Original released on LP Sun 109
(US, 1958)
Best known
to most listeners for the aptly titled instrumental smash "Raunchy,"
Bill Justis was also a longtime linchpin of the Nashville recording community, working as a
producer, musical director, and A&R man for labels including Sun and
Mercury. Born October 14, 1927, in Birmingham, Alabama, he grew up in Memphis,
studying music and English at Tulane
University while playing
trumpet in local jazz and dance bands. In 1957, the legendary Sam Phillips
hired Justis to serve as the musical director for his Sun Records label. At 30,
Justis was a good decade older than most of Sun's artists and had little
interest in rock & roll until he learned just how lucrative the music had
become. With guitarist Sid Manker, Justis composed a wild, primitive instrumental
they dubbed "Backwoods"; Phillips renamed the tune
"Raunchy," releasing it as a single in September 23, 1957. Although
Justis' honking tenor sax assumed center stage, what made "Raunchy"
so unique was Manker's guitar; he forged the song's distinctive riff not from
the traditional middle strings but from the bass strings, creating a cavernous,
resonant sound further buffered by studio echo. The single proved Sun's
best-selling instrumental release ever, staying in the pop Top 40 for 14 weeks.
Justis
would nevertheless score only more chart hit, "College Man," which
only went as high as number 42. He continued recording the occasional single
(including "Flea Circus," penned by Steve Cropper), but by and large
focused the remainder of his career on studio work, arranging sessions for
Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Roy Orbison. Justis also discovered Charlie
Rich at Memphis
night spot The Sharecropper Club and brought him to Sun in 1960, arranging
Rich's first major hit, "Lonely Weekends." However, squabbles with Phillips
prompted Justis to leave Sun soon after, and he formed his own label, the
short-lived Play Me Records. After moving to Nashville and briefly reuniting with Rich at
RCA, he landed with Mercury, which remained his home for the remainder of his
career. In the years to follow, Justis would arrange records for everyone from
Patsy Cline to Dean Martin to Tom Jones, also recording a series of
instrumental LPs for Mercury's Smash subsidiary. In 1972 he scored his first
film, "Dear Dead Delilah". In 1977, he scored the smash Smokey and the Bandit,
reuniting with star Burt Reynolds a year later for Hooper. Justis died of
cancer on July 15, 1982.
