Production Notes: Willie Mitchell

“Willie helped me find my identity,” Al Green has said of producer Willie Mitchell, with whom he recorded 10 classic albums and dozens of unforgettable tracks between 1969 and 1976. “The vibes between us are perfect.” So when the two legends reunited in 2003 for I Can’t Stop and continued their rekindled collaboration with 2005’s Everything’s OK, working—as always—in Mitchell’s hallowed Royal Recording Studio in Memphis, their only competition was their own younger selves. Green is now 58, Mitchell is 77.

After they parted ways, Green became a preacher and turned his back on soul music. His prodigious chops were still apparent in his gospel recordings, but without the sexiness—and without Mitchell’s knowing production—Al Green just wasn’t Al Green. “When he’d go somewhere else to record,” says Mitchell, emitting a quick, satisfied laugh, “it didn’t come out right.”

Their partnership may have been in the past, but their friendship never ?agged, and over the years Willie kept needling the reverend: “Man, with that voice you got, you gotta come back and make a record.”

Then, one morning in 2002, Green told his old cohort he wanted to talk. “He came to the studio and said, ‘You been talkin’ about makin’ a record,’” Mitchell recalls. “I said, ‘Al, I’m not makin’ no gospel record. If you wanna talk about a gospel record, you can go on back out the door, ’cause we got nothin’ to talk about.’ He says, ‘Let’s record!’”

After they’d worked up the material, they started tracking what would become I Can’t Stop, their first secular collaboration in 27 years. Only bass player Leroy “Flick” Hodges remained from Mitchell’s great Hi Records studio band, but the producer has a history of molding musicians into tight playing units, and his current crew was prepared to bring the signature deep grooves of Hi’s ’70s records back to life. For example, drummer Steve Potts, who had the daunting challenge of taking the place of greats Al Jackson and Howard Grimes, has been under Mitchell’s tutelage since 1979, so you could say he’s been groomed. “When Al came back in,” says Mitchell, “I was ready for him. I know Al Green, and I know how to put the color there; I know all about it.”

I Can’t Stop had its moments, but it certainly didn’t clear the extremely high bar Green and Mitchell had set three decades earlier. “I don’t think on the first album he was really down to it,” Mitchell acknowledges. “He never got in that groove. He had to get used to the musicians and the arrangements and everything, and it takes a minute to get the problems solved. So when we started the next album, I said, ‘Man, we gotta tighten up here. We can’t be short-steppin’.’ I’m the one guy can give him criticism—it don’t bother him ’cause he knows I tell him the right thing. This time he was more into it—a lot of the stuff on this new album he really meant.”

Everything’s OK’s title song—which is as close as the collaborators have come to hitting the level of their ’70s work—almost didn’t get recorded. “We were through with the album,” the producer recalls, “and I began to mess with this thing, ‘Everything’s OK.’ I called Al and said, ‘I got somethin’ real good over here. We can’t let this album go—we got to record this song.’ He said, ‘I’ll deal with it,’ but he didn’t come that day. A few days later he came over and we worked on the song about three or four hours. I made him a tape to let him know how the song goes, like I always do, and he wrote the lyric to it. So we started recording the song and nobody liked it but me. I asked my son how he liked it, and he said, ‘Man, I got to go get some gas.’ He wouldn’t even listen to it. But I knew where the song was goin’, and when we got through with it, everybody liked it.”

It was risky to have Green tackle “You Are So Beautiful,” the Billy Preston song so closely associated with Joe Cocker, but Mitchell says he’s been hearing Green singing it in his head for years. “When I showed it to him, he looked at me funny. I said, ‘No, man, let’s don’t think about Joe Cocker; let’s think about Al Green. Just take this thing home and learn it.’ It’s always about the song, but it’s how you approach the song, and it just comes out more dynamic with Al. ’Cause when Al’s in there, he’s gonna stomp on it. He’s the best I’ve ever recorded.”

In classic father-son fashion, the Mitchell-Green relationship has its competitive side. According to Willie, “Every time he and I write something, he says, ‘I’m gonna out-write you.’ I said, ‘Son, you got a long ways to go.’” And the producer still pushes Green’s buttons to get the optimum vocal performance. “I tell him, ‘Man, you’re getting old—you’re gonna lose it,’ and he’ll sing better.”

According to Mitchell, Green is more than OK about the new music and the prospect of making more. “I’ve known Al since he was 19, and I’ll tell you what, he’s really excited now. And when he gets excited …”—Mitchell pauses to search for the right metaphor—“smoke goes up in the sky. So I’m real happy with the way things are going. We’re gonna get together and start another one soon.”

So what’s the secret he and Green share? “It’s all about the groove, and L-O-V-E love … More babies,” Mitchell says. As usual, he punctuates his words with the laugh of someone who’s been there, done that—end of story. It’s an attitude that’s easy to maintain when your name is Willie Mitchell and you live on Willie Mitchell Boulevard.