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 Al Green Celebrates 40 Years Of Unparalleled Soul Greatness With Career-Spanning
Greatest Hits Collection
Capitol/EMI To Release Al Green: The Definitive Greatest Hits On CD and Digitally; Deluxe CD/DVD Adds Music Video and TV Performances
Six Classic Al Green Tracks to Make Ringtone Debut
“Unquestionably the greatest soul singer to come to prominence in the ‘70s…”
- Rolling Stone Hollywood, California - January 09, 2007 – In 2007, Al Green celebrates the 40th anniversary of his soul-transcendent music career. To commemorate the
occasion, Al Green: The Definitive Greatest Hits, a new career-spanning collection of his most beloved and enduring hits, will be released January 16 by Capitol/EMI Music Catalog
Marketing in CD and deluxe CD/DVD packages and digitally. The collection’s 21 tracks, all 24-bit
digitally re-mastered, include six classic Hi Records-era
Number One hits, “Let’s Stay Together,” “I’m Still In Love
With You,” “L-O-V-E,” “Livin’ For You,” “You Ought To Be With
Me,” “Full Of Fire,” and other career-defining tracks Green
recorded for Hi and Blue Note. The CD package features
new liner notes by Colin Escott and archive photos, and the
deluxe CD/DVD adds six film and video clips, including TV
performances from 1971, 1978 and 2004. In addition, six
classic Al Green tracks will make their ringtune debuts on
January 16.
During the course of his career, the Rock
and Roll Hall Of Famer, nine-time Grammy winner and ordained
minister Al Green has racked up seven number one albums and 16
Top 10 singles in the U.S. alone. Green’s recordings
have earned a bevy of gold and platinum sales awards around
the world, including, in the U.S., eight gold singles, five
gold albums, one platinum album, and one triple platinum
album.
It has been 40 years since “Al Greene and the
Soulmates,” then based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, released
their first album, Back Up Train, on their own Hot Line label.
The album became a hit, and the hit begat a tour. Somewhere in
Texas, the Soulmates quit, leaving Greene to work a show date
in Midland with bandleader Willie Mitchell, a star artist and
producer on Memphis’ Hi Records label, a chance meeting that
evolved into a collaboration that would shape both of their
careers.
After signing with Hi Records himself in
1968, Al Green (with Greene’s last “e” dropped) became a soul
music sensation within 18 months and an international
superstar within seven years. Backed by The Hi Rhythm Section
(the Hi Records house band) and produced by Mitchell, Green
merged his inimitable vocals of sultry depths and soaring
falsetto heights with the Section’s funk-tinged arrangements,
originating a feverish and yearning brand of soul music.
By 1972, Al Green was preeminent in R&B and one of pop
music’s biggest luminaries. Green’s recordings are
transcendently brilliant, at once definitive of their time and
relevant for the ages. His illustrious career has been
chronicled in more than 30 albums and an autobiography, Take
Me to the River.
Still actively recording and
performing, Green’s concert tours take him to cities around
the world every year for roof-raising shows. |
Hi
Records' Ann Pebbles gives new spin to her Hi masters hits.
Read this review from Britain' Echoes
Magazine - Mike Atherton:
ANN PEEBLES -
BRAND NEW CLASSICS (TRACK) [****1/2]
The
return of two legendary names from the past: Track Records,
the label which gave us Jimi Hendrix and The Who, not to
mention fine Detroit soul sides by The Parliaments and Al
Kent, and Ann Peebles, the diminutive dynamo of a diva who
scored hit after hit on Memphis-based Hi Records in the
Seventies.
At
first glance this looks as if it could be one of those
faded-star-does-her-hits-live sets, as Peebles faves like I'm
Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down, You Keep Me Hanging On
and I Can't Stand The Rain feature amongst the 16
tracks. But, though much of it was recorded in front of a live
studio audience, this is no cheap cash-in, and there's nothing
the least bit faded about Miss Peebles - or Mrs. Bryant, as
she has been for many years. Hubby Don, no mean recording
artist himself, has a guest spot on the gospel tune Spread and
shows that his voice is still fully intact, too.
Backed by her aptly-named Dream Team band, drums, acoustic and
electric guitars and a juicy but controlled Hammond organ, Ann
brings maturity and a sense of warm intimacy to those old
songs, without losing an ounce of their soul content. She is
adept at bringing out the shades and nuances of a lyric, as
demonstrated on the bluesy Walk Away and the beautiful,
anthemic and autobiographical I'm So Thankful. Amongst the
newer numbers are her version of Foreigner's I Wanna Know What
Love Is and the Stones' Miss You, two songs which fit
seamlessly into her repertoire. On the latter she's backed by
her old Memphis homeboys Hodges, Hodges and Grimes, veterans
of innumerable Hi sessions.
Of
course, I Can't Stand The Rain is here, sassier and funkier
than we remember it, a pleasing contrast to the mellow vibes
of most of the set. Ann Peebles may have been quiet for a
while, but she still has the star quality which this writer
witnessed when he saw her at the 100 Club nearly 30 years ago.
That star shines from every track of this warm, uplifting and
lovely album.
****1/2
Mike Atherton |
|
Cat
Power’s Chan Marshall tapped two of Hi Rhythm’s premier
musicians, guitarist Teenie Hodges and
bassist Leroy Hodges, to track her latest CD The
Greatest recorded in Memphis’ Ardent Studios “in about
five days.” Lauren Gitlin wrote in Rolling Stone:
“Playing with these guys makes it a more joyful country kind
of thing,” says Marshall. “Just to have them sitting around,
telling me stories about Ike and Tina (Turner) was really
amazing, and there was some corn liquor that Teenie brought in
– it was a good time.”
There
will undoubtedly be more good times ahead as Teenie joins the
upcoming Cat Powers tour. Of course, Teenie is most noted for
his trademark intro on Al Green’s legendary hit “Love and
Happiness,” just one of the songs Teenie co-wrote with Al at
Hi Records. |
| From
Billboard Spotlights on Album Reviews 10/15/05...
Unplugged, Alicia Keys latest CD
is “truly entertaining” and includes “ an intriguing ‘Stolen
Moments,’ co-written with R&B icon Al Green.” I Believe To My Soul, Various
Artists: “of the covers, [Ann] Peebles
luminous read of Bob Dylan’s “Tonight I’ll Be Staying
Here With You” is among the best.”
Ann fans, you can buy I Believe To My Soul with your fave cup
of java at Starbucks while aiding Katrina relief efforts
at the same time. Starbucks is donating $3 from the sale of
each CD to the cause. The disc is also available in
traditional retail outlets across the country and features New
Orleans natives Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint,
along with Billy Preston, Mavis Staples, and our Ann
Pebbles, of course.
|
Premier Player Awards
to honor Hi Record label spun hits in '50s- '70's
By Bill
Ellis
ellis@gomemphis.com
Hi Records gets toasted in high fashion this year at the 18th
Premier Player Awards on April 3 at the
Orpheum.
"We're using
the evening to pay tribute to the legacy of the label," says
Jon Hornyak, executive director of the event's producer, the
Memphis chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts
& Sciences (NARAS). "And it'll be as much of a Hi family
reunion (as) we can make it."
Known for instrumental and
soul hits that spanned the -50s- '70s, Hi was chosen this year
for a number of reasons, says Hornyak. Last year's tribute to
another local label, Sun, was a success, and this year, the Hi
fete will fall in the same month as the opening of the Stax
Museum of American Soul Music.
"You had three great labels
that put Memphis on the map-Sun, Stax, and Hi-and we wanted to
make sure that Hi got its props as well," he
said.
The Premier
Players honor the achievements of local musicians and are
staged by the local chapter of Grammy-producing organization
the Recording Academy. Nominees in 21 categories were also
announced this week. Rufus Thomas's son, Stax
keyboardist/producer Marvell Thomas, will be inducted into the
Premier Player Awards Hall of Fame, an honor bestowed to
musicians who win five or more awards in a particular
category.
Recording
Academy president Neil Portnow will make his first visit to
Memphis as the head of NARAS to speak at the Premier
Players.
Hi is perhaps best known as the one-time home of
singing legend Al Green, who made a string of classic singles
and albums with producer Willie Mitchell and the Hi Rhythm
section, who collectively carved out a style of Southern soul
considered definitive along side the achievements of Stax.
(Green's first four albums on Hi have recently been reissued).
Other seminal artists at the Bluff City label included Ann
Peebles, Otis Clay, Syl Johnson, Bill Black's Combo, Ace
Cannon and Mitchell himself, who charted with dance hits
before becoming a producing
giant.
A number of Hi
artists are slated to appear at the Premier Players, including
Mitchell, Peebles, Cannon, Clay, Johnson, the Hi Rhythm
Section and Don Bryant. The event's lineup is not complete,
and Green has not committed, according to
Hornyak.
Tickets are $200, $150, $100, $37 and $27 (balcony).
All tickets except balcony seats include admission to a
post-party at the Gibson Beale Street Showcase Lounge. Tickets
are available by calling the Orpheum box office at 525-3000 or
Ticketmaster at
525-1515.
Some
450 Memphis chapter members vote on nominees. |
Demon
has added Charlie Rich: The Complete Hi Recordings
to its list of Hi
master reissues.
Featured tracks from the compilation of Rich’s 1966-67
sessions include: Who Will The Next Fool Be? and When Something Is
Wrong With My Baby (which pre-dates Sam and Dave’s Stax
hit). Demon’s
reissue is getting rave reviews citing Rich is “as
authentically soulful as anybody on Hi.”
|
The
Right Stuff scored big with Al Green’s Take Me to the
River two-disc selection of Hi masters. Released in
conjunction with Green’s autobiography by the same name
written with David Seay, Take Me to the River
contains 30 cuts, including the classics: Let’s
Stay Together and Tired of Being Alone. Green's
book signing for hometown friends and fans took place at
Memphis’ Rock ‘N’ Soul Museum.
|
Taylor
and Martinez, the self-titled debut album by Hi Records’ first new
act in twenty years, is also the label’s first record to be
released nationally and internationally simultaneously. Thanks
to Internet technology, Hi Records' fans
around the world are able to purchase Taylor
and Martinez online without having to wait for
international distribution outlets to be put into place in
their particular countries
Hi Records is taking
an aggressive stance in positioning Taylor
and Martinez on numerous Internet sales sites. The music of Taylor
and Martinez is described as “soulful,
blues-spirited music that rocks.” This allows various sales
sites to list the duo’s album under different categories:
soul, blues, rock and pop music, and their sound is proving to
be palatable to a variety of musical
genres.
“Low-down,
dance-floor-ripping originals” (Blues Revue) “Charlotte is a
powerful singer… and George Martinez plays first-class
scorching guitar.” (Blues On Stage) “… their sound is
hybrid of soul, rock and blues with good melodies and hooks
that have the power to make people dance, even in their seats.
(digitalcity). |
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