Together, Mitchell and Green would make the little regional label synonymous with the second coming of Memphis soul, and no finer evidence exists than the music on these two albums. Mitchell owned the Royal studio and was a vice-president and A&R chief of the locally based Hi Records, whose only real claim to fame at that point was a pair of instrumental hits by musicians better known for playing on other people’s records: Bill Black’s “Smokie Pt 2” and Ace Cannon’s “Tuff”. Green was 23 years old when he met the trumpeter, songwriter, arranger and record producer Willie Mitchell in 1969. Barely a mile apart, the two locations were linked by a highly evolved understanding of one of the last genres of American pop music whose exponents only had to open their mouths or pluck a string to betray their geographical location. The direct link between Redding and Green was Memphis and the durable formula of southern soul, whether recorded at the old Stax studio on East McLemore or Royal Recording on South Lauderdale. Although hardly unsophisticated, Green’s music still sounded as though it was aimed at an audience of people whose diet included cornbread and grits. At the time it seemed as though Green represented the eagerly awaited successor to Otis Redding: a new figurehead for the kind of soul music that retained an explicit connection with its blues and gospel roots, disdaining the experiments with the language of rock that could be heard in the music of his contemporaries. “1972 is Al Green’s year and he seemed to snatch it up almost effortlessly,” Vince Aletti wrote in Rolling Stone that November.
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