Amigo Studios was opened on Compston Avenue in North Hollywood in the mid 1960?s by legendary producer Snuff Garrett. He used the facility while working as the staff producer and head of A&R at Liberty Records (during which time he hired Phil Spector as a producer.) Garrett was the man behind a number of Bobby Vee‘s hits (including Devil or Angel and Rubber Ball) as well as sides for the Ventures, Sonny and Cher, Gene McDaniels and Sonny Curtis. Garrett also signed J.J. Cale to Liberty Records in ’65 and produced a band that included Cale called the Leathercoated Minds. Now an out of print cult classic, A Trip Down The Sunset Strip, was a largely experimental set of covers. But, out of that session came the seed of a future Cale classic, After Midnight. In the 1970?s, Garrett went on to work with Ray Conniff while Amigo was sold to Warner Brothers and became the sometime recording home of a number of WB acts, including the Doobie Brothers, Gordon Lightfoot and James Taylor. Randy Newmann had his own booth off the main studio, affectionately called Randy’s Room, where he hung during mixing sessions for a number of albums, including Sail Away. In 1980, the rebuilt studio was sold to Al Kooper and renamed The Slammer. Garrett continued to be active in the music business, spending a good share of the 80?s working on movie soundtracks that including most of Burt Reynolds movies (like Cannonball Run and Sharky’s Machine). He’s now retired and living in Arizona.