Pianist John Autin has led Rabadash Records for 40 years. He's still chasing hits.

John Autin’s happy place is a plain metal box tucked among pine trees, HVAC supply companies and a casket manufacturer on a dead-end road in Mandeville.

It is home to a state-of-the-art recording studio built by a rock star turned record producer.

Three years ago, Autin, a piano player by trade, signed a long-term lease on the studio, making it the new headquarters of his Rabadash Records.

Now that streaming has made selling music tougher than ever, investing in an elaborate recording studio might seem risky.

But Autin, who is 67, is determined to keep Rabadash rolling.?Over the past 40 years, Rabadash has released 63 albums and singles.?

When necessary, Autin subsidizes the label with income he earns playing 10 restaurant gigs a week.

He also generates revenue by booking entertainment for the Bourbon Orleans and other venues. He may start livestreaming concerts from the Rabadash facility.

For three months this spring, fees from recording sessions covered the studio's expenses.

“That gave me hope,” he said. “But we had a slow summer, so I’m back to shelling it out of my gigs.”

On Saturday night, he’ll celebrate his label’s legacy with “The Rabadash Bash,” a 40th anniversary party at Chickie Wah Wah. More than a dozen Rabadash artists will perform, including Big Daddy O, Serabee, Tom McDermott, Ingrid Lucia, Johnny J, Buzzy Beano, Rockin’ Jake and Autin himself.

Doors open at 7 p.m.; the show starts at 8. Tickets are $20 in advance, $30 at the door, plus fees.

“I’m working my brains out, but it seems to be working,” Autin said.

“I had to totally reinvent the record label. I’m still reinventing it. That’s why I took a chance on this studio.”

Off to the races

He has spent his entire life making music.

He took a year off from earning a music degree at Loyola University to hit the road with a Top 40 cover band. He vowed to never do that again.

He logged a decade at Hotel Monteleone’s Carousel Bar. Spent years at Pat O’Brien's, the Tropical Isle and Howl at the Moon. He’s now a regular at the Chophouse and Fleming’s Steakhouse.

Given his own experiences, he’s especially sympathetic to artists he signs to Rabadash.

“I’m too sympathetic. I overpay them and put up with more than I should. But I’ve always been in love with talent, more so than women.”

In the early 1980s, his first band, a progressive jazz ensemble called Prime Directive, featured singer Nora Wixted. She became his girlfriend.

They had a regular gig on Bourbon Street. As Autin tells it, a talent scout from Warner Bros. Records approached Wixted, saying the company was looking for “a White girl who has soul and is doing something a little different.”

Several candidates were being considered, according to the talent scout, and he thought Wixted could be the one.

During a monthslong courtship, Wixted and Autin made multiple demo recordings for Warner Bros. Eventually, Autin said, the company whittled down the candidates to two: Wixted and a singer named Rickie Lee Jones.

Warner Bros. chose Jones. Not wanting Wixted’s demo recordings to go to waste, she and Autin formed Rabadash Records in 1984 to release her first single.

They then convinced pianist Al Broussard, a fellow entertainer at the 711 Club, to cut an album for Rabadash. Armed with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red whiskey, he recorded it in two hours at Ultrasonic Studios.

With that, Autin said, “we were off to the races.”

Big Al, Big Daddy O

“Big” Al Carson, another Bourbon Street institution, released a popular album with Rabadash. As the label’s output increased, Autin installed a tiny recording studio at the back of his Mid-City music store, Rock ‘n’ Roll Music. It was nicknamed Studio in the Closet, a play on the more famous, and much larger, Studio in the Country in Bogalusa.

In the late 1980s, Autin signed an unknown singer and guitarist from Sweden named Anders Osborne and Osborne’s then-girlfriend, singer and violinist Theresa Andersson. Osborne’s two Rabadash albums, 1989’s “Doin’ Fine” and 1993’s “Break the Chain,” sold well.

But then Sony Music scooped up Osborne. Losing Rabadash’s marquee act “was kind of a heartbreak,” Autin said. “But I was happy for him. Anders is so magical. Him just playing on a track makes it sound better.”

Acoustic blues/folk singer and guitarist Owen "Big Daddy O" Tufts became Rabadash’s biggest seller overall, thanks in part to the tireless promotional efforts of Tufts’ wife/manager, Gretchen.

“I’ve never met a man who has so many friends,” Autin said. “He and Gretchen are the sweetest, most wonderful human beings on the planet.”

More recently, Autin believed he’d hit pay dirt with Mississippi singer and songwriter Serabee. With a soulful voice and a knack for writing hook-laden songs, Serabee had worked with big-league producers and major labels.

Autin pursued her for 15 years. At Rabadash’s 35th anniversary party, Serabee agreed to join the Rabadash roster.

“I finally had the artist I thought would blow the roof off the (music) industry,” he said. “And I still feel that way about her.”

They recorded Serabee’s album “Hummingbird Tea” during the pandemic with an all-star band. “We made what I think is a stellar record,” Autin said. “I was thinking, ‘This is my masterpiece.’”

Rabadash rolled out “Hummingbird Tea” in October 2022. Hardly anyone bought it.

“We were still selling physical CDs before the pandemic," Autin said. "Eighteen months later, it was done. That was a shock.”

Lesson learned, he pivoted away from CDs. For the most part, Rabadash’s music is now released digitally.

Still chasing a hit

For the seven years before Rabadash moved into its current headquarters, Autin used a studio he built in a Masonic lodge in Covington. Three years ago, the Masons decided not to renew Rabadash’s lease. According to Autin, the lodge’s Grand Poobah was not happy about brass band musicians smoking pot on the front porch.

In need of a new home, Autin got wind of one that exceeded his expectations.

Dave Fortman achieved 1990s arena rock stardom as the guitarist in Ugly Kid Joe. After the band disbanded in the late 1990s, Fortman transitioned to producing records. He produced Evanescence’s multi-million-selling 2003 album “Fallen” and records by Slipknot, Mudvayne and Godsmack.

Fortman and business partner Gene Joanen built a high-end recording studio in Mandeville dubbed Balance Studios. It was designed by renowned audio engineer John Storyk, whose many credits include Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady studio in New York.

Fortman eventually sold Balance Studios. After it was sold a second time, the new owner leased it to Autin.

In the wake of his second divorce, Autin used proceeds from the sale of his Algiers Point home to get Rabadash’s dream headquarters up and running. The high-ceilinged recording room is so meticulously designed and acoustically pristine that he is reluctant to even reposition the rugs.

Given his 15-year lease, “I’ll retire when I’m 81."

But first, he wants Rabadash to score a national hit: “I haven’t had a hit yet. I want a hit before I die.”

He’s come close. Three years ago, members of the female country vocal trio Chapel Hart approached him about a record deal. But the Serabee album and the new studio had drained Rabadash’s finances, so he passed.

Weeks later, Chapel Hart earned the coveted “golden buzzer” on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” instantly catapulting the trio to national prominence.

“If I had just said yes, I would have had them” on Rabadash, Autin said. “But the good part of that was, I saw it happen. And it happened in one day.”

Autin’s personal expectations are not grandiose. He lives in a “modest” apartment in Covington. “I want to make a living. I want to eat. I am so happy to come to work every day, and so happy to play my restaurant gigs.

“The only thing I’m sad about is I’m not spending as much time producing. To keep this afloat, I have to do other things.”

He did find time to produce three singles by 18-year-old singer Laine Bleu.

Working with established artists is fun, “but not as fun as producing a young artist and helping them create who they are. That’s really where I started.

“I’m not a great dad. I’m not even a great grandpa. (Music) is what I do. My kids are all these kids who are working for me. I feel so blessed to have gotten this place.”