LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Al Green: Willie Mitchell
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The rousing and arousing musical partnership of Al Green and producer Willie Mitchell in the Seventies was built around the high art of the lowdown groove. Yet it took these two soul giants a bit of time to rediscover their own groove.
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Al Green, from Forrest City, Arkansas, has risen from obscurity to fame with a rapidity that is astonishing even by the standards of the mercurial music industry. His unusually expressive voice, and the simple, spare arrangements of producer Willie Mitchell, fit together with the kind of seamless perfection that characterized the Redding/Cropper collaboration. Green's records sound like they were bound to happen; for the listener who digs soul music, the fact that two-and-a-half million people have bought the single version of "Let's Stay Together" can only be the icing on a very tasty cake.
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Two years later, Al Green began his solo career, singing with Memphis-based Hi Records. Teaming with producer and noted instrumentalist Willie Mitchell in 1970, Al spent the next eight years racking up an unprecedented eight million-selling singles including "Tired Of Being Alone," "Let's Stay Together," "Look What You Done For Me," "I'm Still In Love With You," "You Ought To Be With Me," "Call Me (Come Back Home)," "Here I Am (Come And Take Me)" and "Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)."
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In 1974 Green released the LP Al Green Explores Your Mind on the Hi label. That same year, the momentum of his career suffered a severe setback. While he was climbing out of the bathtub at his home, Green's girlfriend poured a pot of boiling grits on him, causing second-degree burns to his back and arms. The young woman then committed suicide. After recovering from the physical and emotional affects of the much-publicized incident with his former girlfriend, Green recorded the 1976 LP Full Of Fire for the Hi label. Once again joined by the stellar line-up of Wayne Jackson and the Hodges brothers, Green and producer Willie Mitchell, wrote Bill Adler in a Down Beat review, "manage to shuffle around the familiar elements of their formula for success."
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Soon after his decision in 1969 to begin a solo career, Al Green met producer Willie Mitchell. The renowned bandleader, arranger and trumpeter Mitchell hired Green as his front singer of his band for a gig in Midland, Texas.
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In order to break free from his slump, Green stopped working with Willie Mitchell in 1977 and built his own studio, American Music, where he intended to produce his own records. The first album he made at American Music was The Belle Album, an intimate record that was critically acclaimed but failed to win a crossover audience. Truth and Time (1978) failed to even generate a major R&B hit. During a concert in Cincinnati in 1979, Green fell off the stage and nearly injured himself seriously. Interpreting the accident as a sign from God, Green retired from performing secular music and devoted himself to preaching. Throughout the '80s, he released a series of gospel albums on Myrrh Records.
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