Giving Mitchell His Due With ‘Serenade’

Behind every great singer there’s usually a great band--especially in R&B.;

It’s hard to think of the late Otis Redding without also remembering Booker T. & the MG’s. That Memphis quartet--including Booker T. Jones on keyboards and Steve Cropper on guitar--not only backed Redding on such Stax Records hits as “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” but it also scored several Top 40 hits of its own in the ‘60s, including “Green Onions.”

Al Green, who gets my vote as the most rewarding of all male soul singers, also was backed by a marvelous set of musicians on “Tired of Being Alone” and a string of other ‘70s hits for cross-town Hi Records. But that group didn’t have a strong identity a la the MG’s. The outfit was generally referred to as either the Hi Records Rhythm Section or simply the Hi Records house band.

It was, in effect, Willie Mitchell’s band.

Mitchell--bandleader, composer, musician, record producer and record company executive--not only helped shape Green’s singing style, but also produced Green’s biggest hits. He also produced such other Hi hits as Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain” and Syl Johnson’s “Take Me to the River.”

Mitchell also found time to record some instrumental hits on his own, and the highlights are contained in a highly recommended CD retrospective--billed as the first comprehensive collection of Mitchell’s recordings on CD.

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**** Willie Mitchell’s “Soul Serenade: The Best of Willie Mitchell,” the Right Stuff. There are lots of people who deserve credit for the evolution of music in Memphis in the ‘60s, but Mitchell is clearly someone whose role in that process has been underappreciated.

Born in Ashland, Miss., in 1928, Mitchell started playing the trumpet at a young age and formed his own 10-piece band while still in his teens. The group traveled around the country playing jazz or big-band tunes that had been popularized by Glenn Miller and Count Basie. Mitchell got further big-band schooling in the Army when he played with musicians from some of the big-name groups.

After the service, he set up his home base in the Memphis area, where he started moving in a decidedly more R&B; direction. According to the album’s liner notes, the enthusiastic young fans who saw Mitchell’s band in those days included a pre-”Heartbreak Hotel” Elvis Presley and guitarist Cropper. Presley, in fact, later hired Mitchell’s band to play at his parties.

By the mid-’60s, Mitchell was recording for Memphis-based Hi Records, eventually turning out such hits as “20-75,” “Percolatin’ ” and “Soul Serenade.”

It’s hard in the liner notes to follow the progression of musicians in Mitchell’s various band lineups, but the definitive team--and the one that worked with him in the ‘70s on the Green recordings--featured the Hodge brothers (Leroy on bass, Teenie on guitar and Charles on keyboards) and Howard Grimes on drums.

Of all his talents, Mitchell’s greatest strength was his musical vision.

“Willie helped me to find my musical identity,” Al Green once said. “Before I met him, my singing was more in the harder vein . . . Otis Redding, James Brown, Wilson Pickett. But Willie wanted me to just relax and not to sing so hard, just to find Al Green. . . .”

To appreciate the range of Mitchell’s accomplishments, try “Hi Times: The Hi Records R&B; Years,” a three-disc set released by the Right Stuff in 1995. But the 20 tracks in “Soul Serenade” also provide an essential chapter in the career of one of R&B;’s most valuable figures.

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