He may not be a household name, but Roland Janes is a Memphis legend, with a musical career that spans six decades. Along with Scotty Moore and Carl Perkins, he developed the rockabilly guitar style at Sun Records. He played on the majority of Jerry Lee Lewis’s 200+ Sun recordings. Janes was a modest man who could submerge his own ego and virtuosity for the good of a session.
Born in Brookings, AK, in 1933, Janes was the product of a musical family -- his father, a lumberjack, moonlighted as a guitarist, and his siblings and cousins played a variety of instruments as well. After his parents divorced, Janes spent his adolescence shuttling between Brookings and his mother's home in St. Louis. Around the age of 13, he first picked up the mandolin, soon moving to guitar and playing country music in combination with his cousins. In 1953 Janes relocated to Memphis, and when work proved scarce he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. During his tour of duty he played guitar in military service clubs, and following his discharge returned to Memphis to back pianist Doc McQueen, through whom he met guitarist/engineer Jack Clement, who in turn brought him to Sam Phillips' Sun Records.
Janes served as the linchpin of the Sun house band from 1956 to 1963. During that time, he played on landmark Lewis sides like "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "High School Confidential," and was a founding member of Riley's crack backing band, the Little Green Men, in addition to collaborating on records headlined by everyone from Charlie Rich to Sonny Burgess. The guitar intro to Riley’s “Flyin' Saucers Rock and Roll” is legendary. Janes also worked with a young Roy Orbison on his first Sun recordings, including "Chicken Hearted" (1958).
His Roland Janes Band also cut its own Sun session on February 11, 1959 -- essentially the Little Green Men with Riley on second guitar and Eddie Cash on vocals, the group recorded five songs, none of them officially released until 1987.
For Phillips' brother Jud's eponymous label, Janes released the 1959 instrumental "Guitarville" and “Patriotic Guitar” on his Judd label, credited to Roland James (with an m). Later in 1959 Riley and Janes recorded as The Spitfires for the Jaro label. One side of their instrumental single was “Catfish”, a re-recording of the unissued “Rolando” from the February session. The tune sounded suspiciously like Buddy Holly’s “Modern Don Juan”.
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Billy Lee Riley's Little Green Men: Riley, Roland Janes, Marvin Pepper, and J.M. Van Eaton |
For Phillips' brother Jud's eponymous label, Janes released the 1959 instrumental "Guitarville" and “Patriotic Guitar” on his Judd label, credited to Roland James (with an m). Later in 1959 Riley and Janes recorded as The Spitfires for the Jaro label. One side of their instrumental single was “Catfish”, a re-recording of the unissued “Rolando” from the February session. The tune sounded suspiciously like Buddy Holly’s “Modern Don Juan”.
Janes played regularly on Sun record releases adding guitar that "was both surgically precise and wildly kinetic, perfectly complementing the delirious energy that galvanized Sun's most memorable contributions to the early days of rock & roll." Janes was also responsible for "nearly single-handedly inventing many of the engineering methods used in modern recordings, from microphone placement and cabling to board and tape deck tricks." In 1960 Janes and Riley formed their own label, Rita Records, and had a hit with Harold Dorman's "Mountain of Love".
He left Sun in 1963 and opened his own studio, Sonic Recording Service, where he produced records by Jerry Jaye, Travis Wammack, and others. The studio closed in 1974, but in 1977 Janes returned to the music industry as a producer and engineer at the Sounds of Memphis recording studio, as well as a teacher of recording techniques. In 1982, he retired from teaching and went to work for Sam Phillips again. For the remaining 31 years of his life he worked as a producer and engineer at Sam Phillips Recording Service for Knox and Jerry Phillips and continued as an active session musician, playing guitar on Mudhoney's 1998 album Tomorrow Hit Today
Janes recorded all kinds of music, mostly with young musicians. Occasionally he still did session work for others. He was elected to The Southern Legends Entertainment & Performing Arts Hall of Fame and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame not long before his death (following a heart attack) on October 18, 2013, aged 80.
(Compiled and edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic and article by Colin Escott @Bear Family) :