Church Studio — Leon Russell, Tulsa

The Church Studio at 304 South Trenton Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a recording studio established by Leon Russell in a converted church building in 1972. Russell — a Tulsa-born musician who had been one of the most in-demand session players in Los Angeles throughout the 1960s, playing on hundreds of records for Phil Spector and others — returned to Oklahoma at the height of his solo career to build a studio rooted in his home state. The Church Studio became a centre of the Tulsa Sound scene and a gathering place for the remarkable concentration of musical talent that Tulsa produced in the late 1960s and 1970s — including J.J. Cale, Eric Clapton's primary creative influence, and the musicians who formed the basis of what would later be called Americana.

Russell's solo career had been launched by his appearance as the organiser of the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, alongside George Harrison and Ravi Shankar — one of the first major benefit concerts in rock history. His Shelter Records label, co-founded with producer Denny Cordell, signed Tom Petty, among others. The Church Studio was the physical embodiment of his vision of music made outside the Los Angeles industry, rooted in gospel, blues, country, and rock and roll without hierarchies.

The Church Studio continued to operate after Russell's death in November 2016 and remains an active recording studio. It is regarded as a key site of Oklahoma music heritage and is visited by fans of Russell and of the broader Tulsa Sound tradition. The building's church origins — high ceilings, wood floors, stained glass — give it an acoustic character that has shaped the recordings made there over five decades.