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Gary Hickinbotham - Director
Gary began recording audio in his early teens. At that time recording was done directly to vinyl records or lacquer masters and to the emerging medium of magnetic tape. Gary got his first high-quality stereo tape recorder at the age of 14, inspired after a visit to the Columbia Records recording studio located in Washington, DC.. At the urging of Dr. Jeanette Wells, director of choral arts at his high school in Washington, DC, he recorded choral and orchestral performances for the school using his equipment since the school recorders were monophonic. Gary was in the music "home room" and sang in the choir and chamber choir. He also occasionally (because he was enrolled in choral arts) played percussion in the orchestra directed by Dr. Nicholas Pappas. He was also able to sing with the Washington Choral Arts Society with the National Symphony in Constitution Hall as part of the Hallelujah Chorus. At that time his high school music program was held in such regard that Benjamin Britten composed a motet for the choir.
Gary attended The George Washington University as a political science major. He did not sing in the university choir but did make some recordings in Lisner Auditorium. He was also active in the DC area folk music scene where he accompanied and recorded some local artists on a casual basis. At that time the only way to commercially record and release music was to be signed to a label that could afford to own and maintain a studio and distribution network. He was unsuccessful in attempts to work at Columbia studios, but was befriended by some of the staff who helped him learn some of the technical aspects of recording to magnetic tape and cutting masters for vinyl records. He was able to make limited edition records for friends using a Rek-O-Kut cutting lathe, the equivalent of today's one-off CD-Rs.
After college Gary worked on developing computer programs for construction project management (CPM and PDM) and detail quantity surveying/cost estimating. At that time computers occupied entire buildings and hard drives were the size of dining room tables. During this time he was also certified by the Washington Area Council of Engineering Laboratories and was a bonded structural inspector for reinforced concrete hi-rise structures. He also was a member of the Association of Cost Engineers. Finally, he was one of the authors of a study commissioned by the National Bureau of Standards (now the national Institute of Standards and Technology) on the effects of progressive collapse in hi-rise structures . During this period he continued to record and perform occasionally. He had a friend who was an amateur film maker and spent many evenings creating sound effects.
Gary relocated to Texas, where he became a vice president of a residential development and construction company in Houston. The call of music had been set aside for too long however, and when a band he was playing in had an opportunity to tour he went with it. His travels took him to the Austin area, where he became involved in the local recording scene. Because of his combination of recording, construction and musical background he was asked to participate in the construction of the Fire Station Studios in San Marcos, just south of Austin. He was asked to stay on by chief engineer Richard Mullen after the studio was completed and so became the second engineer. Richard was working with Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Johnson (he is still Eric's producer and engineer) and could not work for them and run the studio full time so more and more duties fell to Gary. When Richard left after a year Gary became the chief engineer.
During his stint as chief engineer the Fire Station he recorded many artists of national stature and worked with many producers and engineers from major labels. One of the recordings he made, the Texas Tornados, won a Grammy. Two other albums, one by Doug Sahm and one by Tish Hinojosa (which Gary co-produced), each won Indies and much critical acclaim. Gary has worked with Townes van Zandt, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Hiatt, J.D. Souther, Gary P. Nunn, Jerry Jeff Walker and many others.
When Texas State University acquired the Fire Station for its Sound Recording Technology program, Gary's friend Bobby Arnold from Willie Nelson's Perdenales Recording Studio became the chief engineer. Gary left the Fire Station to work as a free-lance engineer in Austin with his colleagues Chet Himes, Bill Johnson and mastering engineer Jerry Tubb. During this time he worked on several project studios in Austin and also helped with recording and mixing live radio broadcasts for KGSR. He also made multi-track recordings for the Austin City Limits tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughn. In addition, outside the musical arena, he was a co-designer and manufacturer of an electro-pnuematic voice-controlled physical therapy apparatus for paraplegic and stroke rehabilitation. This prototype machine is still used for spinal cord regeneration research at Southwestern Medical College in Dallas. Other commercial versions of the machine are in hospitals, therapy clinics and professional sports facilities throughout the United States and several other countries around the world. While working on this project he also worked on some of the first live streaming multimedia webcasts with Broadcast.com, at the time Mark Cuban's ground-breaking web enterprise.
During this period Mark Erickson, Director of Recording Arts for Texas State University, asked Gary if he would be interested in teaching a class for the program. Seeing a new challenge, Gary accepted. He discovered that he enjoyed teaching and has accepted more responsiblities in the program. He wrote the article on the history of the recording industry in Texas for the Handbook of Texas Music published by the Texas State Historical Association in conjuction with the Center for Texas Music History. He has also written articles for The Journal of Texas Music History. His latest project is to involve the studio and students in the production of the Texas Music Cafe, an NPR and PBS program similar to Austin City Limits.
Now a world-class engineer, coming full circle, he finds himself at the Fire Station, where he began his professional recording career, once again.
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