MiamiTickets.co · Local knowledge
Inside Criteria, Where the Bee Gees Changed Course
In North Miami, Mack Emerman built a studio where local skill helped shape music heard around the world.
In 1975, the Bee Gees traveled to Criteria Studios in North Miami to make an album that would change the direction of their career. Working with producer Arif Mardin and engineer Karl Richardson, they recorded Main Course, moving toward a stronger R&B and dance sound. Its hit “Jive Talkin’” carried a rhythm the group later connected to the sound of a car crossing a Miami causeway on the way to the studio.
It is a fitting Criteria story. The musicians arrived with ideas. The city entered the work. Inside the studio, artists, producers and engineers turned both into a record.
Mack Emerman founded Criteria in 1958. Building a recording studio meant investing in equipment and rooms, then convincing musicians that those rooms were worth choosing. A studio could be far from the traditional centers of the record business and still become central to a song, provided the people inside knew how to capture it.
Criteria’s reputation grew. James Brown recorded “I Got You (I Feel Good)” there in 1965. Atlantic Records producer and engineer Tom Dowd worked extensively at the studio, helping bring a succession of artists to North Miami. Aretha Franklin recorded there, as did Eric Clapton. Derek and the Dominos began work on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs at Criteria. These were artists with options; the decision to work in Miami speaks to what the studio offered them.
The room also figured in albums whose histories stretch across several cities. Fleetwood Mac worked on Rumours at Criteria, but the album was recorded in multiple locations. The Eagles recorded Hotel California at Criteria and the Record Plant in Los Angeles. Giving the North Miami studio its due does not require claiming either album was made wholly there. A recording can carry the work of more than one room.
Criteria’s history is sometimes told by reading its list of famous visitors. The longer story belongs to the engineers, assistants and other studio workers who had to make each session function. Richardson’s work with the Bee Gees is part of Main Course. Dowd’s relationships with musicians helped make Criteria a place they returned to. Emerman gave them the facility in which that work could happen.
The Bee Gees’ sessions show what a studio can contribute without taking authorship away from the band. Main Course reflected the Gibbs’ writing and performances, Mardin’s production and Richardson’s engineering. It also marked a point when the brothers’ time in Miami became part of a new musical direction. “Jive Talkin’” reached No. 1, and the group’s relationship with the city continued well beyond that record.
Criteria remained busy through changes in musical fashion and recording technology. Its legacy is not confined to one genre or decade. Brown’s soul, the Bee Gees’ pop, Clapton’s blues-rooted rock and the work done there for Rumours all passed through the same North Miami institution.
That is what makes Criteria more than a collection of famous credits. Emerman built a place musicians could use. Generations of people behind the studio doors helped turn performances into records. Millions of listeners know the finished music, even if they have never heard the name of the room where part of it came to life.