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The new studio's first recordings were for the folk singer and advertising Creative Director Clem Tholet. Tholet's album Songs of Love and War was a chronicle of his early life. Tholet became a good friend of the studios and brought a significant body of his Ad Agency – Matthewman, Banks and Tholet's advertising work to it in the following years, as well as numerous privately produced songs, albums and film tracks. But the other ad agencies soon started bringing their work to the studios too, and some classic pieces were written and recorded by Roskilly and Norris.
Whilst Norris played guitar, bass guitar and sang vocals, Roskilly played keyboards and wrote arrangements for orchestral instruments. A small number of regular session players evolved. Ace drummer, Bothwell Nyamhondera was offered a full time position as resident drummer and trainee engineer. A second studio was built, and Nyamhondera was encouraged to find deserving artists when not actually in the studios playing drums. These were probably the most adventurous years for jingles and would be rewarded in 1982, when Shed Studios was presented with the coveted Advertising Association of Zimbabwe 'Premier Award'.
In 1980, as the country became Zimbabwe, the studios set about finding new talent. A newspaper advertisement had 30 hopeful artists patiently waiting their turn at audition, and whilst most were more hopeful than talented, a few stood out head and shoulders above the rest. Some would go on to become regular vocalists on jingles whilst others would come back with songs to record for disc release. A very exciting time for all concerned.
Norris wrote a jingle for the travel agency – Musgrove and Watson, as commissioned by Nick Alexander, a copywriter for Matthewman, Banks and Tholet, but sadly had to leave for yet another call-up stint. Roskilly was left to do the arrangement and production work, and asked David Scobie, a 15-year-old with a very mature Neil Diamond sound-alike voice, to sing the lead part. It was a great combination of efforts and the jingle went on to win an award for best jingle at the following AAZ Awards, and started a relationship with the young singer that lasted many years.
Another great friend of the studio was the Zimbabwean guitarist Louis Mhlanga. He was a regular visitor to the studios, adding guitar parts to advertising works, and as session musician on a variety of albums. His last major work under his own name was the album 'Mukai' and with Jethro Shasha 'Musik Ye Africa', before he moved to South Africa, where his career blossomed.
Norris wrote a song called "Gypsey Girl" for Scobie to record. The released single shot straight up the record sales charts knocking Michael Jackson's "Thriller" off the coveted No 1 position. It was in the charts for 25 weeks, 9 of which were at No 1 position. Subsequently it peaked at No 5 in the South African charts, remaining for 19 weeks. Rhodie Music Scobie starred in two South African TV shows on SATV as a result but despite further singles and several albums, his career didn't take off any further. When he left school, however, he joined Shed Studios as a trainee engineer, ultimately becoming a director some years later, and finally leaving to start his own studio "Eibocs".
Meanwhile, The Bhundu Boys were also having some success.
Initially discovered by Bothwell Nyamhondera, the studio’s young engineer, there were a succession of hit songs locally and several albums from the Bhundus, but in 1985 the studios were approached by Owen Elias and Champion Doug Veitch of Discafrique Records in the UK, with a view to release a selection of African band music in UK. A compilation of The Bhundu Boys and African Herb, an offshoot of Thomas Mapfumo's band, was released, and resulted in interest by the radio DJs John Peel,Nicholas Cook, Anthony Pople (2025). 9780521662567, Cambridge University Press. . ISBN 9780521662567 Andy Kershaw and Charlie Gillett.
Shed responded in 1986 by licensing a compilation of Zimbabwean Bhundu Boys hits to Discafrique called "Shabhini", which took the UK world music public by storm. To the studio's disappointment, the band wanted to be released from their second three year contract as they wanted to jump ship to Warner Bros. A deal was made between the Band and Shed Studios where all future royalty income, from existing recordings, would accrue solely to Shed Music in return from their contractual release. A second compilation of Shed recordings was released by Discafrique called "Tsvimbodzemoto", which also sold well, but that was the end of the recording careers of The Bhundu Boys at Shed Studios. Following his move to UK in 2000, Steve Roskilly collaborated with Gordon Muir, the Bhundu Boys' erstwhile manager, to produce a final compilation double CD called "The Shed Sessions", which reawakened the classic Bhundu music on CD again, including previously unreleased tracks. The CD continues to sell and is also available to stream on iTunes and Spotify.
Two years later in 1983, after a stunning workload of band recordings, film tracks, and advertising jingles and soundtracks, Martin Norris left Zimbabwe for a new life in Brisbane, and Hughes left for South Africa, Roskilly decided to sell all the studio equipment to Gramma in order to help pay off their shareholding. The staff, Nhamhondera included, were taken on by Gramma directly and a new chapter began. Nyamhondera would later acquire the Legend status as one of Zimbabwe’s greatest record producers.
Gramma had no shareholding in Shed Studios which now operated independently simply as a trading company. Roskilly however managed the new Gramma Studios in return for a reduced studio hire rate, and continued to produce advertising jingles and film tracks as Shed Studios. It was a good arrangement and business flourished. David Scobie joined as trainee engineer as did Henry Peters, ace bass guitarist. As a threesome the business continued to grow, and the studios developed even further when Gramma installed MCI 24 track 2" tape machines and a second studio.
The 15-hour recording session went ahead with Steve Roskilly at the helm. There then appeared to be another hitch when Capricorn announced they could not pay for the session. After a brief legal battle, solicitors established that the recording would remain the property of the studio. Cliff Hunt, the band’s manager agreed to make overall rights to Shed Studios as long as the proceeds from any future sale first settled the outstanding bill, then whatever was residual would accrue to the Rhino charity as originally intended.
Two years later, Roskilly asked his film producer colleague Ralph Stutchbury, to cut together some iconic sunrise shots alongside the powerful Refugee audio recording. He then took the potential advertisement to the ad agency representing the Zimbabwe Tourist Board, Lintas, who turned it down. The ad was then presented to Michael Hogg Advertising, who immediately took it for their upcoming Air Zimbabwe Campaign. In fact, a whole new campaign was built around the sunrise concept. The result was a huge success nationwide, and the Refugee recording went on to gain many awards for the ad agency. The fee from the agency covered the outstanding studio fees and the balance was made over to Save the Rhino as agreed.
YouTube features a fake version of the ad. Video of dubious video quality, purporting to be the original ad, uses a more recent recording of the music performed by another Zimbabwean musician, and former studio director, Bud Cockcroft. You Tube also features another video with the original soundtrack on the Shed Studios channel
Acting as technical manager Roskilly went on to work with Dunn for a series of further concerts including the Reebok Sponsored Human Rights Now! Harare concert in October 1988 with Bruce Springsteen, Tracy Chapman, Sting, Youssou N’Dour, and Peter Gabriel. Controversially, the PA for this concert came from Johannesburg in apartheid South Africa. Other concerts included UB40, Eric Clapton, and Randy Crawford until 1989 when such concerts were then able to be performed instead in the newly independent South Africa.
This was really the golden age of the studios. Benny Miller did many band recordings in studio 1 including some classic Mapfumo tracks Thomas Mapfumo (The Leopard Man's African Music Guide) and Kelly Rusike, another outstanding bassist, and younger member of The Rusike Brothers band, became engineer in 1990, handling the regular record company band sessions. Roskilly composed, performed and engineered advertising jingle productions in studio 2, and Sally Donaldson and Hilton Mambo operated Studio 3 as Cherry Productions, doing their sponsored radio programmes. When Bud Cockcroft put up some money to develop studio one to a Fostex G16, Shed gained another shareholder and longtime director. This was the setup for the next 5 years.
In 1996, the studios hosted an enthusiastic gap year student from Britain, Chris Martin. Martin was nephew to one of Roskilly's family friends. They operated and developed the new PA company together for about 6 months, and worked in the Soundscape SSHDR1- equipped digital studio producing advertising jingles as well as a theatrical backtrack for St. George's College, Harare, the Passion Play No Greater Love. This Elaine Gillespie production was performed outdoors to an audience of 1500 for 10 nights. Coldplay would form in the year following Martin's return to Britain to attend University College London.
Andrew McClymont replaced Chris Martin in 1997, as Prosound became Pro-Active Audio Zim, becoming hire manager, and the company took off, handling all sound services for the extensive World Council of Churches' 8th Assembly in 1998, led by general secretary Konrad Raiser.
With Kelly Rusike running the computer studio, a new face in the shape of Ex R.U.N.N. family bassist – Peter Muparutsa was brought in to run the 16-track analogue tape studio, doing all the record company business. As time went on, Isaac Chirwa, another long-standing associate, joined the team to assist Rusike.
In early 2000 however, Roskilly saw a downturn in Zimbabwe's advertising and disc business due to foreign currency cutbacks in the country, and the politically motivated farm invasions Hippo Valley Estate began in earnest against prime exporters. For Roskilly, the political future of the country was not looking good, and when other family issues also intervened, he set about moving back to his native UK. After building a pair of radio broadcast studios for the controversial SW Radio Africa organisation and then acting as station engineer for 2 years, he joined Cheltenham Stage Services, a live sound and lighting company. He resigned his directorship at the end of 2008 and as a founder member of Production AV Ltd, a young dynamic Audio Visual company, he specialised in providing AV permanent installations until he retired in 2017.
Back in Zimbabwe Shed Productions, the jingle productions company was sold to studio engineer Kelly Rusike, which continued till his untimely death in 2023; Shed Recording Studios which owned all the studio equipment was sold to Keith Farquharson, and Roskilly Enterprises which owned the premises was eventually sold to a new record company. Before being wound up, Shed Music, the publishing company assigned all its rights to Roskilly's newly incorporated Pro-Active Audio Ltd in the UK. See YouTube Channel videos
Shed Studios was a pioneer in the development of the music industry in Zimbabwe, taking its place on the Zimbabwe Music Industry Association board, Ethnomusicology, 2002; 46 (2) and as chair of the Production House Association of Zimbabwe. From 1975 to 2000, its activities saw substantial competition from many other music studios and production houses, of which none survived. As an independent production company, it was an essential tool for emerging bands in the 80s and 90s, where contractual relationships with the record companies was considered not to be an option.
List of record labels starting with S
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