Supernatural Studios
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Studios are where musicians turn inspiration into revelation. Literally, these are places where spirit is created and preserved. It’s not just their musical inspiration that is maintained for posterity. Some believe that these hit factories are also capable of retaining paranormal forces.
You won’t have to tell that to people who have experienced strange, inexplicable activity while recording or assisting at these studios.
In our next section, we will visit some of country music’s most famous recording studios. They are also some of country music’s famously haunted recording studios. Some are haunted by multiple ghosts, according to experts. Others are haunted by multiple gold and platinum award-winning artists, like the King himself—Elvis Presley.
Up first, though, we will hear the creepy backstory behind the haunting at one of Nashville’s greatest star-making machines—Capitol Records.
Capitol Records: Spectre Check on Mic One
Historians indicate that the site where Capitol Records’s world famous Nashville studios rests was developed while country music was just a bunch of people picking guitars and banjos on porches and singing in rural churches. Country music and Capitol Records grew up together in Nashville, you might say, and, over time, a parade of country and western careers were made and shepherded into celebrity status right there at Capitol Records, including some supernovas of the country music universe.
Tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of a ghost in Nashville now believe that the studio is prime ghost hunting ground. Most trace the paranormal problems on the property well back into distant Nashville history. According to the legend, a mansion was built on the spot at the turn of the twentieth century. By all accounts it was magnificent. But, despite the ostentatious new digs, the owner of the mansion and his two daughters were never accepted into Nashville’s high society. In the South, there’s a difference between new wealth and old wealth. And new wealth just doesn’t fit in.
Eventually, the father died and left the property to his daughters. Why the daughters never found husbands is a subject of a lot of speculation—gossipy speculation. Some say they were perfectly happy without men in their lives. Others suggest that the public shunning of the family by the social elites ensured the poor girls would live and die as spinsters. Those who believe the family was unhappy say that’s the reason that the home—and now the property itself—is haunted. When the mansion was torn down to make way for the new building that included office space for Capitol Records, the hauntings commenced in earnest.
At night, or early in the morning, when the building was otherwise still and quiet, employees who were alone in the building—especially those unlucky enough to be working on the building’s eleventh floor, the center of the haunting—would swear that they heard footsteps trudging down the halls. The footfalls were distinctly human, they said. But as the workers followed the sound to its origin, they discovered nothing. Nada. Nobody.
Just an empty hall.
Other witnesses haven’t just heard manifestations of the spirit world, they have actually seen the effects. Several stories have circulated of people watching doors slowly and silently close on their own, without anyone even close to them. Subsequent investigations and attempts to replicate the weird phenomena suggest that a mechanical cause—an uneven floor, a loose door, etc.—are not the cause of the problem. Even more annoying for workers in the building: the doors lock automatically, often at the worst possible times. The building doesn’t use electronic switches, either, so it’s not a case of bad wiring or an electrical short. These are manual locks, reports indicate. Employees and folks who have heard about the haunting know who’s to blame: the ghost.
The ghost, or ghosts, announce their presence in other ways. They like to mess with electronic devices, wreaking all sorts of havoc for employees trying to work on their computers, make a phone call, or watch television. Of course, when your business is making music, fiddling with electronic gear is a surefire way to attract attention.
Anecdotally, the word has spread that people have seen the actual ghosts involved in the haunting. Witnesses claim to have seen two women in the building when the building should be vacant. Could they just be guests, or unaccounted for staff members? Could be. Or they could be the ghosts of two lonely residents of the property—two ghosts who intend on being ghosts for a very long time to come.
RCA Studios:
Does it Stand for Really Crazy Activity?
There are a lot of ghosts who are rumored to be lurking in the shadows and cowering in the corners of RCA’s historic studio in Nashville.
Some of the spectral suspects are just the ghosts of normal people, experts on the haunting say. Other sources indicate it is the long-dead country musicians who once filled the studios of this building who are coming back to lay down one more track. In fact, a lot of people think that Elvis is haunting the Nashville landmark. It’s a tourist twofer: you get to see a ghost and you get to see Elvis. But be careful what you wish for. The spooky activity in this building can sometimes shake even the most dedicated fan of country music.
Some of the stories that have trickled out of this one-time hit-making factory—RCA has long since transferred recording operations from the building—include tales of poltergeist-like activity and odd electromagnetic effects. One of the most famous anecdotes about the paranormal happenings in the studio is told by workers and production assistants in the television studio that the building once housed. They swear that every time someone says, “Elvis,” weird things happened. Lights would blow up. Ladders would topple over. Strange noises could be heard.
On a few occasions, when the television crews would attempt to record in the building, weird noises would leak through. The staff didn’t hear the sounds when they were recording, only when they listened to the playback. The crew was stumped. Wouldn’t a former recording studio be a perfect place to record? They called in engineers and they, too, had no rational reason for the recording snafus. Some thought it was the spirit of Elvis trying to communicate from the other side. In fact, there were no natural explanations for any of the activity in Elvis’s former—or not so former—haunt.
It’s hard to say who is haunting the studio, though. That’s the real mystery of the haunting. After all, tons of artists who recorded here—Hank Snow, Jim Reeves, Roy Orbison, and Roger Miller, to name a few—have passed on and might want to return to the scene of what was possibly the highest point of their careers.
But most experts on Nashville paranormal keep coming back to their number one suspect: Elvis. After all, some of the most supercharged events—the recording of “Heartbreak Hotel” comes to mind—of the King’s supercharged career started right in that studio. That powerful psychic energy still reverberates in the studio, these theorists suggest.
If you ever take a peanut butter and banana sandwich to the studio and it disappears, well, then we’ll know for sure.
Bennett House (Bagbey House):
From Civil War Spirits to Studio Spirits
The famous country musicians who wandered in and out of the Bennett House—one of Franklin, Tennessee’s most storied mansions and, at one time, one of country music’s most successful hit-making studios—were all taken in by the charm of the home’s elegance. But you have to wonder if some of those country stars couldn’t wait to get out of the studio. After all, they knew that while recording there might mean a sure hit record, it might also mean running into a ghost.
The Bennett House, according to experts on the paranormal activity in the region, is one of the most haunted sites in Franklin, Tennessee. And Franklin, a town just south of Nashville, is one of the most haunted spots in Tennessee, if not the country.
Now called the Bagbey House, the building’s unique history—it’s been the home of a Confederate war hero, a recording studio, and an antique store during its 100-plus years of existence—may explain some of the spooky activity. When it comes to identifying the spirit suspects in the house, the phantasm’s finger usually points to Walter James Bennett, a Confederate soldier who served on the staff of Major General William Whiting.
Once Confederate shells started to land on Union-held Fort Sumter, Bennett signed up to serve in Company B of the 2nd Mississippi Infantry. His service during the battles in and around Virginia brought him to the attention of General Whiting, who took the soldier on as a staff member and personal secretary.
The war did not end so well for Captain Bennett. He was captured and held prisoner of war in Fort Donelson until 1865, according to family history. The fort where Bennett languished was the scene of a bloody battle. This leads paranormal experts to suggest that the psychic scars from the war followed the captain through his life and remain in his manor. There are other theories, though. In addition to Bennett’s spirit, a group of Civil War soldiers who once found temporary rest on the home’s spacious and shady porch while marching to battle may have found eternal rest on the premises. Perhaps they are haunting the mansion.
Other people familiar with the haunting at Bennett’s house claim that it isn’t the house that’s haunted. (Well, it isn’t just the house that’s haunted.) The whole dang town of Franklin is haunted. A bloody Civil War battle—the same one that turned the Bennett mansion into a rest stop for the weary Confederate troops—consumed the whole town and may have populated the town’s houses, businesses, and streets with a permanent citizenry full of spirits.
In the 1980s, however, the haunted home in this haunted town found a new use. It was converted into a music studio. Norbert Putnam, a top-notch record producer, opened the first studio in the mansion, calling it the Bennett House Studio. Later, multiple Grammy Award-winning producer Keith Thomas took over and expanded the recording facilities. He continued the string of hits to come from the Franklin-based recording facility. Country artists who recorded there included Vince Gill, Kris Kristofferson, Faith Hill, Wynonna Judd, and Trace Adkins. Amy Grant, Vanessa Williams, Jimmy Buffett, Whitney Houston, and Gladys Knight also laid down tracks in the spirit-filled studio.
Strategically located near Nashville, the studio started to make a name for itself among musicians—particularly country musicians—who were looking for new environs to record, but at a site that wasn’t too far from country music’s main hub. Paranormally speaking, the studio made a name for itself in another way. These musicians and studio workers also began to spread stories of inexplicable activity.
Sometimes, late at night, or early in the morning, while musicians and engineers toiled in the studio, they claimed to hear odd eruptions of thumps and bumps. At other times, the noises were not as random and clearly sounded like a person was walking around upstairs, even when they knew there was no one else in the house. People taking pictures in the building, which is now a major draw for antique lovers, say they can see anomalous shapes and lights appear in their photographs—shapes and lights that weren’t there when they took the picture and ones that can’t be easily explained as either natural or electronic effects.
William Bagbey, who runs Bagbey House Antiques and Interiors, told reporters he’s heard the noises and believes the Confederate captain isn’t shy about being photographed.
“Every now and then we can still hear Mr. Bennett walking around upstairs, or see him in pictures we take of the staircase,” Bagbey told the Williamson Herald. “It’s pretty spooky.”
It’s not just the captain that interrupted recording sessions. Musicians said they heard children laughing in the house. In nearly all those cases, there were no children on the property at the time—and they certainly wouldn’t be allowed to interrupt these sessions where time is literally money. They also claim to hear kids running through the house. The rambunctious rumbling of children zipping up and down the stairs is unmistakable, the witnesses say.
Nobody knows exactly who these laughing, energetic spirits are, but at least they seem happy—just like the music that once filled Bennett House recording studios.