I remember it the way you remember any milestone: first kiss, first apartment, first Al Green record. I was about 15, in the kitchen with my mother and a visiting aunt, when Mom put on a CD that stopped me in my tracks. An impossibly elegant southern R&B groove — light-fingered guitar, quick, strident horn bursts, assuredly laid-back hi-hats and snares. "What is THAT?" I asked, running to the stereo. The punch line is that "Tired of Being Alone" made me an Al Green fan before I heard him sing his first note.

"Tired," and Green's Greatest Hits, which it led off, grabbed me for good reason: the Hi Rhythm Section is arguably the greatest in-house band ever assembled by an R&B label, Memphis's Hi Records, run by producer Willie Mitchell. Three of them were siblings: guitarist Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, his brothers Charles on organ and Leroy on bass, and drummers Al Jackson Jr. (a former member of Booker T. & the MG's, who died in 1975) and Howard Grimes. Together these men, along with Stax regulars the Memphis Horns (Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love) and occasional string players, would perfectly calibrate the difference between charging '60s soul and… read more »