbey Road.^[17][18][19] Iain Macmillan took the album's cover photograph outside the studios, with the result that the nearby zebra crossing has become a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans. It has been a tradition for visitors to pay homage to the band by writing on the wall in front of the building even though it is painted over every three months.^[20] In December 2010, the zebra crossing at Abbey Road was given a Grade II listed status.^[21]

After becoming the studio's general manager in 1974, Ken Townsend began a rebranding effort to capitalise on the studio's connection with the Beatles. To emphasise the studio's independence, Townsend commissioned the artist Alan Brown to design a unique logo, and in 1976 the facility officially changed names from EMI Studios to Abbey Road Studios.^{[22][23][lower-alpha 1]} Having previously been mostly restricted to UK-based EMI acts, the studio's name-change served the added purpose of encouraging non-EMI acts to record at the studio.^[22][23]

Notable producers and sound engineers who have worked at Abbey Road include Fred Gaisberg (who had first recorded Enrico Caruso in Milan in 1902, and had set up the first recording studio in London at Maiden Lane in 1898), Walter Legge, George Martin, Tutti Camarata, Geoff Emerick, Norman "Hurricane" Smith, Ken Scott, Mike Stone, Alan Parsons, Peter Vince, Malcolm Addey, Peter Bown, Richard Langham, Phil McDonald, John Kurlander, Richard Lush and Ken Townsend, who invented the studio effect known as automatic double tracking (ADT). The chief mastering engineer at Abbey Road was Chris "Vinyl" Blair, who started his career as a tape deck operator.

From 1966 to 1971, the Walt Disney Music Company recorded vocals, instrumentals and narration and dialogue for over a dozen albums at Abbey Road for U.S. and international release, including The Aristocats, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Doctor Dolittle, Heidi and The Wizard of Oz. Most of the sessions including The Mike Sammes Singers, who backed up The Beatles on "I Am the Walrus" and "Good Night."^[24]

In 1979, EMI commissioned the British jazz fusion band Morrissey-Mullen to record Britain's first digitally recorded single record at Abbey Road Studios.^[25][26]

1980s–2010s

Abbey Road has become a London tourist attraction, with the studio erecting Beatles lyric-themed signs encouraging fans to keep graffiti to the studio's property.

Abbey Road Studios got its start in the film scoring business in 1980 when Anvil Post Production formed a partnership with the studio, called Anvil-Abbey Road Screen Sound. The partnership started when Anvil was left without a scoring stage when Denham Studios were demolished. It ended in 1984 when EMI merged with Thorn Electrical Industries to become Thorn EMI. Abbey Road's success in the scoring business continued after the partnership ended.

From 18 July to 11 September 1983, the public had a rare opportunity to see inside the Studio Two room, where the Beatles made most of their records. While a new mixing console was being installed in the control room, the studio was used to host a video presentation called The Beatles at Abbey Road. The soundtrack to the video had a number of recordings that were not made commercially available until the release of The Beatles Anthology project over a decade later.^[27]

In September 2012, with the takeover of EMI, the studio became the property of Universal Music. It was not one of the entities that were sold to Warner Music as part of Parlophone and instead the control of Abbey Road Studios Ltd was transferred to Virgin Records.

Sources