Many members of Nashville's music community are reeling after hearing news of the death of Brian Harrison, a local musician, recording engineer and producer who owned The Rendering Plant, a studio he operated out of his Donelson home. Harrison was found dead at his home on Tuesday, Feb. 18. He was 54 years old.
Two of his close friends, Bryan Owings and Joe McMahan, became concerned on Tuesday when Harrison, who was most commonly known by the nickname “Brain,” hadn't responded to phone calls or emails since the day before. They went to his house together on Tuesday, where they found him dead.
No official cause of death has been given, though several friends say they suspect it might have been a heart attack, because the last activity on Harrison's computer, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, consisted of several Internet searches for heart attack symptoms.
Owings, a drummer known for his work with Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, Tony Joe White and Iris Dement, had known Harrison since the two jammed together as teenagers in Columbus, Miss.
“Brain always wanted a recording studio,” Owings tells the Cream, recalling the early days of their 40-year friendship. “He started piecing that stuff together back in the late ’70s, buying cool gear when nobody gave a shit about it. He had amassed quite a bit of gear. He moved from Mississippi to Atlanta and lived there for a long time, and was playing around, recording and stuff. And then he moved up here in ’95 or ’96.”
Owings remembers Harrison as a talented songwriter who could play bass, guitar, flute, piano and drums. Harrison's projects included The Guinea Horn Quintet and The Hubcap Thieves, and Owings says Harrison played virtually all the instruments on those recordings.
“Anybody who knew Brain loved him,” Owings says. “He was just a generous, hardworking guy. He loved to work. His idea of relaxing was to change the capacitors in an old amp.”
McMahan, a guitarist and producer most recently known for his work with Luella and the Sun, first became friends with Harrison when they shared a big house on Chapel Avenue with a couple of other guys. McMahan recalls their first meeting with a mixture of nostalgia and awe.
“He arrived, and he's such an extreme character — he's one of these people who roll into your life and you don't know what the fuck is happening,” McMahan says. “It takes a while to kind of get your mind around him. He was just a force. He rolls into the house and brings a 2-inch tape machine and a console and big-ass speakers, and he's just ate up with audio and recording and music, a million records, and the energy of a 7-year-old kid at all times.”
McMahan, now one of the roots music scene's most respected producers, says he knew nothing about recording before he met Harrison. “I didn't know an 1176 [peak limiter] from a 747. I'd get up in the morning, make a pot of coffee, and we'd sit in the kitchen and talk about this shit, listen to records and talk about it some more, and his enthusiasm was contagious. And next thing I know I'm getting ate up with it. And we're running across good deals and buying shit, whether we've got the money to buy it or not. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have gotten any recording gear.”
And that mentorship lasted until Harrison's very last days. “Just [last] Thursday I carried a patch bay over there, and he was going to help me get my shit wired up,” says McMahan, whose home studio was
heavily damaged in a firein June. “Saturday he came over to my house to check it out, and was talking about coming over to help me get it all wired up when I get to that point in a few weeks.”
McMahan says he has many fond memories of The Rendering Plant, Harrison's studio. “We carried Kevin Gordon's 2-inch tapes for Down to the Well over there and did guitar and percussion overdubs over there.” And he says that's where Lucinda Williams came to sing her duet with Gordon on the album's title track.
“[Williams] immediately loved it there,” McMahan says. “So then she wanted to record over there, so she and Bo Ramsey went over there and did the demos for the Essence album. Somewhere those [recordings] circulate. I think I've still got a copy, and they're amazing, just two guitars and vocals.”
Guitarist John Jackson, a veteran of Williams' and Bob Dylan's bands who now plays with Minton Sparks and Amelia White, tells the Cream that Harrison had been his closest friend for some time. “We shared a room on tour with Shelby [Lynne] for however many years that was. Most of the recording I do in Nashville is at his house. He was the best musician I ever played with. He just touched so many people. Everybody he touched felt like he was their best friend.” Lynne, incidentally, recorded a couple of her records at Harrison's studio.
“There wasn't a mean bone in his body — except for him wishing Dick Cheney was dead,” Jackson says, chuckling. He explains that the former vice president was a frequent target of Harrison's irreverent quips.
Colin Linden began working at The Rendering Plant about 10 years ago. "He was a larger-than-life character,” says Linden, an in-demand guitarist, songwriter and producer who played on Dylan's last tour and plays a lot of the guitar on ABC's Nashville. (He's the guy in the black hat in Deacon Claybourne's band.) “It's kind of corny to say, but the world seems to have lost one of its most interesting and vital colors.”
Linden says he recorded at least a dozen albums at Harrison's studio over the years. “For certain kinds of records, it was really the best place I've ever worked in,” he says. “For the kind or record where you need to have that kind of intimacy and communication, it was unlike anything else. … And you'd know that by the end of the day, things would start smelling really great. He'd be smoking a pork shoulder out in the backyard.”
According to Linden, Harrison had an exceptionally keen sense of humor. "He had an extremely sharp wit, but was also really down-home,” he says. “And it made you feel comfortable, like nothing was off limits, in terms of any ideas you could come up with.”
Owings echoes those sentiments. “He had a funny, twisted view of the world,” he says. “He had a wit like a rapier. Super fast, super intelligent.”
As Linden reminisces about Harrison, he draws a comparison to another recently deceased one-of-a-kind character. “Brain was a man in the tradition of Cowboy Jack Clement, in that he understood that the experience of recording, and where you did it, absolutely reflects in the sound.”
Amelia White — a singer-songwriter whose just-released album Old Postcard was recorded at The Rendering Plant last year — agrees. “He just had a 20-mile soul and made me feel super comfortable, making me laugh, pouring me drinks. We just had a great time. I think you can hear it when you listen to the record. Super relaxed, super chill."
Memorials are starting to pop up all over Facebook. Here's what Jackson posted there yesterday:
He was a son and the sun. He was a brother to his three sisters and as close as a brother can be to me and countless others. He was the most loyal friend I or every single person that knew him could ever wish for. He was the best musician I have ever worked with and I'm not sure what we'll all do without him. I'm certain that without a doubt he's throwing a ball to Leon right now and is as happy as he's ever been.If only Dick Cheney would have died first. That would have been his one wish.
On Sunday, Feb. 23, there will be a short service at 1 p.m., and a party celebrating Harrison's life at 3 p.m., at the home of Bryan Owings, 1327 Riverwood Ave., Nashville TN, 37216. John Jackson has requested that anyone who has photos of Harrison email them to Joe Croker at croker@harpethhall.org for a slide show that will play at the party.
