{"id":58,"date":"2010-01-24T02:18:46","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T02:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=58"},"modified":"2010-01-25T10:50:49","modified_gmt":"2010-01-25T15:50:49","slug":"willie-mitchell-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"Willie Mitchell RIP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally Posted 1\/5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Mighty Willie Mitchell<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download -Willie Mitchell – That Driving Beat <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download -Willie Mitchell – Up Hard <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download -Willie Mitchell – My Babe<\/span> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Greetings all.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I come to you today with some sad news, that being the passing of the giant of Memphis soul and R&B, Mr. Willie Mitchell.<\/strong>
\nMitchell is best known \u2013 at least to those outside of hardcore soulies \u2013 as the man who made Hi Records a major force in soul music, especially via his productions for Al Green, Syl Johnson, Ann Peebles, O.V. Wright<\/strong> and many others.
\nMitchell, who was born in Ashland, Mississippi – got his start as a trumpet playing bandleaders in Memphis before joing Joe Coughi\u2019s<\/strong> Hi label in 1959 as an artist, producer, and arranger. Following Coughi\u2019s death in 1970, Mitchell ended up bringing the label its greatest success.
\nThe music of Willie Mitchell (as performer and producer) has been a constant presence in the Funky16Corners Radio<\/strong> podcasts, and the three songs I bring you today all appeared in those mixes over the last three years.
\nThe first two, \u2018That Driving Beat\u2019 and \u2018Up Hard\u2019 are both Mod soul classics.
\n1965\u2019s \u2018That Driving Beat\u2019 is a slamming dancer in a Junior Walker<\/strong> stylee, with blaring tenor sax, a horn section that sounds like the model for Otis Redding\u2019s<\/strong> version of Satisfaction\u2019 and unlike most of his records from this period, vocals.
\n\u2018Up Hard\u2019, written by (and featuring) organist Art Jerry Miller<\/strong> (who went on to record his own album for the Stax subsidiary Enterprise) mixes a tight horn section with a powerful, gritty guitar line and pounding drums. The 1968 single was released with two different B-sides.
\nThe final track, Mitchell\u2019s 1969 cover of Willie Dixon\u2019s<\/strong> \u2018My Babe\u2019 is a 45 that I slept on for YEARS. There it sat in my crates, picked up at some flea market or other for a pittance, all but ignored. Never a huge fan of the song itself, I finally pulled it out one day and gave it a spin, and was promptly blown away. There, nestled in the grooves of a record that I had long suspected was a run of the mill R&B\/soul instrumental, was a sizzling bit of organ funk that has had a place of honor in my DJ box ever since.
\nThese tunes by no means represent a comprehensive sampling of Willie Mitchell\u2019s career. They\u2019re just three of his records that I like a lot.
\nI suspect that other \u2013 in particular Red Kelly<\/strong> of the B-Side<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 will be posting long form tributes to the greatness of Willie Mitchell.
\nDig the tunes, and I\u2019ll be back on Friday.<\/p>\n

Peace<\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

PS Head over to Iron Leg for some early Leon Russell.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>PSS Check out Paperback Rider too.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

PSSS Don’t forget to hit up Funky16Corners on Facebook<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally Posted 1\/5\/10 The Mighty Willie Mitchell Listen\/Download -Willie Mitchell – That Driving Beat Listen\/Download -Willie Mitchell – Up Hard Listen\/Download -Willie Mitchell – My Babe Greetings all. I come to you today with some sad news, that being the passing of the giant of Memphis soul and R&B, Mr. Willie Mitchell. Mitchell is best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}