Known for innovations in the recording artists' workspace, it produced highly influential albums, including the New York Dolls' New York Dolls, Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run, Blondie's Parallel Lines, Metallica's Load and Reload, the Eagles' Hotel California, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual, Hanoi Rocks' Two Steps from the Move, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, and Kanye West's The College Dropout.

The studio was founded in 1968 in New York City by Gary Kellgren and Chris Stone, who opened a Los Angeles branch the following year and a Sausalito, California, location in 1972.

[12] The song "Walk This Way" was written after Douglas and the band, without Steven Tyler, went out to see the film Young Frankenstein and were struck by a humorous line spoken by Marty Feldman playing a hunchback.

of Remote Recording) and crew of John Venable, Phil Gitomer, Robert "Kooster" McAllister and Dave "DB" Brown built the Black Truck, a state of the art mobile studio.

[10] They expanded with remote recording dates in 1973, including performances by Alice Cooper, Vikki Carr, Sly Stone, Todd Rundgren, Joe Walsh and Rod Stewart.

Famous musicians would show up to play along with Keltner included[5] Pete Townshend, Ronnie Wood, Billy Preston, Mick Jagger and George Harrison.

As a jab at Paul McCartney's self-promotion on the back of the album Red Rose Speedway, where it said "for more information on the Wings' Fun Club send a stamped self-addressed envelope...", Harrison wrote on his own album regarding the "Jim Keltner Fun Club", "send a stamped undressed elephant..."[18] Keyboardist William "Smitty" Smith said that there were regular jam sessions of musicians at Clover Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard near Vine Street in Hollywood, but that the increasing number of musicians outgrew the place and the group moved to the Record Plant for more space.

Under the leadership of John Lennon, an all-star lineup performed an extended version of the blues song "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)", with Mick Jagger on lead vocals, Keltner on drums, Kortchmar and Jesse Ed Davis on guitars, Al Kooper on keyboards, Bobby Keys playing tenor saxophone, Trevor Lawrence on baritone saxophone, Jack Bruce on bass and Harry Nilsson singing background vocals.

[22] Keltner was working on a solo project by Jack Bruce, formerly of Cream, laying down tracks for Out of the Storm under the direction of engineer and producer Andy Johns; Steve Hunter played guitar.

The raw recordings with their uneven performances were issued as a bootleg album called A Toot and a Snore in '74, the final time that Lennon played with McCartney.

[25] Guitarist Ronnie Wood wrote that Kellgren probably died of electric shock while trying to fix some underwater speakers in his pool and that Gaines drowned trying to help him.

Stone was suddenly responsible for keeping all three studios operating, but he concentrated his attention on Los Angeles and slowly began to lose interest in the Sausalito location.

At the time, rocker Marshall Chapman was working with producer Al Kooper and bassist Tom Comet in Studio B on her album Jaded Virgin and helped other musicians and engineers carry priceless master recordings to safety outside the building.

Soundtracks that the Record Plant tracked and mixed there included Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Annie, 48 Hrs., and An Officer and a Gentleman.

The title and content of the song is a reference to the personal journey he faced after the accident, as well as the fact that he performed his lyrics with his jaw wired shut.

[3] When Studio B went online, engineer Tom Flye went to California from New York and ran the room; his first customer was New Riders of the Purple Sage, who recorded The Adventures of Panama Red.

[3] The expansion into Sausalito was the result of drummer Buddy Miles and radio pioneer Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue asking Kellgren and Stone to put a studio in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"Live From the Plant", the resulting radio show, was broadcast on Donahue's album-oriented rock station KSAN from time to time over the next two years, primarily on Sunday nights, and featured various artists such as the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, the Tubes, Peter Frampton, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Pablo Cruise, Rory Gallagher, the Marshall Tucker Band, Jimmy Buffett, Bonnie Raitt, Link Wray, Linda Ronstadt and Fleetwood Mac.

[35][37] KSAN, known as "Jive 95", was the most popular radio station for Bay Area listeners from 18 to 34 years old and the Record Plant broadcasts were widely heard.

A notable later radio show was by Nils Lofgren and his band with a guest appearance by Al Kooper; they performed at the Record Plant's Halloween party in 1975.

[39] In the first year, the studio worked on projects by Buddy Miles, the Grateful Dead (who booked the whole building in August 1973 to record Wake of the Flood), and on Gregg Allman's first solo album, Laid Back.

[3][34] The studio obtained industrial-grade nitrous oxide—pure, not mixed with oxygen as it is for dental anesthesia—from a local chemical supply company under the pretext that the gas was critical to the recording process, and fresh tanks were delivered weekly.

Kooper said that the studio's fun with nitrous oxide was stopped forever when a friend of Kellgren was found dead from asphyxia under one of the tanks, the tube still in his mouth.

[3] The Pit was a 140-square-foot (13 m2) acoustically dead room that had the engineer's controls sunk 10 feet (3.0 m) into the foundation of the building, surrounded on all sides by a ground level area intended for the musicians.

In the Pit, Wyman jammed with Van Morrison, who played saxophone; guitarist Joe Walsh; former CSNY drummer Dallas Taylor; pianist Leon Russell; and the Tower of Power horn section.

[42] In February 1976, for the album that became Rumours, Fleetwood Mac blocked time at the studio to lay down tracks, bringing in engineers Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut.

[35] Necochea was a music fan who, as a teenager in 1978, received a $5.6 million malpractice settlement for being radiated too much during treatment for thyroid cancer, causing paralysis and quadriplegia.

"[34] Accompanying famous artists, a series of experienced engineers and producers came through the Plant: Tom Dowd, Bill Schnee, Alan Parsons, Ron Nevison, Mike Clink and Ted Templeman.

[citation needed] Recording artists who worked at the Plant during this period include Sammy Hagar, Kenny G, Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Luther Vandross, Jerry Harrison, Chris Isaak, the Dave Matthews Band, Papa Wheelie, Deftones and Booker T.

Bob Welch once observed, "You had to have a major-label budget to afford places like the Record Plant, with all of the perks – the Jacuzzi, the decor, the psychedelic atmosphere".