September 2011. Real Strings. Real Crickets: Randy Walsh’s studio takes musicians to a secluded spot for real inspiration.

I find the best tonic for a creative block is about thirty to sixty minutes of open road. It’s just long enough to shuck off the tendrils of the day, enough physical distance to escape the familiar and become acclimated with the curve of a different path. I’ve taken many a spin on River Road’s sine wave just to uncork my brain.

The gin to that tonic is having a destination with the right tools at hand to capture the products of that freed mind. I’m lucky in that the only tools I need are an iPad or, should my charger get left behind with my cares, paper and pen, to meet my muse head on. It’s different when you are a musician. Sure, you can write a song in a rented room or sitting on train tracks or wherever, but you need a specialized environment with specialized gear to crystallize your art into something sharable. That’s where Stray Records in Bayou Goula comes in.

Randy Walsh opened Stray Records in June 2010 after a decade of recording at a home studio. “I wanted to take it to a higher level. I started building out a studio in Baton Rouge, which was going slow and was financially overwhelming,” admits Walsh. “We have an antebellum home in Bayou Goula, dating back to 1840 with all the outbuildings and such. What I decided to do is take one of the outbuildings and gut it and build my studio there.” Walsh weighed his options carefully about doing this. A studio in town can do more billable hours with shorter sessions, but he was after something a little different. He wanted a space where music was crafted, away from the clock and the distractions of daily life.

Walsh is a jack-of-all-trades. His website bio lists “Instruments played: Violin/fiddle, viola, cello, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, contra bass, electric bass, piano, drums, lap-steel, Dobro, banjo and mandolin” along with his list of recording credits. He recorded his first 45 at the age of fourteen and was a traveling musician throughout his youth. He found a second career in cinematography; in fact this interview was done on the heels of his returning from a film shoot. It was an earlier filming session—a documentary accompanying “Deacon John’s Jump Blues”—that led Walsh back to his first love, making music on the scale and in a time frame he likes.

“It’s a short walk from my house to the studio,” says Walsh. “When I have a singer songwriter come out, they stay with me. They get immersed in the environment. They stay in the house. I fix them breakfast, lunch and supper. You get totally into the project.” Stray Records Studio can accommodate full bands, but it’s the singer-songwriter for which the environment is really geared.

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