Fletcher Clark

Born and raised in San Antonio, Fletcher began playing guitar professionally in dance and stage bands at age twelve, and started playing around with a sound-on-sound tape recorder. He attended Williams College in Massachusetts to study Economics, though he took more music courses, landing in the honors theory and composition program.

Following college and two and a half years as a fledgling banker in Boston, he harkened to the call of enchiladas, chicken-fried steaks and home. In early 1972, he went to see his old singing buddy in graduate school in Austin at UT, and wound up signing on as Business Manager of Armadillo World Headquarters, the legendary concert hall. At the same time, he and his old buddy started playing music again, forming an occasional band named Balcones Fault.

In 1975, Balcones Fault became an eight piece show band performing swing, blues, rock, jazz, country, reggae. They produced a single for Armadillo Records, became one of the first acts on Austin City Limits in 1976, and began the preproduction for recording an album. Signing with the William Morris Agency, they started doing big-time showcases. With private investment, they recorded their first album at the Record Plant in Sausalito, co-produced by Robert Margouleff, fresh from considerable fame as producer for Stevie Wonder, and Record Plant Head Engineer Tom Flye. Flye had dozens of platinum records to his name, including Sly Stone, Pure Prairie League, Don McLean’s American Pie, remix of Woodstock and the Concert for Bangladesh. Tom observed that Fletcher had good enough studio etiquette - meaning he could quietly disappear into the seats in the back of the control room to sit and observe. And he did so throughout numerous other sessions - soaking it up like a sponge.

Their record was sold to a small independent in Los Angeles. It was one of those releases that started off slow and tapered right off. Radio programmers didn’t know how to type it, and record retailers didn’t know the correct bin into which they should stock it. After two years, it became clear that the band would not break out and they pulled the plug. Fletcher returned to Austin and the Armadillo at a propitious time.

They had completed installation of Onion Audio in the very heart of the Armadillo Complex, equipped with an 8-track 1" Studer ATR, a console outfitted with API components, an excellent control room environment with JBL 4315’s powered by a Macintosh 2300 tube amp, a good assortment of microphones, a modest array of rack gear, a good library, and, a big plus for Fletcher, very good test gear - signal generator, VTVM, distortion analyzer and dual trace scope. Not only was there a good high-ceilinged recording room adjacent to the control room, there was a Jensen-transformer-isolated split off the concert stage for a mix to their machines, a video truck or a radio/satellite feed independent of the house mix.

A live recording by the Bugs Henderson Group became the first album release on Armadillo Records since Shiva’s Headband’s homegrown recordings of the early seventies. Fletcher became the Vice President of Marketing for both the club and the record company, plus spending every free moment learning the studio. What a deal! A library of books and a world of live experience to create questions, and all the facilities of the studio and its test gear to probe them.

Soon he began doing all the radio spot production and engineering his own sessions, as well as assisting in live recordings from the stage. The culmination of this was a live-to-2-track recording of Phil Woods, legendary jazz alto sax player, and his ensemble. LIVE was nominated for Grammys in Engineering/Soloist/Group in 1980, and Phil's MORE LIVE won the 1982 Grammy for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance - Group off those tapes. Fletcher also helped produce famed Austin yodeler Kenneth Threadgill’s only album for Armadillo Records.

1980 started on a high note for both the concert hall and the record company - at least until the announcement in the Austin American-Statesman that the building and adjoining property were to be sold to some developers to put up a hotel and office complex. Pave paradise and put up a parking lot, as Joni Mitchell presciently put it. The whole last year was a wing-ding, and New Year's Eve was to be the Last Dance at the 'Dillo. Fletcher spent it in Onion Audio mixing the show for a National Public Radio broadcast, wrapping the last cables as Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel plus half the musicians in Austin finally gave up the ghost at 4:30 on the morning of January 1, 1981.

Onion Audio subsequently merged its equipment into Lone Star Recording Studio, where Armadillo owner Hank Alrich produced Lindsay Haisley's Christmas on the Autoharp, which Fletcher engineered. From there Fletcher continued to engineer and produce recordings for Uncle Walt’s Band, Steven Fromholz, Bobby Bridger, The Almost Brothers and many more. He has continued his long association with these and others of the singer/songwriter community as sideman. He became involved with the Music Umbrella of Austin, serving as a Board Member, leading its Austin Songwriters Competition, then serving as President and finally Executive Director. He also continued his connection to the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, serving as its Marketing Director and Entertainment Coordinator until 1992.

Andy Murphy, who was instrumental in creating the Commercial Music Management and Audio Production programs at ACC, recruited Fletcher to take over his classes in 1992, after Andy was hired to head up the studio at UT. Fletcher teaches the Advanced Audio Production class and continues to teach one section of the introductory class. He continues to write, record and perform with various Austin artists.

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