soul-a-skope wrote:Guy E wrote:soul-a-skope wrote:Guy E wrote:soul-a-skope wrote:Davey The Fat Boy wrote:Just for interest sake - can you elaborate? In which area does Green lack substance for you?
the style, his voice, is fantastic. by substance i mean the material. i'm not a fan of smooth 70's soul, or the phillie sound in general.
Phillie, Memphis... what's a 1000 miles between friends?
well, you'll note i said sound, not location!
if you're not happy with the concept of the philadelphia soul sound, then i understand.
Are you saying that to your ears Willie Mitchell's productions in Memphis have the same impact and character as Gamble & Huff's in Philadelphia; that it's all a pile of generic-sounding
smooooooth 70's soul?
I think you should schedule a check-up at the Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat clinic, my friend.
almost. i'm saying that in my opinion there's a significant element/influence of the philadelphia soul sound in al green's records.
Whenever discussions on this forum move away from the finer points of ROCK sub-genre minutae the generalizations get disappointingly broadstroke.
Willie Mitchell's productions on HI and Gamble & Huff's on PI both hit stride (read: hit the top of the charts) in 1972. That was the year G&H had hits with Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes, Billy Paul, The O'Jays and that Al Green released
Let's Stay Together AND
I'm Still in Love With You (Willie Mitchell had less luck with Ann Peebles, Otis Clay, O.V. Wright and the rest of his stable). The artists and producers on both labels had fairly long histories by that date and frankly, it's hard to say who was influencing who. Would PI have found their groove without the example of Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye (and his Motown brethren), Atlantic Records, et. al.? Would Memphis have been a hotbed of recording activity if STAX hadn't made dreams come true in that city throughout the 1960's? They were both producing National and International hits so they certainly heard the work of the competition, but to my ears that spurred each label to define what was uniquely its own, not to absorb the other's vision.
The sound of Al Green and Billy Paul is miles apart; they only sound "similar" if viewed at a glance from a great distance. I view music that I don't like from such a distance... Heavy Metal f'rinstance. This has convinced me that all music in that genre is cut from the same scrap of smelly cloth. Non-fans jump at the chance to say the same about any number of stylistic genres/periods;
all rockabilly sounds alike, all post-punk sounds alike, all 70's soul sounds alike, etc.