It’s been years in the making and we finally have it in our hands. The 4 discs (over 100 songs!) that make up the excellent Designer Records set span years (1967-1977) of recordings of some of the best gospel groups around the South (and as far north as Detroit) by record producer extraordinaire Style Wooten out of Memphis. Most folks were trying to record at SUN studios at the time but Wooten was up for recording any group that had a little cash and a dream. The result is an astonishing collection of gospel 45 RPM singles and LPs that record hunters have been trying to track down for decades. This box set represents those singles in a easy to swallow, convenience that CDs were made for (for the vinyl fanatic check out the Designer LPs also on Big Legal Mess).
“See, these gospel guys, man, they’re doing it for the love of what they’re doing. They used to get in their cars–maybe two or three car loads of ’em–say from Detroit and they’d come down south and they’d work down here all Friday night and Saturday and Sunday; they might miss a day’s work, probably two days work, and get back home. While they was here they’d do a recording session and they’d play a bunch of different churches and take up the love offerings and everything. They just did it for the love of it, that’s what it boiled down to. They were doin’ it ’cause they loved it, man”
-Roland Janes, engineer of nearly all the Designer recordings (quote is from the excellent liner notes by Michael Hurtt)
We highly recommend “The Soul of Designer Records” CD set! And if you can’t turn it off we recommend the Nashboro Records CD set released on the Tompkins Square label. Both are in stock at The End of All Music. Release date for “The Soul of Designer Records” is September 30th but we have some for sale RIGH NOW!
