History
Hard as it may be to believe, Al Green's debut Hi album "Green Is Blues" is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2009 - just 18 months after Hi Records itself reached the half-century mark. The label was formed in late 1957, as an outgrowth of Joe Cuoghi's Poplar Tunes record shop in Memphis, Tennessee. Poplar was a hangout for any and all local youngsters who knew that its stock selection was unmatchable (said youngsters including a certain E. A. Presley), and it was somewhat inevitable that Cuoghi would eventually take advantage of Memphis' surfeit of talent by forming a label to get some of it on wax.
During its first half-decade, Hi operated almost exclusively as a Hillbilly/Rockabilly/Rock 'n' Roll imprint, enjoying its biggest and most sustained success with the instrumentals of Bill Black's Combo and Ace Cannon. Things began to move in a more soulful direction after Willie Mitchell came on board in 1962. By the middle of the '60s, soul music was exactly what Hi was all about, as "Poppa Willie" oversaw a steady roll of quality releases by increasingly impressive artists, including himself. By utilising a select pool of musicians that would eventually appear on every Hi single and album track, Mitchell began to build a sound that was as immediately identifiable in its own Southern way as that of Motown Records "up North" in Detroit.
Mitchell didn't sign stars-he made them. And of those he made, none will ever be bigger than Al Green. When Al came to Hi in 1968, he was, to be frank, a 2nd-tier talent with a couple of small hits behind him, and a future that offered nothing more than the hope that Mitchell would help make him a superstar within a few years. The chart-topping success of "Let's Stay Together" in 1971 delivered on that promise, and it ushered in a new era for a "Memphis Sound" that would forever be identifiable with Hi Records. Between 1970 and 1979, Green charted 26 Hi 45s, more than 20 of them reaching the Top 3 of the R&B charts and also scoring big on the Hot 100. A total 14 Hi albums - six of them chart-toppers - permanently affirm that superstar status. As of right now, and statistically speaking, Al Green is the 20th biggest R&B/Soul artist of all time, according to Joel Whitburn's Billboard chart books.
Al Green was and will be the biggest artist that Hi ever had, but credit, too, should be given to such stellar names as Ann Peebles, Otis Clay, the late O V Wright and Syl Johnson all of whom have sustained a level of popularity, thanks to their Hi recordings, that has outlasted the label by more then 30 years. The label ceased to exist as a "front line" entity in 1979, but the legacy that its catalogue contains is rich and timeless. The online digitisation of Al Green's seminal albums - starting with the 40th anniversary edition of "Green Is Blues" - will do much to maintain and sustain that legacy...
Tony Rounce, June 2009
