The Original Recording of "Stay" in 1959

Homer Fesperman, now 81, was the engineer who recorded “Stay” for Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs in the summer of 1959 in a Quonset hut in Columbia, S.C.

Fesperman was in his early 20s at the time and setting up the first recording studio in South Carolina. He had just bought an old audio board from a radio station for about $400 and one RCA 77DX ribbon microphone, which he used for Maurice Williams’ vocals on the song that would go on to become a #1 hit.

Using that one RCA mic, a few borrowed EV pencil mics and a mono Ampex 350 recorder, Fesperman recorded “Stay” in a couple of takes of straight run-throughs. The song was considered a “B” side and got little attention during the session, where several songs were recorded.

Maurice Williams had written “Stay” when he was 15 years old and was trying to convince his date not to go home at 10 o'clock as she was supposed to. He lost the argument with the girl, but said later “like a flood, the words just came to me."

The mono recording of “Stay” was given to Al Silver of Herald Records in New York and within a few months hit #1 on the U.S. charts.

Fesperman did the sessions for free based on a percentage of the music. He ended up getting about $2,000 for “Stay.”

He knew the song had become a hit when he heard it playing on a jukebox in Louisiana while working on the broadcast of a football game.

Видео The Original Recording of "Stay" in 1959 канала Frank Beacham