Certainly! But, "Let's Stay Together" was my, and i'm sure, a lot of other people's introduction to Al Green. I didn't hear "I'm Tired Of Being Alone" until after LST was a hit. And, again, I heard TOBA on Soul Train long after the fact.
Let's Stay Together. What an absolute knockout of a song! I'd wager you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who does not like it. And it's not even my favorite Al Green tune! Tired Of Being Alone was my intro to Mr. Green, probably because of American Top 40 more than anything else. That one was alright but LST kicked off a string of 6 excellent singles and just like that, Al Green was the man. Of course, he continued to make good music well into the 70s but the formula begin to wear a bit thin for me and I eventually lost track of his music though a late '76 single (which we'll get to) was a favorite that veered from the formula. Green's first Pop Chart hit came in late '67 and was billed as Al Greene & The Soul Mates. Just shy of the Top 40 (#41), it lacks the trademark Al Green/Willie Mitchell sound but is interesting historically if for no other reason. The original label was Hot Line, which I've never heard of but could have been a sub of Bell where he ended up before HI.
.... Is there something somewhere about this " gang " so that I may read up on if? post: 17806453, member: 91"]We can't really discuss it here, but i'll bet there were certain racial circumstances that led them to record in NYC. There was a Black militant gang that terrorized many people in the record and radio business in the late 60s and early 70s, both Black and White, and it resulted in a profound change in the way the business was run, and the change in the music itself. The gang went away, but it's effects lingered on for decades. Stax and Atlantic felt the biggest brunt of their intimidation tactics. Stax, still owned by Jim Stewart, handed over the reins to Al Bell and gave him part ownership, which, i'm sure, further caused a riff among some of the veteran people at the label, and i'm sure Booker T. & The M.G.'s were among them. Stewart became a silent partner. Al Bell did make the label stronger, and gave Stax a success higher than they ever had in the 60s. But, it was short lived, and all of it came apart when it was sold to CBS under Clive Davis in 1973.[/QUOTE]
And, at the risk of jumping ahead, here's a good time as any to mention that Bell Records issued "Guilty" in 1972, probably to capitalize on his fame.
It was funny (in the peculiar sense) to see Mr. Green, on a then-contemporary Soul Train (I think it was) appearance, lip-synching to that by-then 5-year-old track, while he was doing gangbusters with his more recent Hi material. My own pressing (lacquers cut at Bell Sound, primarily by a cutting engineer I only know by the initials 'WE') is, like most of my collection (and all the essential Green 45's I have), a CBS Pitman:
Mike McClean was the Head Of Engineering at Motown...and a classic music fan. He's more of the guy that built the studio and maintained it rather than the guy running the equipment during the session, mixing the track, or cutting a hot master.
Been enjoying the "main" #1 thread so much I gotta jump in over here, with so many legendary '72 songs that only hit the top on R&B. Our current song did go #1 pop as well, but it's the only time Al hit the top there, which is flabbergasting considering the run he'll be on for the next couple years. Apparently he didn't like how his voice sounded on "Let's Stay Together" but Willie Mitchell persisted and we ended up with the fully developed Al Green style that wasn't quite there on his earliest sides. And while that voice is rightfully the center of attention, you gotta give it up for that house band. Al Jackson was already mentioned, but you've also got the 3 Hodges brothers and the one and only Memphis Horns. No wonder this sucker hung on to the spot for more than 2 months!
Both "Guilty" and "Hot Wire". Both barely scraped Top 70 on pop, and "Guilty" only managed #29 R&B. That 1967 style was light years away by then.
But, in those days, even getting into the top 40 was respectable. In this thread, we talk about the R&B/Soul/Black/Urban chart, so a ranking on the pop, rock, disco/dance, or easy listening chart may be irrelevant. I mean, it's nice when an R&B/Soul/Black/Urban record does well on other charts, and we can certainly mention it, but we're talking about a specific genre.
My point was that Bell re-releasing those old tracks to stand toe to toe with "Look What You Done To Me", "I'm Still In Love With You", 'You Ought To Be With Me" and "Call Me" had a predictable result.
His early stuff from the 60s almost doesn't sound like him in the way we know his voice to sound. It sounds too silky smooth. I can see why Al didn't like his voice as Willie Mitchell produced him. I'm thinking he didn't like that intimate, throaty quality. But, that sound is what distinguishes him from anyone else.
There was definitely a quality to Mr. Green's voice you didn't come across on a daily basis, that's for sure, and it's one that I'm sure would be a nightmare for potential Rich Littles out there. It coalesced for sure by "Let's Stay Together." Besides what @Black Thumb mentioned, there was also the mixing acumen of Mitchell and Terry Manning, and the mastering staff of Mastercraft in Memphis led by Howard Craft. (It was around this time Mastercraft lost Stax, which during this period was starting up its own mastering division with Larry Nix as chief mastering engineer.)
Al Bell was intent on creating a Stax empire. With more careful and disciplined planning, it could have worked. Too bad it all went afoul. Too many hands in the pockets.
And too many cooks in the broth, as they'd say. Even Elvis' attempts to record at Stax' studios more than a year from this were mixed. (As, it could be argued, was he by that point.)
Getting caught up on this thread after a few days away...this song by the Ebonys is an absolute masterpiece...I didn't get a chance to buy it when it came out, but it's possibly my favorite song on the Philadelphia International label. I feel like I'm walking on the clouds when I hear it!
Next #1 single: Talking Loud And Saying Nothing - Part 1 - James Brown This song never connected with me, but the rappers sure loved it. Like "Funky Drummer", it's been sampled quite a bit.
@Steve Litos I'm 100% sure the interview was with Mike Mclean. It was in an early 90s article in Audio magazine. I do not remember if he cut the whole "Soulful Tapestry" album, but he cut the "Stick Up" 45, specifically.
Moreover, it was one of two versions "out there." This one was recorded in Fall 1970 "on the road" down South with the Mk. I Bootsy/Catfish JB's (and backed on the chorus by co-writer Bobby Byrd), and issued in January 1972 in two parts (natch') on Polydor PD 14109. Several months before that (in early 1970 in King's Cincinnati studios), Mr. Brown did a rock-oriented version with a local band, The Grodeck Whipperjenny, among whose members was one Dave Matthews whose name would be listed as arranger or co-arranger on many a Brown single over the next few years - primarily those recorded in New York with session cats (like the single after this, for example). After recording this version, Brown's idea was for the two versions to be issued for different markets - the rock-oriented recording as King 45-P-6359 (the 'P' stood for Popular and had no connection to his then-yet-to-be-founded People label), the JB's version as 45-S-6359 for the Soul audience. But it was shelved at the time. Upon the JB's version's release on Polydor, copies of the rock version on King escaped from the warehouses and into many record shows, flea markets et al. (If any King copies of the JB's version were pressed, they were all destroyed upon the Polydor release.) How you like this now? (Which in total length is more digestible compared with the full carry-on-till-the-tape-runs-out version he did with the JB's.) Having heard both versions, I'm more gravitated towards the one he'd done with the JB's . . . especially in its single edit. The only pressings I've seen of this were by Philips Recording Co., Inc., Richmond, IN; Monarch in Los Angeles; and Capitol in Scranton (with the 360 interlocking serrations, yet the label size was the large 3.625"). I have the last-cited, but if a Columbia Pitman copy emerged I'd've snapped it long ago.
And while he may've done the original lacquers, by the time we get to the pressing I have the lacquer bears the deadwax initials "RD" - for Reginald Dozier. Who may've cut his set from what Mike McLean specified.
I really like this one, but then I'm a huge James Brown fan. This song got a huge amount of play on Black radio. Definitely one of his better Polydor singles.
And while this was peaking at #1, JB - the master of oversaturating the market with his product in any given period - put out another killer 45: "King Heroin." Co-written and co-arranged by the aforementioned Dave Matthews, and recorded in New York with session cats who were schooled on his essential King singles of the period from 1965 on. (A marked contrast to, say, his 1966 "It's A Man's Man's Man's World.")
Really, it seems there isn't much love for that JB single on this forum. So, with that, I present the next Billboard #1 R&B single: "I Gotcha" - Joe Tex March 18, one week This was a very popular song! I remember making the trek to the department store on my bike to buy it one Sunday afternoon. It was the first time since 1967 that I had heard from Joe Tex (real name Joseph Arrington, Jr.), a recurring presence in the soul music world with many memorable hits. He was among one of several soul artists in the 70s known for their preaching style of song, including Johnnie Taylor, Lyn Collins, The Staple Singers, Curtis Mayfield, Don Covay, Tyrone Davis, and, to a lesser degree, James Brown. Indeed, some of them went on to become ordained ministers, and most R&B artists of their era began singing in the church. I always liked Joe Tex because he often used humor in his music to get his point across. It is fun to mention that both Joe Tex and James Brown were fierce rivals. Legend has it that when both did a show together in the 60s, Tex did a move on stage that Brown thought was an attempt to upstage him. James Brown was known as a gun nut who was always packing, and having a violent temper. IIRC, Brown shot at Tex and missed. The bullet apparently went over the audience and struck someone. JB allegedly paid off the person. It should be noted right here that it was common practice for R&B artists to pack. Why? In the 'chit'lin circuit", venues putting on shows often tried to skip out of paying the artists, which is why they also demanded cash. If the person putting on the show didn't pay up, the artists needed some "insurance". The Isley Brothers were especially known for using this "insurance policy". They couldn't rely on the legal system to help, so, cash and guns was the way it was back then.
