Legal battles that have mired down Ardent Studios this year enter a new phase as of this week, bringing an ever-greater likelihood of the legendary recording facility regaining its momentum in the months to come. As Mark Twain might say, reports of Ardent’s death, widely insinuated via news articles and social media posts since June, appear to have been greatly exaggerated.
However, the death of another player in the tale is all too real. Mark Baranauskas, who’d assumed the name “Mark Danger,” was the key defendant in a lawsuit filed this May by the studio and its owner, Betty Fry, who inherited the business from her late husband, John Fry. Yet this Wednesday, Jeff Land, the attorney representing Fry and Ardent, received a call from Baranauskas’ landlord. As Land says, “[He] told me that Mark’s co-defendant in the litigation, Gary Barton, told him that it appeared that Mark had had a stroke in his apartment. Gary called the ambulance and was transported to Methodist Central. The next day, Gary contacted the landlord and told him that Mark had died.”
Another prominent member of the local music industry, familiar with the case but wishing to remain anonymous, was told that “Mark Danger died of liver failure” on Wednesday morning, and Jody Callahan of the Daily Memphian reported this Friday that “sources involved with the cases” had confirmed Baranauskas’ death.
Baranauskas, for his part, had sued Ardent and Fry, claiming (falsely, Land says) to be a licensed contractor in Tennessee who had been stiffed, though Fry and Ardent counterclaimed that he was an employee, as evidenced by $600,000 worth of pay stubs covering Baranauskas’ time there, from October 2022 through December 2025. His suit led to Ardent’s countersuit, which alleges multiple crimes carried out by Baranauskas. “It looks like he defrauded Ardent out of about $3 million,” says Land, “taking pieces of equipment out of Ardent Studios at night behind Betty Fry’s back, selling them, and pocketing all the money.”
Indeed, it was the selling off of gear and other mismanagement of the equipment that first set off the red flags for producer Robert A. Johnson, known as the “Frayser Flash” on guitar, who had worked with Baranauskas in the studio and seen him tearing apart a high-end mixing board. Ultimately, Johnson would sue Baranauskas for $1,800, over a simple unpaid loan Johnson had made to him, which actually predated Baranauskas’ lawsuit against Ardent. “The reason I did that was to expose him to Betty Fry, because I knew he was a crook and a shithead and needed investigating, and I wanted Betty Fry to know this,” says Johnson. Indeed, Johnson’s observations seem to have led Fry to lock Baranauskas out of the studio at the end of last year. From there, things went downhill.
As Ardent’s countersuit has matured, so too has their portrait of exactly what Baranauskas was doing. Much of it comes down to his selling-off of near-priceless vintage gear. And Johnson recalls his visceral disgust when learning of the loss of some particularly rare compressors. “He sold the Fairchilds!” he exclaims. “I mean, those were the studio’s calling card and crown jewels, that attracted people like Jimmy Page. Even the younger hotshot guys. And these things, they don’t grow on trees. You never see them for sale.”
As a result, Johnson, along with his son, Julian Johnson, ultimately volunteered to formally help Betty Fry recover the 100 pieces of recording gear allegedly stolen by Mark Danger, as well as offer support and consultation to Land in moving forward to protect the legacy of John Fry and Ardent Studios. And it was through Julian’s personal connections that Land first learned that Baranauskas had been hospitalized, just prior to his death.
In an email to the Flyer, Robert A. Johnson further details the allegations against Baranauskas :
Mark Danger gained physical access to the servers by entering Betty Fry’s attic with a technician. He installed malware and keyloggers, stole her passwords, and obtained full access to her entire computer system. He eventually locked her out of all her bank accounts. Danger used this access to steal from Betty Fry to fund his drug, alcohol, and cigarette addictions, including spending $20,000 on clothing at Lanskys Brothers using Betty Fry’s money.
This access also enabled him to sell John Fry’s valuable equipment, including three Fairchilds, Pultecs, Neumann 47, 67, and 87 microphones, Spectrosonics equipment, and the rare and priceless electronics parts collected by John Fry and Terry Manning. Danger accomplished this theft by accessing Betty Fry’s computers and signing her name to DocuSign sales contracts and purchase agreements.
In less technical terms, the changes Baranauskas wrought at the studio may have been best described by a friend of Johnson’s, who told him at the time, “RJ, I went to see Ardent. And I got so sick in my stomach, I had to go. That f*cker just sucked the soul out of it.”
Now, with Johnson lending his expertise in recording gear and knowledge of the vintage gear market, legal proceedings to recover that gear are proceeding, Baranauskas’ death notwithstanding. “This month, we filed a lawsuit against Retro Gear LLC, a used music recording equipment business in Nashville that Mark, without Ardent’s knowledge or authority, sold about $600,000 worth of music recording equipment to for $225,000,” says Land. “We tried to give the money back to them in exchange for the equipment and they refused, so we sued them. Monday’s hearing was an injunction hearing where we obtained an injunction against Retro Gear, which prevents them from getting rid of any of the equipment pending the outcome of the lawsuit.”
Yet Retro Gear wasn’t Baranauskas’ only customer, and one piece of gear will be harder to secure. “The Fairchild 660, the first one John Fry bought, is the crown jewel,” says Johnson, who first worked at Ardent in 1967, and frequented the studio for years after. “Rick Ireland and Fry reverse-engineered that 660, and that’s why it was so special. They actually took what Fairchild did and brought it up a notch. And that was the first thing [Baranauskas] sold, and he sold it to these guys in Spain called Heritage Audio, who reproduced it, and now they’re selling their copies!” Sure enough, one can easily find Heritage Audio’s “Herchild Model 660 Ardent Edition Mono Tube Limiter/Compressor” online.
As Land explains, “That company in Spain is violating artist copyright. They’re creating equipment with a label that says Ardent Edition, and Ardent never gave them the authority to use or license the use of the of their copyright.”
Meanwhile, as Callahan reported Friday, Land has “filed a ‘suggestion of death’ with Chancery Court as part of an official process when a litigant dies,” as the fight for the gear goes on. Baranauskas initial suit against Ardent and Fry is less certain, as Malcolm Futhey, Baranauskas’ attorney, had asked the court to withdraw from the case even before his client’s death (which will be decided on August 28th).
Johnson feels the loss of the gear and the other changes to the studio acutely, having learned engineering from Fry and others at Ardent, and ultimately recording his 1978 debut album there. Now, his mission is to right what’s been wronged, and, with Betty Fry’s blessing, he and Land are both hopeful about the final outcome.
As Land says, “I believe in 90 to 120 days, all of this will be in the rearview mirror. And it’s all based on my strong desire to help and protect Betty Fry. Because she’s completely innocent. The only thing she did wrong, and I’ve said that in open court, is she hired the wrong guy. And, you know, it’s tragic. It all had to hinge on this horrible human, basically overdosing, from what Robert said. But you know, I’m 68 years old. I’ve been around the block. So I think, although right now it doesn’t look that positive for Ardent because they’ve gone through all that pain and suffering and financial damage, I believe that by this time next year, Ardent will be blooming like a lotus flower in a muddy swamp.”
