By Mr. C.

The artists on the recently released set, The Soul of Designer Records, are true voices in the shadows. They’re the “little people,” in the phrase that Boston record store entrepreneur Skippy White (“Mass. Records: Home of the Blues”) once used to describe the underheralded underclass of ‘60s soul singers. The “little people” who recorded for the Memphis, Tennessee, Designer label, were church singers, locals from the Memphis area or pilgrims from Cincinnati, Detroit or South Carolina, who came to one-time Jerry Lee Lewis guitarist Roland Janes’ Sonic Studio to record a 45 rpm record, something to sell on the weekend programs that they played in churches, auditoriums, wherever they might find a venue for their music.

“New talent needed all the time!” read the opening of a Designer Records ad, and new talent was the thirst for Designer owner Jesse Corbett Graham, who opened shop in 1964, fishing for hits in the rockabilly and country pond. He christened himself J.C. Wooten first, and spontaneously nicknamed himself “Style”….Style Wooten, a jack of all trades who soon, with the help of Roland Janes, found his calling in black gospel music.

Style’s concept was cash and carry. For $469 (or less depending on circumstances), a custom record was pressed, usually 25 or 50 copies, with Janes providing the studio and as often as not most of the musicians. As the ad stated, “We furnish our recording staff…" Once word got out, Sonic Studio became a hotbed of Designer gospel sessions. As Janes is quoted in the liner notes, "See, these gospel guys, man, were doing it for the love of what they were doing. They used to get in their cars – maybe two or three carloads of them, say, from Detroit – and they’d come down south and work down here all Friday night and Saturday and Sunday, they might miss a day’s work, probably two days. They were doing it ‘cause they loved it, man.” As for Style: "He felt that he was performing a service, and he was…He didn’t cheat nobody, he treated everybody right.”

The Soul of Designer Records is four CDs of custom 45s, 101 songs, packaged in a record-album gatefold. Some of the artists, like the Soul Superiors of Detroit or the Shaw Singers, used Designer as a springboard for other records and further career advancement. Most of these artists disappeared back home to the local church, with a box or two of records as a physical document of faith, a moment of glory for the parish to hear.

My favorite moments here come out of unexpected borrowings from radio hits of the day: James Brown, Dyke and the Blazers, Ollie and the Nightingales are each annexed, as are Tyrone Davis (the Foster Brothers crib the unmistakable guitar line from “Can I Change My Mind”) and Little Junior Parker (the Dynamic Hughes Gospel Singers neatly graft the opening guitar notes of “Mystery Train” as the hook for “Beautiful City”). There’s an emotional, uptempo cover of the Staple Singers’ “Why Am I Treated So Bad” by the Spiritual Harmonizers of Senatobia, Mississippi, and even a crude but highly compelling Jimi Hendrix guitar nod by Elgie Brown. The real standout for me, though, is a pair of songs by Joe Townsend, recorded with solo guitar, and, it seems, live in church. Townsend, who must be from Mississippi, with a few changes in words, could very well be taken for an early label mate of Muddy Waters at Aristocrat Records. The guitar is thick, the voice empowered, and the line between gospel and blues blurred.

The Soul of Designer Records is the music of Skippy White’s “little people.” But the power of voice, soul and inspiration, recorded by Roland Janes and given a home by Style Wooten on Designer, is as big as it gets: a heart full of love and a forever shout through the universe.

Roland, Robert and me

I really loved Roland.

But then so did everyone else who really knew him.

I could try to be clever and say it was for his virtuosity (Roland, a master of mischievous word play, would undoubtedly frown on that), because he was indeed a brilliant guitarist, who provided all those carefully calibrated, arrestingly spontaneous solos and rhythm patterns on so many of the Sun Records classics.

But that, of course, is not what I am speaking of here.

I’m speaking, really, of a virtuosity of spirit, which no one who ever encountered the man could miss. A virtuosity – a generosity of soul that is universally praised, often sought after, but rarely attained. And in Roland’s case, like his guitar playing, it was achieved without visible effort, scarcely ever calling attention to itself.

If you ever visited the Sam C. Phillips Recording Studio at 639 Madison Avenue in Memphis, you would know Roland Janes. He was there managing the studio, engineering sessions, greeting the world, every day more or less for the last thirty years, working with everyone from Charlie Rich to Memphis rappers Three 6 Mafia and Al Kapone to Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, and anyone who might wander in off the street looking to cut a “personal” record, the same way Elvis once did at Sam’s original studio at 706 Union around the corner.

At that original Sun studio Roland played on just about every hit (and, he would be quick to point out with a dry chuckle, on even more misses) that came out on the label from mid-1956 on. He arrived with Jack Clement and Billy Lee Riley that summer, going on to play the blazing double-whammy solo on Riley’s “Flyin’ Saucers Rock ‘n’ Roll.” But it was, really, with Jerry Lee Lewis’ arrival at the tag end of the year that he would cement his place in rock ‘n’ roll history. How many times have you heard Jerry Lee’s exuberant shout, “Ro’ Boy,” as he exhorts the otherwise nameless guitarist to take yet another perfectly conceived, perfectly concise solo? It’s for his musicianship most of all, of course (along with his own short-lived but influential Rita label and his Sonic Recording Studio, one of the principal progenitors of the Memphis garage-band explosion of the ‘60s), that Roland was named to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame just last month.

But forget that. I mean, don’t forget the music – don’t ever forget the music. But forget the brilliant solos, and forget the accolades (as Roland said about fame, “I never really cared about any of that”) if you want to try to understand the spirit of the man.

Anyone who stopped by the studio, I don’t care for how long, could not miss that spirit. He was such a kind man. He was such a smart man. He was such a decent and committed man – and by “committed” I don’t mean to suggest anything like the quality that politicians often cite when referring to their own inflexibility. I mean, he was committed in the same way that Sam Phillips proved himself to be over and over again in the studio, committed to bringing out the best in you, committed to exploring the you of you, whoever you were, however you presented yourself, however sophisticated or unsophisticated your tastes. Not that Roland was above kidding around with you. Sometimes after a particularly bad pun, Roland might simply engage you with a quizzical look, as if to say, I hope you got that, it wasn’t really that hard. But mostly he was in the business of encouraging you to be the best “you” you could possibly be.

I’m not sure when I first met Roland – it must have been over thirty years ago - in the studio, of course – but there was no end to our meetings and, given Roland’s nature, I’m sure there will be no end. I remember when we were recording the Charlie Rich album, Pictures and Paintings, in 1991, it was Roland, who was second engineer on the session, who was, really, the key to its success. It wasn’t that Charlie didn’t have a lot to say; as Sam Phillips always said, it was almost as if he had too much to say, but given his deeply introspective nature too often it stayed bottled up inside. It was hard for Charlie – he had an intrinsic fear of letting go (he would tell you it was “anxiety panic disorder”), but even though Sam’s sons, Knox and Jerry, were present most of the time, and Scott Billington did a wonderfully sympathetic job of producing, it was only Roland who had the capacity to make Charlie feel – I’m not going to say at ease, but at home. And not just because they were old friends and colleagues. And not because of anything special that Roland said. It was just – Roland.

Just like Sam, whom he thought the world of (if Roland was everybody else’s mentor, Sam Phillips was his) he was a teacher – without all the big words that Sam used maybe but with the same sure sense of purpose. Every year his Christmas story provided an illuminating lesson. These were not conventional Christmas greetings – they were not just the usual well-intentioned summaries of family events over the last calendar year. They were more like real-life short stories with a strong moral underpinning. One of my favorites was 2011’s “House of Broken Dreams,” which began, “In my younger days I fancied myself to be a fine guitar player and singer” and then went on to paint a picture of the pawnshop owner who had given him a boost back in those early days. With another aspiring young musician, Roland (or the unnamed protagonist) had rented a room over the pawnshop, which was called “The House of Broken Dreams.” As Roland tells it, the name was something of a misnomer, if only because of the kindness of its owner, Mr. Oscar, a Holocaust survivor. Well, I’m not going to tell you the whole story, it’s more of a meditation, really, but it led Roland to his usual Christmas conclusion: “Let me wish a Merry Christmas to one and all – and to all A GREAT LIFE.”

We shot video interviews for the enhanced digital editions of my books in the studio this past spring. One of the highlights was a conversation with Roland – not an interview exactly, the intention was always conversation. But as we were talking about Jerry Lee Lewis, whom Roland has always cherished not just for his genius but for his fundamentally good-hearted character, Roland evidently decided it was time to turn the tables on me. If this was really a conversation, then he wanted to ask me some questions, too. “Well, how’d you get started, Peter?” he said. “How did you first get into this music?” And while we were at it, he wondered how I had come to write my first book. He imagined I must get quite a bit of satisfaction out of the writing, he said. And then we started talking about the satisfactions to be derived not just from writing or music but from any form of creative engagement.

The last conversation I had with Roland, when he first got sick last month, he wanted to know how the video project was going. I told him it was going great – it was really fun to work with my son, Jake, and Memphis writer and filmmaker Robert Gordon, and it was always great to work on any project with him. “So you feel good about it, Peter?” he said. I told him that I did. “That’s good,“ Roland said. “That’s good.”