Southern Soul: Part 6
The '60s - Nashville
By the 1960s, Nashville was firmly established as the home of country music. But so many of those who made the music, especially the session musicians, were strongly influenced by R&B and soul. In so many cases, as with other performers and singers from the South, they barely saw a distinction between the two, which was why sides by Roy Orbison and Tony Joe White on Monument, who recorded in Nashville, sounded so good.
"By the end of the '60s, music was moving on from the type of soul that had been popular earlier." |
Simon signed to Sound Stage 7 after the collapse of Vee Jay, mixing uptempo dance songs like "Put Your Trust In Me" and "No Sad Songs" with the rich heartbreakers that were his forte, tracks such as "The Chokin' Kind," from the pen of Harlan Howard. He was, however, the biggest act on the label, whose roster included Roscoe Shelton and Ella Washington. At the end of 1970, Sound Stage 7's deal with Monument ended, and there were no new sessions. By 1972 Richbourg had set up a new label, Seventy Seven.
The '70s - New Sounds, New Soul
By the end of the '60s, music was moving on from the type of soul that had been popular earlier. Stax was still going strong, but for a number of the other labels, the changing trends had left them commercially marooned. The studios whose livelihood had come from soul music turned to cutting pop and rock artists to pay the bills - and often had good success out of it. Muscle Shoals Sound hosted Simon and Garfunkel, the Rolling Stones, and Willie Nelson, while Rick Hall's Fame was responsible for hits by the Osmonds, Paul Anka, and Mac Davis. But as some labels died, others began to flourish.For both Hi and Malaco, the first half of the '70s proved to be a golden age. The turning point for Hi came when Wille Mitchell was appointed vice-president in June 1970. A month later Joe Cuoghi, the head of the company died, and it was discovered the label was in the red.
"So I said, 'What we gotta do is cut some hit records,'" Mitchell recalled. And that was exactly what they did. Of course, it didn't hurt that they'd been nurturing a couple of talents whose work came on the boil at exactly the right time - Ann Peebles and Al Green.
Mitchell had met Green when both were on the road in Texas, and invited him to Memphis, a trip Green (whose name was then spelled Greene, eventually took). Peebles had crossed over from gospel. And the studio band - which was essentially the Hodges Brothers, under Mitchell's direction, had honed a tight sound, distinctive from other studios, while the writing talent had developed to maturity. It all came together initially on Ann Peebles's "Part Time Love," followed by Green's version of the Temptations's "Can't Get Next To You," which reached #60.
The hallmark sound wasn't completely settled, but it was getting there slowly - and it hit its stride properly with Green's "Tired Of Being Alone," which began a long string of hit albums and singles. The rhythm section had an elastic suppleness, the horns were part of the fabric of the songs, as were the background singers, rather than making punctuating interjections, and even strings had a silky soulful quality.
Of course, all that worked beautifully with Green's voice. He wasn't a belter, from that harder blues tradition. With its falsetto glides, he seduced the listener with his warmth. Peebles, on the other hand, was more dangerous. There was an underlying menace in her work, as the titles of "I Fell Like Breaking Up Somebody's Home Tonight" and "I'm Gonna Tear You Playhouse Down" showed. There was a tension in the arrangements, too, which were nowhere near as smooth as Green's, especially on the lean, stripped-down classic, "I Can Stand The Rain," from 1973.
Green proved to be a prolific writer himself, penning much of his own material. "Here I Am (Come And Take Me)," and the "Let's Stay Together" both came from his pen, as did the vast majority of his hits. And he certainly cranked out hits; an Al Green session almost became a license to print money. When he did cover songs, he could put his subtle touch on country, too, like Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" or Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," proving that even in the new decade soul and country hadn't drifted that far apart. And until 1974 it continued that way.
Al Green Explores Your Mind continued the hot streak, but in October '74, an obsessed female fan broke into Green's apartment as he was taking a bath. She threw a pan of boiling grits down Green's back before committing suicide. From there, it seemed, Green's career began to decline, with 1975's Al Green Is Love being patchy at best, while the discs that followed, until 1977's The Belle Album, simply sounding uninspired.
By then, however, soul had become redundant, replaced in the marketplace by disco. Green himself seemed ready to leave music. For a while he'd been bringing in strains of gospel (like "Jesus Is Waiting" off Call Me), and The Belle Album, fully half sacred, signaled his departure from pop for the ministry. Although a completely different type of artist to Otis Redding, and one who rose to fame in a different musical world, Green was as important to the '70s as Redding had been to the '60s. Both largely defined the soul music of their respective decades. With the decline of soul, and of Al Green, the fortunes of Hi declined again, although the label did keep going. But they did outlast Stax.
Related Articles in the 'Southern Soul Primer' Category...
- Southern Soul: Part 1
- Southern Soul: Part 2
- Southern Soul: Part 3
- Southern Soul: Part 4
- Southern Soul: Part 5
- Southern Soul: Part 7
- Southern Soul: Part 8
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