Just an expression from Willie Mitchell.........hopefully!
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/mus ... 58,00.html
At 79, Willie Mitchell is still a vibrant player in the music scene
June 15, 2007
It's June 2007, and Willie Mitchell is where he's been for most of the past five decades: inside Royal Studio, his longtime South Memphis digs. Little has changed inside these wonderfully funky walls since Mitchell's 1970s heyday -- only now the building is located on a street that bears his name.
Today, like most days, you can glimpse Mitchell in the foyer, where he sits fondling a small keyboard on his desk. Looking impossibly young for his 79 years, he's still sharp, funny, and continues to work the kind of long hours that seem unthinkable for a man his age.
"Well, I've been making music for 60 years," says Mitchell. "That's all I know how to do. If I don't do music, I'll just have to die. And I'm not ready for that yet."
While most of the attention of 2007's city-sponsored 50th anniversary celebration of soul has been devoted to neighboring Stax Records, Mitchell is one of the key architects of the ephemeral product known as "the Memphis sound."
Beyond his work with Hi Records -- siring some of the most famous instrumental hits of the '60s and shepherding the careers of Al Green and Ann Peebles in the '70s -- there are Mitchell's prodigious contributions as producer, arranger and songwriter. Not to mention his career as one of the hottest trumpeters and bandleaders the city's ever seen.
Perhaps more significant in a historical sense, Mitchell was a star before there was a Stax Records. And even as that label rose and fell, Mitchell's success continued unabated. These days, Stax is a museum, while Mitchell and Royal are vibrant, active players in the contemporary music scene.
In July, Mitchell will revive his long-defunct Waylo label, as part of a distribution deal with Select-O Hits. He'll focus on releasing new albums from artists like local R&B chanteuse Maasha and well as catalog classics from the likes of Otis Clay and Lynn White, among others.
Meanwhile, Mitchell's studio -- whose day-to-day operation is run by his grandson Lawrence "Boo" Mitchell -- is thriving. Later this summer they're set to work on an album by a major, as-yet unnamed contemporary R&B singer. The past couple of years they've cut records by Al Green, Buddy Guy and John Mayer, as well as a large number of acts from Europe.
"Most people come here because they like the old sounds," says Mitchell. "People call up all the time and ask 'You still got the eight-track? We're coming down.' "
People have been coming to Royal, looking to divine Mitchell's sonic secrets, for decades.
In the '60s, Motown's Berry Gordy sent a contingent of his studio staff on a kind of fact-finding mission. "He sent his rhythm section down -- 11 people. They were asking me, 'How do you mic your drums? How do you do this, how do that?' ... I said, 'Man, I can't tell you how I do all that.' They thought it was about technique or some system, but I just go by feel. That's the secret."
Even today, Mitchell remains a hands-on presence during sessions at Royal. "Well, I tell any guy who comes in here, if you want me to do it, then I'm gonna do it. If you want to do it, you can do it somewhere else. Simple as that," says Mitchell. "Because you get these producers who say, I don't like what you doing -- well, what the hell you get me for? I've got to be able to do my thing."
Although he's worked in top-flight studios in Los Angeles and New York, Mitchell says there's no place like home. "I don't like the New York studios. You got everybody running around, three engineers running around, three guys picking up coke and whiskey. It's just too fast for me," says Mitchell. "Here we're relaxed; we do things how we want. If we want to stay here from 10 o'clock in the morning to 7 the next morning, that's fine. Up there, there's so much going on, you can't get nothing done.
"Plus, the players here can do anything," says Mitchell, who's fostered several generations of Memphis' most respected musicians. "I don't give a damn if it's opera or R&B, pop or country. They do it all."
But, Mitchell notes, it's not just the prodigiously talented players that have made Memphis a musical Mecca for so long. It's also the movers and shakers, people like late Hi Records head Joe Cuoghi, or American Studios founder Chips Moman, who've acted as catalysts for up-and-coming local talent.
"There are always people who are organizers," says Mitchell. "Like Chips Moman. He wasn't no musician, he was an organizer. He saw talented people and he put them together. At Stax, Jim Stewart didn't have the musical knowledge, but he had his sister, Miss (Estelle) Axton. She knew talent when she saw it. It's all about putting things together. I did that, too.
"See, I know everybody in Memphis who can play anything. I know how well they can play, what they can and can't play. I've spent lots of time seeing what they can do. ... That's how a town gets famous. There are people who care and spend time understanding the talent that's around them."
Although he never officially was a member of Stax Records, Mitchell was close to the label, recording some of its acts including Luther Ingram at Royal. He also maintained a lifelong relationship with Booker T. & the MG's' drummer Al Jackson Jr. -- a young Mitchell blew trumpet in Jackson Sr.'s dance band -- whose playing was the backbone of the Stax sound and also featured on many Hi hits.
"I was a part of Stax, too, in a way," says Mitchell. "Some of the cats that played there, they get in trouble and come over here. Someone from here would get in trouble and they'd go over there. There was a lot of back and forth."
Mitchell says he admired Stax's ambition but took a lesson from the company's profligate ways, which ultimately led to its demise. "See, Stax would make a dollar and spend two. Make two and spend four. Make a million and spend 3 million. And it finally caught up with them," says Mitchell.
The Memphis Convention & Visitor's Bureau's celebration of soul this year has helped refocus national and international press attention on the city. But ask Mitchell if Memphis appreciates its rich soul music legacy, and he howls with laughter.
"Memphis don't give a ****," he says. "Man, you can call up and say I'm Willie Mitchell, I need a hamburger. They'll say, 'Well, go buy the S.O.B. yourself then.' Memphis don't give a damn about nothing. They're not even going to see the Grizzlies anymore. Memphis is a cold place, man."
While Memphis may not care, famous musicians still come from far and wide to pay their respects to Mitchell.
"I had a man from England come here and kiss my feet," says Mitchell, "What was his name, Boo?"
"Which one?" asks Mitchell's grandson.
"The one ... Albert ... Costello. Elvis Costello," says Mitchell. "He kissed my feet, and I said who is this crazy man?"
"Same thing when John Mayer came down. I didn't know who John Mayer was," says Mitchell. "At first, I thought it was ('60s British musician) John Mayall -- from the blues band. I saw him and said, 'This cat can't be John Mayall, he's too young. He must be John Mayall's son.' But then we went to the Rendezvous to eat and all the chicks are falling to the floor over him. I didn't know what was going on.
"But truly, I've been blessed. There's very few people I haven't worked with," says Mitchell, whose resume includes projects with a dizzying array of talents, from B.B. King to Keith Richards, Rufus Thomas to Rod Stewart. "White, black, girls, boys. I've worked with them all."
Is there anyone he wishes he could have had a chance to record, someone who's not around anymore? "Well, me and Marvin Gaye liked to have done something. I spent about a week in L.A. with him and I'm glad we didn't do anything," says Mitchell. " ... He was out there, man. He had talent and feel, and good projection, a good voice, good everything. But he was messed up in the mind, from the drugs."
Overall, though, the maestro says he has few regrets. And, as his grandson likes to point out, there's always a Willie Mitchell record on the charts, somewhere.
"This business, man, it's all about here and here," says Mitchell, pointing to his chest and his head. "If you got the heart and the ear, you can make it. Without those things, you'll never amount to anything."