Willie Mitchell is a
soulSoul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
,
R&BRhythm and blues is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
,
rock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States after World War II in the late 1940s, from a combination of the rhythms of the blues, from the African American culture, and from America's country music and gospel music scenes...
,
popPop music is a music genre that developed from the mid-1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music. It has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs...
and
funkFunk is an American music genre that originated in the late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, soul jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
music producerIn the music industry, a record producer has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes...
and
arrangerIn music, an arrangement is either a rewriting of a piece of existing music with additional new material or a fleshing-out of a compositional sketch, such as a lead sheet...
who runs Royal Recording in
MemphisMemphis is a city in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. Memphis rises above the Mississippi River on the 4
th Chickasaw Bluff just south of the mouth of the Wolf River....
,
TennesseeTennessee is a state located in the Southeastern United States. According to the 2008 census, it has a population of 6,214,888, an increase of nearly 9.5% since 2000. Tennessee is the 14th fastest growing state in the US and is ranked 17th by population. It is ranked 36th by total land area. In...
. He is best known for his
Hi RecordsHi Records was a Memphis soul and rockabilly label started by singer Ray Harris, record store owner Joe Cuoghi, Bill Cantrell, and Quinton Claunch in 1957....
labelIn the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
of the 1970s, which released
albumAn album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites.-...
s by a large stable of popular
Memphis soulMemphis soul is stylish, funky, uptown soul music that is not as hard-edged as Southern soul. It is a shimmering, sultry style produced in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax and Hi Records in Memphis, Tennessee, featuring melodic unison horn lines, organ, bass, and a driving beat on the drums...
artistsA musician is a person who performs or writes music. Musicians can be classified by their roles in creating or performing music:* An instrumentalist plays a musical instrument.* A singer uses his or her voice as an instrument....
, including Mitchell himself, Al Green,
Syl JohnsonSyl Johnson is an American blues and soul singer and music producer.-Biography:Born Sylvester Thompson in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Johnson sang and played with blues artists Magic Sam, Billy Boy Arnold, Junior Wells and Howlin' Wolf in the 1950s, before recording with Jimmy Reed for Vee-Jay in...
and
Ann PeeblesAnn Peebles is an internationally acclaimed singer and songwriter, best known for her Memphis soul albums of the 1970s on the Hi Records label...
.
Mitchell grew up in
Ashland, MississippiAshland is a town in Benton County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 577 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Benton County. Ashland was incorporated on March 8, 1871 and has a Mayor-Alderman form of government...
, and moved to
MemphisMemphis is a city in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. Memphis rises above the Mississippi River on the 4
th Chickasaw Bluff just south of the mouth of the Wolf River....
when he was in high school. He attended
Rust CollegeRust College is a historically black liberal arts college located in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Located approximately 35 miles southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, it is the second-oldest private college in the state and is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and one of only ten historically...
.
At the age of eight, he began to play the
trumpetThe trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC...
.
Willie Mitchell is a
soulSoul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
,
R&BRhythm and blues is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
,
rock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States after World War II in the late 1940s, from a combination of the rhythms of the blues, from the African American culture, and from America's country music and gospel music scenes...
,
popPop music is a music genre that developed from the mid-1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music. It has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs...
and
funkFunk is an American music genre that originated in the late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, soul jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
music producerIn the music industry, a record producer has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes...
and
arrangerIn music, an arrangement is either a rewriting of a piece of existing music with additional new material or a fleshing-out of a compositional sketch, such as a lead sheet...
who runs Royal Recording in
MemphisMemphis is a city in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. Memphis rises above the Mississippi River on the 4
th Chickasaw Bluff just south of the mouth of the Wolf River....
,
TennesseeTennessee is a state located in the Southeastern United States. According to the 2008 census, it has a population of 6,214,888, an increase of nearly 9.5% since 2000. Tennessee is the 14th fastest growing state in the US and is ranked 17th by population. It is ranked 36th by total land area. In...
. He is best known for his
Hi RecordsHi Records was a Memphis soul and rockabilly label started by singer Ray Harris, record store owner Joe Cuoghi, Bill Cantrell, and Quinton Claunch in 1957....
labelIn the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
of the 1970s, which released
albumAn album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites.-...
s by a large stable of popular
Memphis soulMemphis soul is stylish, funky, uptown soul music that is not as hard-edged as Southern soul. It is a shimmering, sultry style produced in the 1960s and 1970s at Stax and Hi Records in Memphis, Tennessee, featuring melodic unison horn lines, organ, bass, and a driving beat on the drums...
artistsA musician is a person who performs or writes music. Musicians can be classified by their roles in creating or performing music:* An instrumentalist plays a musical instrument.* A singer uses his or her voice as an instrument....
, including Mitchell himself, Al Green,
Syl JohnsonSyl Johnson is an American blues and soul singer and music producer.-Biography:Born Sylvester Thompson in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Johnson sang and played with blues artists Magic Sam, Billy Boy Arnold, Junior Wells and Howlin' Wolf in the 1950s, before recording with Jimmy Reed for Vee-Jay in...
and
Ann PeeblesAnn Peebles is an internationally acclaimed singer and songwriter, best known for her Memphis soul albums of the 1970s on the Hi Records label...
.
Biography
Mitchell grew up in
Ashland, MississippiAshland is a town in Benton County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 577 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Benton County. Ashland was incorporated on March 8, 1871 and has a Mayor-Alderman form of government...
, and moved to
MemphisMemphis is a city in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. Memphis rises above the Mississippi River on the 4
th Chickasaw Bluff just south of the mouth of the Wolf River....
when he was in high school. He attended
Rust CollegeRust College is a historically black liberal arts college located in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Located approximately 35 miles southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, it is the second-oldest private college in the state and is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and one of only ten historically...
.
At the age of eight, he began to play the
trumpetThe trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC...
. While in high school, he was a featured player in popular local big bands. He later formed his own combo, which from time to time included musicians such as saxophonists
Booker LittleBooker Little, Jr was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.Despite his premature death from kidney failure at the age of 23, Little made an important contribution to jazz...
, Charles Lloyd, and
George ColemanGeorge Edward Coleman is an American hard bop saxophonist, bandleader, and composer, known chiefly for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s.-Biography:...
, and
pianistA pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers....
Phineas Newborn, Jr.
Mitchell landed a job with the Home of the Blues record label as a producer, then left to join Hi Records as both a recording artist and a producer.
Known at the
recording studioA recording studio is a facility for sound recording. Ideally, the space is specially designed by an acoustician to achieve the desired acoustic properties...
as "Papa Willie," Mitchell earned his nickname by taking over the reins of Hi Records in 1970 and guiding it through its most successful period. Mitchell's productions have been much noted for featuring a hard-hitting kick
drumThe drum is a member of the percussion group of music instruments, technically classified as a membranophone.. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with parts of a player's body, or with some sort of...
sound (usually played by pioneering Memphis
drummerA drummer is a person who plays drums, particularly a drum kit , marching percussion or hand drums. The term percussionist applies to a musician performing on any percussion instrument, but usually refers to one who plays classical or Latin percussion. Most bands for Rock, Pop, Jazz, R&B etc...
Al Jackson, Jr. of Booker T. and the MG's).
A
trumpetThe trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC...
er and
bandleaderA bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
in his own right, Mitchell released a number of popular
singlesIn music, a single is a short recording of one or more separate tracks. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats.-History:...
for Hi Records as an artist in the 1960s, including "Soul Serenade."
He and Al Green revived their successful
recordingSound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
partnership in 2003 when Green recorded
I Can't Stop, his first collaboration with Mitchell since 1985's
He is the Light-Track listing:#"Going Away" - 3:38 #"True Love" - 4:31 #"He is the Light" - 3:24 #"I Feel Like Going On" - 3:13 #"Be with Me Jesus" #"You Brought the Sunshine" - 5:10 #"Power" - 5:22 #"Building Up" - 3:10 #"Nearer My God to Thee"...
. Their 2005 follow-up project was
Everything's OK.
Discography
- Sunrise Serenade - 1963
- It's Dance Time - 1965
- It's What's Happenin - 1966
- Ooh Baby, You Turn Me On - 1967
- The Hit Sound of Willie Mitchell - 1967
- Willie Mitchell Live at the Royal - 1968
- On Top - 1969
- Solid Soul - 1969
- Soul Bag - 1969
- Robbin's Nest - 1970
- The Many Moods of Willie Mitchell - 1970
- Hold It - 1971
- Listen Dance - 1971
- Willie Mitchell Live - 1977
- Willie Willie Willie - 1981
- That Driving Beat - 1986
- Walkin' With Willie - 2003
- "Best Damn Fool (with Buddy Guy)" - 2008
External links