However, as momentum gathered, there became less and less of a place for Chips Moman. He was finally let go. After brooding for a considerable time, he started the American Recording studio at the corner of Thomas and Chelsea streets. It wasn’t much to look at, and Moman often accepted booze as payment from the managers of the acts that recorded there, but it energized him to be back in the business.
Other developments were occurring that would soon dovetail with Moman’s activities. Back in 1956, a record store owner named Joe Cuoghi, along with some backers, founded the Hi label. For its first several years, Hi specialized in Sun-type rockabilly by the likes of Bill Black (Elvis’ former bassist) and Carl McVoy. In 1963, veteran black Memphis bandleader and trumpeter Willie Mitchell, whose aggregation had at various times included George Coleman and Charles Lloyd, signed with the label. His Hi hits from the mid-sixties included “Buster Brown” and “Soul Serenade.” Hi also developed the only all-black studio band among the Memphis soul labels of the time. It consisted of Howard Grimes on drums, and the Hodges brothers, Charles, Flick and Teenie, on organ, bass and guitar, respectively.
A white hardware supplies salesman named Quinton Claunch also entered the picture at this time. He moved from Mississippi to Muscle Shoals, Alabama as a young man in the mid-forties and played in a country ensemble on a local radio station. In 1948, he married and moved to Memphis, where he became friends with Sam Phillips. After Phillips started his Sun operation, Claunch contributed guitar parts to some of that label’s early sides. He became involved with Hi in the late fifties, but mainly concentrated on his sales career. In 1964, he took a local black soul group called The Lyrics to Rick Hall’s Fame studio in Muscle Shoals and cut “Darlin’.” His next step was to start the Goldwax label, in partnership with a Memphis druggist named Doc Russell.
Soon afterward, Claunch got a call from a black medical technologist named Roosevelt Jamison. Jamison was a busy man with a most interesting background. He had passed on an art scholarship after high school, getting married and having kids instead. He took a job as an orderly at City of Memphis Hospital. His drawing abilities and eye for detail came to the attention of L.W. Driggs of the hospital’s hematology department. Jamison was soon running the slide projector at Driggs’ presentations and honing his medical credentials. In the meantime, he also took up managing gospel acts. One of his groups, The Harmony Echoes, had two fantastic singers among its ranks: O.V. Wright and James Carr.
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