The Hi Singles As And Bs

CREAM/HI 2000, CD £5.75 You Say: “The Mitchell Years, anthologised.” Tim Lomax, via e-mail A 2-CD, 43-song collection of Willie Mitchell productions (ie, no Belle Album tracks), this walks you through Green’s 45s from 1969’s surprising debut – a cover of The Beatles’ I Want To Hold Your Hand – up to 1976’s Something (not the Harrison song), the B-side to I Tried To Tell Myself, arguably one of only two good tracks on that year’s misnamed Have A Good Time (you won‘t). After the Fabs cover, Mitchell/Green broke into the R&B charts in ’70 with chunky driver You Say It, the first of five sides from … Gets Next To You to chart as with Mitchell‘s guidance Al the soul love-man was ‘created’. A fascinating work-in-progress, it moves from uptempo stomps (You Say It, Right Now Right Now, Driving Wheel) to Tired Of Being Alone’s romance.