Hi Records

Through its first decade, Hi carved a niche for itself in the pop market with instrumental hits by Elvis Presley’s former bassist Bill Black (b. Sept. 17, 1926, Memphis, Tenn.—d. Oct. 21, 1965, Memphis) and by Willie Mitchell (b. March 23, 1928, Ashland, Miss.—d. Jan. 5, 2010, Memphis), a former jazz bandleader who took over as the label’s artists-and-repertoire man. By the early 1970s, however, Memphis’s chain of racially mixed musics made by integrated musicians—from the output of Sun Records to that of Stax/Volt and Chips Moman’s American Sound Studios—had been broken, largely as a consequence of urban blight and the coalition-splintering shock of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Mitchell and Hi filled this void, creating a new soul style with vocalist Al Green.

Hi’s Royal Recording Studios, at 1320 South Lauderdale Street, just off Highway 61 in a predominantly African American portion of the city, were, like Stax’s, located in a former movie theatre. Mitchell used the unusual acoustics caused partly by the theatre’s sloping floor to construct a new sound. He slowed soul’s tempo and emphasized a percussive 4/4 beat, utilizing the talents of drummer Al Jackson (formerly of Booker T. and the MG’s) and the Hodges brothers—Leroy (bass), Charles (keyboards), and Teenie (guitar). The first hint of the new sound was Ann Peebles’s “Part Time Love” (1970), but its full glory was revealed in a sublime series of hits by Green (remembered for his trademark white suit) from 1971 to 1975. These sexy songs for adults were the cornerstone of some of soul’s most luxuriant music. It may have been the last great innovation of the Memphis music scene, but its erotic mix of the sacred and the profane remained influential. Talking Heads had a hit with a cover version of Green’s “Take Me to the River” in 1978, and glimpses of Hi’s slinky rhythms could be heard in the more overtly eroticized house music of Chicago in the 1980s.