Store plays its own tune for 40-plus years

Oakland Tribune, Aug 16, 2006 by Ben Semmes MANTECA , STAFF WRITER

MY FATHER and mother started Janis Music in 1962, said George Janis, 48, co-owner of Janis Music, the only shop that sells and rents musical instruments between Modesto and Stockton.

Other stores have come and gone in Manteca, Janis said, but the familys downtown shop is the only one to have survived throughout the years.

Janis and his brother Tim sold the other Janis Music shop, located in downtown Tracy and now called Main Street Music, in 1992, and Janis moved over to take the reins at the original store. Janis, his wife, Inda, and son, Randy, are the stores only full-time employees.

Janis other siblings have left the business and gone on to pursuits other than music. His brother Eddie is owner and gunsmith at Paso Robles-based Peacemaker Specialists, which specializes in the restoration of Colt Single Action revolvers.

But at one time most of the Janis family worked and played together.

Musical education began early for Janis and his siblings; Janis mother was a piano teacher and his lessons began at the age of 4.

His parents, Ed and Jeanette Janis, met in the early 1940s in Massachusetts, where they were involved in the Big Band music scene. Ed Janis was the leader of the Harvard Club Orchestra, and Jeanette, a vocalist, was recruited to sing with the band. The couple was married soon after, and they settled with their growing family on the West Coast. Janis father passed away in the mid-1980s, and his mother died in May of this year.

Janis remembers fondly the years when his father and brothers toured together as the California Colors. In seventh grade, when Janis was 12, he hit the road with his brothers, taking his fathers place on bass guitar in the band. Tim played the guitar, and Eddie was on the drums. Janis sister, Louise, was the only family member not involved in music, Janis said.

She moved out of town when she was 18 to get married, he said.

A year and a half later, Janis switched to keyboard and guitar and continued playing with the group until the band dissolved in 1980.

We shut the band down in 1980 when we opened the second music store (in Tracy), Janis said.

Started in the mid-1960s, California Colors originally included only Janis father on upright bass and his brother Tim on accordion. As the music scene evolved, and a few years after Janis joined in 1969, the group began playing 1970s rock n roll covers from bands such as Tower of Power, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Boston and Styx.

Janis memories of his days touring the state are reinforced by a picture of the band and scattered newspaper clippings. Janis still plays songs from the bands repertoire over the stores sound system.

After more than 40 years, Janis Music remains remarkably unchanged. Janis Music still brings in most of its total revenue -- about $275,000 annually -- from retail sales of its large selection of new instruments.

The company now provides band rentals to local school districts and in the early 1990s started offering instrument repair. An earlier renovation, in 1980, added 2,000 square feet in the back of the store, creating four private lesson studios and one large classroom on a second floor. Another renovation in 1992 expanded the ceiling in the front of the store.

With 10 music teachers on staff, Janis Music hosts 300 students a week ranging in age from 5 to 65.

We cover a lot of the home school programs, Janis said.

While the store is larger and has expanded into exotic instruments, like the Australian didgeridoo and South American panpipes, its basic program remains the same.

We always did lessons, Janis said. My father taught lessons.

Janis Music is located at 138 W. Yosemite Ave. in downtown Manteca. Regular business hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., although private lessons are offered until 9 p.m. on weekdays. The store is also open on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Ben Semmes can be reached at (925) 416-4723 or bsemmes@trivalleyherald.com.