Back In the Day: 1988

Roland Janes

Guitarville LP

(Bear Family)

To write that Roland witnessed the creation would be to slight his role. He was an integral component of the Sun house band, adding teeth to Jerry Lee's many remarkable waxings and firing as spark plug in Billy Lee Riley's Little Green Men. (That's Roland tearing off the wooly intro to "Flying Saucers Rock and Roll.")

In addition to those already lofty credits, he logged countless hours as producer, arranger, and engineer on numerous recordings by Sun and other labels. He was in those ways a primordial architect of the rebel sound.

But it's his stringed amazements that render this disc triumphal. In each passage, the demarcation separating prosaic and upstart is null; indeed, the two merge in natural union, the better to convey eminently American stylings. 

Recommended: "Guitarville," "Patriotic Guitar," "Rolando," "Roland's Groove," "Roland Slidin' Home"

Video: "Guitarville"

Bear Family