The Bennett House is a recording studio located on 4th Avenue South in Franklin, Tennessee

Franklin, Tennessee

Franklin is a city within and the county seat of Williamson County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 62,487 as of the 2010 census Franklin is located approximately south of downtown Nashville.-History:...

.

Built in 1875, the two-story building has served as a residence, a clothing store and, starting in 1980, a recording studio used by many popular music artists when recording in Tennessee. Artists that have frequently recorded at the studio include 1970's rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 producer Norbert Putnam

Norbert Putnam

Norbert Putnam is an American record producer and musician. He grew up near Florence, Alabama and was part of the Muscle Shoals musicians brought to Nashville to play for Elvis Presley in 1965. Putnam worked there as a bassist on recording sessions with Presley, Roy Orbison, Al Hirt, Henry...

 (Kris Kristofferson

Kris Kristofferson

Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...

, Dan Fogelberg

Dan Fogelberg

Daniel Grayling "Dan" Fogelberg was an American singer-songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, whose music was inspired by sources as diverse as folk, pop, rock, classical, jazz, and bluegrass music...

, Jimmy Buffett

Jimmy Buffett

James William "Jimmy" Buffett is a singer-songwriter, author, entrepreneur, and film producer. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett's musical hits include "Margaritaville" , and "Come Monday"...

, Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...

), country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 producer Bob Montgomery

Bob Montgomery (musician)

Bob Montgomery is an American singer, songwriter, and music producer/publisher.Montgomery was born in Lampasas, Texas. He was a songwriting partner and best friend of Buddy Holly, performing together as the duo "Buddy and Bob" while teenagers in high school...

 (Joe Diffie

Joe Diffie

Joe Logan Diffie is an American country music singer known for his ballads and novelty songs. Between 1990 and 2004, Diffie charted 35 cuts on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, including five number one singles: his debut release "Home", "If the Devil Danced ", "Third Rock from the Sun",...

, Waylon Jennings

Waylon Jennings

Waylon Arnold Jennings was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Jennings began playing at eight. He began performing at twelve, on KVOW radio. Jennings formed a band The Texas Longhorns. Jennings worked as a D.J on KVOW, KDAV and KLLL...

), producer Keith Thomas

Keith Thomas (producer)

Keith Thomas, born and raised in the Atlanta suburb of Conyers, Georgia, is a Grammy Award-winning producer and songwriter with 40 #1 Billboard hits...

 (Amy Grant

Amy Grant

Amy Lee Grant is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, media personality and actress, best known for her Christian music. She has been referred to as "The Queen of Christian Pop"...

, Vanessa Williams

Vanessa L. Williams

Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American pop-R&B recording artist, producer, dancer, model, actress and showgirl. In 1983, she became the first woman of African-American descent to be crowned Miss America, but a scandal generated by her having posed for nude photographs published in Penthouse magazine...

, Selena

Selena

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez , known simply as Selena, was a Mexican American singer-songwriter. She was named the "top Latin artist of the '90s" and "Best selling Latin artist of the decade" by Billboard for her fourteen top-ten singles in the Top Latin Songs chart, including seven number-one hits...

, 98 Degrees

98 Degrees

98 Degrees is an American adult contemporary boy band consisting of four vocalists: brothers Nick and Drew Lachey, Justin Jeffre, and Jeff Timmons. The group was formed by Timmons in Los Angeles, California....

). Thomas would even have one of the two studios in the building named after him when "Studio A" became known as "The Thomas Room." Other artists to use the studio include Phil Keaggy

Phil Keaggy

Phil Keaggy is an American acoustic and electric guitarist and vocalist who has released more than 50 albums and contributed to many more recordings in both the contemporary Christian music and mainstream markets...

, Randy Stonehill

Randy Stonehill

Randall Evan "Randy" Stonehill is an American singer-songwriter from Stockton, California, best known as one of the so-called "fathers of contemporary Christian music". His music is primarily folk rock in the style of James Taylor, but he has assayed other styles, with various albums focused on...

 and Chagall Guevara

Chagall Guevara

Chagall Guevara was an American rock band formed in 1989 by solo artist Steve Taylor, guitarists Dave Perkins and Lynn Nichols , bassist Wade Jaynes, and drummer Mike Mead....

. In the early 1990s, Montgomery produced acts such as Joe Diffie, Doug Stone, Jo-El Sonnier, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill and many, many others.

Gene Eichelberger, Audio Engineer probably most known for recording Dobie Gray's "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay", engineered many of these sessions on a Studer 24 track analog machine with Bob Montgomery.

The Bennett House Recording Studios ceased all tracking and mixing operations on July 1, 2008.

History

The house is named after William James Bennett

William James Bennett

William James Bennett , a water-colour painter, was one of the 'Associated Artists' in 1808, and twelve years afterwards was elected an Associate of the Water-Colour Society. He painted views near Naples, and on the coast of Barbary. His last exhibited drawings were published in 1825.-Reference:...

, a soldier serving in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. For a time, Bennett served on the staff of Major General William Whiting

William Whiting

William Whiting was an English writer and hymnist, best known for his 1860 hymn Eternal Father, Strong to Save ....

 until he was captured in Virginia in 1864. Bennett spent the remainder of the Civil War in prison at Fort Donelson

Fort Donelson

Fort Donelson was a fortress built by the Confederacy during the American Civil War to control the Cumberland River leading to the heart of Tennessee, and the heart of the Confederacy.-History:...

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

 until his release in 1865. In 1872, Bennett purchased the lot on Indigo Street. (Unless Indigo street was renamed ‘’4th Avenue South‘’ Indigo is not the correct location in Franklin that would eventually become the location of the Bennett House). The Home remained in the Bennett family until 1967 when its ownership passed onto someone outside of the family for the first time in ninety-two years.

It still stands on 4th Avenue S.in Franklin, TN as a stately Victorian Mansion some believe to be haunted by the ghost of William James Bennett.