Cleveland Recording Company

Cleveland radio announcer Frederick C. Wolf opened Cleveland's first professional recording studio in 1938 at 1220 Huron Road in the Carnegie Hall building. He founded the studio as a place to record local Slovenian musicians he was featuring on his Sunday morning Czechoslovak music programs on WGAR. One of the early artists to record with Wolf was Cleveland band leader and future "Polka King," Frankie Yankovic.[1] In 1946, Wolf incorporated the studio as Cleveland Recording Company and moved operations to the Loew's State Theater building at 1515 Euclid Avenue.

In 1950, Wolf opened WCCR (AM) in the same location and hired Ken Hamann to engineer both the radio and the recording studios. Wolf opened radio stations WDOK-FM and WDOK-AM at the studios in 1954. Hamann eventually built the studio into a state-of-the-art recording and mastering facility and produced many regional and national hit records there, including The Outsiders' "Time Won't Let Me," The Human Beinz' "Nobody But Me," The Lemon Pipers' "Green Tambourine," Velvet Crest "Look Homeward Angel," James Gang album Thirds, and seven albums by Grand Funk Railroad.[1]

In 1970, Hamann and production engineer John Hansen purchased Cleveland Recording Company from Wolf and moved the studio to 1935 Euclid Avenue. Hamann and Hansen ended their partnership in 1977 when the property was purchased by Cleveland State University, forcing the studio to move. Hansen moved to a new location and focused on commercial recording until his death in 1990. Michael Bishop was employed as a recording and disk mastering engineer at Cleveland Recording in 1972. Hamann opened Suma Recording Studio in Painesville, Ohio with Ken, Michael Bishop, and Paul Hamann working as recording engineers. Michael went on to engineer recordings for Telarc Records beginning in 1988 and Paul took over ownership of Suma Recording upon Ken Hamann's death in 2003. Suma Recording continued to operate with Paul recording many notable recording artists including David Thomas and Pere Ubu, The Black Keys, Alex Bevan, Rachel Brown, Chardon Polka Band, and many others. Paul Hamann operated Suma Recording until his death in late 2017. [2]