Hi Records was set up in Memphis in 1957 by singer Ray Harris, record store owner Joe Cuoghi, two Sun Records producers Bill Cantrell and Quinton Claunch, plus three silent partners.
The Royal Recording Studio
Photo: jbcurio 2008 (Wikimedia Commons)
One of the early Hi Records hits recorded at the Royal Studio was Bill Black’s Combo’s “Smokie Parts 1 and 2”, for which Memphis guitarist Reggie Young had come up with a novel sound. He turned the volume to a low growl and used a pencil to play the tune. The novelty of the sound sold the record in large numbers in 1959, at a time when instrumental singles were consistently doing well. Saxophonist Ace Cannon and trumpeter/bandleader Willie Mitchell, also signed to Hi Records, picked up the momentum from Bill Black’s Combo and issued more instrumental tracks. They were very popular on the jukeboxes!
They were also taking Hi Records in a new direction, away from the rockabilly sound that Sun Records had popularised towards the R&B that was emerging at Stax.
Hi Records became a creative force in the R&B and Soul music field due to the imaginative vision and forward thinking of Willie Mitchell, who became involved in A&R, production and song-writing and was also chief engineer during the height of Hi Records popularity in the 1970s.
All of the label’s classic recordings were engineered at Royal Studios, located at 1320 South Lauderdale Avenue in Memphis and named after the Royal Theatre, which was a cinema before it became a functional recording studio. An interesting contribution to the success of Hi Records was the studio structure at Royal. As at Stax, the sloping floors generated a strong acoustic response throughout the studio, giving it a recognisable sound, different from many other studios across the Southern states and around the world. The Royal recording studio was owned by Willie Mitchell.
Many artists found success at the Royal studio, including Ann Peebles, Don Bryant, Otis Clay, O.V. Wright, and Syl Johnson, but the best-known of all the Hi Records artists is Al Green.
