Arzell Hill was born in Naples, Texas, in 1935. He was a member of the Spiritual Five Gospel group in his twenties, and then began performing as a solo artist, inspired by Sam Cooke and Bobby Bland. He wrote some of the songs for his shows and was drawn to Soul and Blues. His stage name was chosen in imitation of B.B. King.
In 1963 Hill went to Los Angeles to work with his brother Matt Hill, who was starting out as a record producer. His first single “You Were Wrong” drew the attention of Kent Records (not the UK label), who offered Hill a contract. He didn’t stay with Kent very long, and by 1969 he had signed up with Quin Ivy in the Shoals.
The first session in May was supervised by Bob Wilson, who came over from Nashville. The Swampers had just left FAME to set up their own studio and were therefore not available, so new musicians were brought in: Tim Drummond, Butch Owens, Jimmy Evans and Don Walker were joined by Wilson on keyboards. Two tracks were completed: “(Home Just Ain’t Home At) Suppertime” and “It’s a Hang Up Baby”. The plan was to interest Atlantic Records, in the hope that they would lease the tracks, just as had happened for Percy Sledge. The Atlantic single was duly released, but there was very little support for the songs from Atlantic and they soon lost interest.
Hill returned to the studio in October to record seven more tracks in three days, two of which were “Faithful and True” (written by Marlin and Jeanie Green and Dan Penn) and “I Think I’d Do It”, which were chosen for the next single. The band assembled for the sessions included Butch Owens, Jimmy Evans, Jasper Guarino and Ronnie Oldham, a local Florence keyboard player. When Atlantic failed to pick up any of the tracks for a second single, Quin Ivy decided to release the single on his own Quinvy label. Hill was not impressed! He returned to Los Angeles to work with his brother again, and Quin Ivy sold the contract to Jerry Williams, along with rights to the Z.Z. Hill songs already in the can.
Strangely, in 1971, Hill was persuaded by new producer Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams to return to Quinvy Studios. He agreed, as long as Quin Ivy stayed away! Williams assembled a session band that included most of the musicians used for the earlier sessions, plus Bob Wray, Jesse Carr and Fred Proudy. Williams also brought in Chuck Leavell, Charles Hayward and Lou Mullenix. Clayton Ivey and Swamp Dogg shared keyboard duties with Ronnie Oldham. James Mitchell and Gene “Bowlegs” Miller were added to the horn section. It was a strong line-up. Some of the earlier songs were probably re-worked and several new tracks were added. When the final session was finished, Williams released Hill from his contract, in exchange for full payment of all outstanding royalties.
The resulting album, entitled “The Brand New Z.Z. Hill”, was released in 1971, charting at number one hundred and ninety-four on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart. Several singles taken from the album also made chart entries, but only in the lower echelons. “Faithful and True” reached the top one hundred and “Chokin’ Kind” went to number fifty. “It Ain’t No Use” was the most successful, reaching number thirty-four on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart in 1972. That doesn’t sound too impressive, but the album has a number of very good songs.
The album is unusual in that side one is set out as a three-act Blues opera, with spoken introductions. Side two is formatted normally, with five songs. Track 1 “It Ain’t No Use” is a straight Blues number. Track 2 “Ha Ha (The Laughing Song)” is funkier, with some nice horn sections. Track 3, “Second Chance”, is a smooth Soul song, that shows off Hill’s voice to good effect. Track 4 is an up-tempo dance track, followed by “Faithful and True”, which concludes the opera. It is a slow ballad with Hill singing in Otis Redding style, featuring a strong organ line.
Side two dispenses with the spoken sections and is better for that. The songs are all Soul tracks, with “A Man Needs a Woman – Woman Needs a Man” nodding in the direction of Nashville Country. There is considerable variation in the style and arrangements of the songs, and Z.Z. Hill takes everything in his stride.
Hill went back to work with his brother once more and linked up with United Artists. In 1974, he returned to the Shoals area, not to Quinvy this time but to FAME Studios, where he recorded the “Z.Z.” album for United Artists, with his brother Matt directing operations. Some of the FAME Gang were called on for the recording sessions, including Roger Clark (drums), Ken Bell (guitar), Tim Henson (keyboards), and the Muscle Shoals Horns. Rhodes, Chalmers, Rhodes sang backing vocals.
Two songs from the album entered the R&B charts, “Let Them Talk” and Hill’s own composition “Am I Grooving You”. As on Hill’s Quinvy album, there is a range of styles, from romantic ballads (“Let Them Talk” and “You’re Killing Me”) to Blues (“Bad Mouth and Gossip”). “Am I Groovin’ You” and “Clean Up America” are funky. The songs on the B-side of the album are typical Muscle Shoals Country Soul. The songs are drawn from a range of sources, with only “It Ain’t Safe” written by the FAME songwriters Clarence Carter and George Jackson. Some of the songs are a little too repetitive and the whole album would surely have benefitted from some input from Rick Hall.
When his brother Matt suddenly died, Hill moved to Columbia Records. In 1979, he switched to Malaco Records and had success with some fine songs, including two George Jackson compositions, “Cheating in the Next Room” and “Down Home Blues”, which sold over a million copies.
Z.Z. Hill died in 1984, two months after being involved in a serious car accident.
The songs that Hill recorded in the Shoals have been issued on various compilation albums, starting in 1984. Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams took seven of the Quinvy album masters to Los Angeles and re-mixed them, with new backing musicians, with resulting new versions appearing on an album entitled “Thrill On The (Z.Z.) Hill” on the Rare Bullet label. Ace Records in the UK issued a two-album CD in 1994, pairing Hill’s album with Freddie North’s “Friend” album.
Then in 1996, Capitol Records issued a collection of all Hill’s United Artists recordings from 1972 to 1975, which includes the tracks recorded at FAME, with the title “The Complete Hill Records Collection”.
In 2002, Jerry Williams himself re-issued the original Hill album on his S.D.E.G label, with the addition of eleven bonus tracks. For the first time, all the Quinvy recordings were available on one CD, along with six of the Los Angeles reworked songs (only the new version of “Touch ‘Em With Love” is missing).
