Teenie Hodges
Encyclopedia
Mabon Lewis "Teenie" Hodges (born 1946) is a Memphis, Tennessee
musician, best known for his work as rhythm and lead guitarist and songwriter on many of Al Green's popular soul
hits, and those of other artists such as Ann Peebles
and Syl Johnson
, on Hi Records
in the 1970s.
Born in Memphis, "Teenie" began playing guitar at age 12 in his father's band, the Germantown Blue Dots, before joining his brothers Leroy
and Charles
in their group, the Impalas. He was encouraged by local band leader and record producer
Willie Mitchell. Mitchell used Hodges as a central component of the Hi Rhythm Section
, which also included Leroy, Charles, drummer Al Jackson
, and pianist Archie Turner. When Jackson left in 1966, Hodges recruited Howard Grimes to replace him.
His compositions "Take Me to the River
" and "Love and Happiness," both co-written with Green, have been covered by numerous other international artists, including Al Jarreau
, Amazing Rhythm Aces
, Talking Heads
, O.V. Wright
, David Sanborn
, Toots & the Maytals
, Canned Heat
, Foghat
, Levon Helm
, Syl Johnson, Annie Lennox
, Delbert McClinton
Mitch Ryder
, Tom Jones
, Graham Central Station
, Living Colour
, blues artist Willie Cobbs, Denise LaSalle
, and others. He also co-wrote several other popular hits with songwriters like Isaac Hayes
, Willie Mitchell, and Al Green, including "I Take What I Want," "Oh Me, Oh My," "Here I Am, Come and Take Me," and "Full of Fire."
Hodges has continue to record and tour as guitarist in the Hi Rhythm Section
, often with major soul acts like Syl Johnson and O.V. Wright. The Hodges brothers, with Grimes, recorded the 1976 LP
On the Loose, as Hi Rhythm, and in 1994 issued Perfect Gentlemen. They also recorded comeback albums with both Syl Johnson and Al Green. In 2005 Teenie Hodges recorded with Cat Power
on her successful album The Greatest. He has also recorded with Alvin "Youngblood" Hart. He continues performing in blues
and soul
groups today, based out of his home in Memphis.
He has three children Calvin, Breal and Adrian Robinson and grandsons Kato, Chevarus, and Rod Robinson. His nephew is rapper/actor Aubrey "Drake" Graham
., Teenie is the uncle of jazz musician Anthony Lofton.
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
musician, best known for his work as rhythm and lead guitarist and songwriter on many of Al Green's popular soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
hits, and those of other artists such as Ann Peebles
Ann Peebles
Ann Peebles is an African American singer-songwriter who gained celebrity for her Memphis soul albums of the 1970s on the Hi Records label...
and Syl Johnson
Syl Johnson
Syl Johnson is an American blues and soul singer and record producer.-Biography:Born Sylvester Thompson in Holly Springs, Mississippi, United States, Johnson sang and played with blues artists Magic Sam, Billy Boy Arnold, Junior Wells and Howlin' Wolf in the 1950s, before recording with Jimmy Reed...
, on Hi Records
Hi Records
Hi Records was a Memphis soul and rockabilly label started in 1957 by singer Ray Harris, record store owner Joe Cuoghi, Bill Cantrell and Quinton Claunch , and three silent partners, including Cuoghi's lawyer, Nick Pesce....
in the 1970s.
Born in Memphis, "Teenie" began playing guitar at age 12 in his father's band, the Germantown Blue Dots, before joining his brothers Leroy
Leroy Hodges
Electric bass player Leroy "Flick" Hodges is a relatively unknown soul musician.Paired with either Booker T. & the MGs's drummer Al Jackson or Stax staff drummer Howard Grimes, Leroy and The Hodges Brothers were the backing musicians for Al Green, Ann Peebles and several other soul, gospel and...
and Charles
Charles Hodges
Charles Hodges is an American organist and songwriter. He is known for his high tone on the Hammond B3 organ, that appeared on records by Al Green, and other musicians signed to Hi Records....
in their group, the Impalas. He was encouraged by local band leader and record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
Willie Mitchell. Mitchell used Hodges as a central component of the Hi Rhythm Section
Hi Rhythm Section
The Hi Rhythm Section was most notably the house band for hit soul albums by several artists, including Al Green and Ann Peebles, on Willie Mitchell's Hi Records label in the 1970s. The band included the three Hodges brothers, Charles Hodges , Leroy Hodges , and Mabon "Teenie" Hodges , together...
, which also included Leroy, Charles, drummer Al Jackson
Al Jackson
Al Jackson, Jr. was a drummer, producer, and songwriter. He is best known as a founding member of Booker T. & the M.G.s, a group of session musicians who worked for Stax Records and produced their own instrumentals...
, and pianist Archie Turner. When Jackson left in 1966, Hodges recruited Howard Grimes to replace him.
His compositions "Take Me to the River
Take Me to the River
"Take Me to the River" is a 1974 song written by singer Al Green and guitarist Mabon "Teenie" Hodges. Hit versions were recorded by both Syl Johnson and Talking Heads...
" and "Love and Happiness," both co-written with Green, have been covered by numerous other international artists, including Al Jarreau
Al Jarreau
Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...
, Amazing Rhythm Aces
Amazing Rhythm Aces
The Amazing Rhythm Aces are an American country rock group. The band has characterized their music as "American Music" or "Roots Music" — rock, country, blues, R&B, folk, reggae and Latino...
, Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
, O.V. Wright
O.V. Wright
Overton Vertis "O. V." Wright was an American singer who is regarded as one of Southern soul's most authoritative and individual artists...
, David Sanborn
David Sanborn
David Sanborn is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school...
, Toots & the Maytals
Toots & the Maytals
Toots and the Maytals, originally called simply The Maytals, are a Jamaican musical group and one of the best known ska and reggae vocal groups. According to Sandra Brennan at Allmusic, "The Maytals were key figures in reggae music...
, Canned Heat
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...
, Foghat
Foghat
Foghat are a British rock band that had their peak success in the mid- to late-1970s. Their style can be described as "blues-rock," or boogie-rock dominated by electric and electric slide guitar. The band has achieved five gold records...
, Levon Helm
Levon Helm
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm , is an American rock multi-instrumentalist and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band....
, Syl Johnson, Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox, OBE , born Ann Lennox, is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s with The Tourists, with fellow musician David A...
, Delbert McClinton
Delbert McClinton
Delbert McClinton is an American blues rock and electric blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, harmonica player, and pianist....
Mitch Ryder
Mitch Ryder
William S. Levise, Jr , better known by his stage name Mitch Ryder, is an American musician who has recorded over two dozen albums in more than four decades.-Career:...
, Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...
, Graham Central Station
Graham Central Station
Graham Central Station is a funk band named after founder Larry Graham . The name is a pun on New York City's Grand Central Terminal, often incorrectly called Grand Central Station....
, Living Colour
Living Colour
Living Colour is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. Stylistically, the band's music is a creative fusion influenced by free jazz, funk, neo-psychedelia, hard rock, and heavy metal...
, blues artist Willie Cobbs, Denise LaSalle
Denise LaSalle
Denise LaSalle is an American R&B/soul and blues singer, songwriter, and record producer.-Career:...
, and others. He also co-wrote several other popular hits with songwriters like Isaac Hayes
Isaac Hayes
Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. was an American songwriter, musician, singer and actor. Hayes was one of the creative influences behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the...
, Willie Mitchell, and Al Green, including "I Take What I Want," "Oh Me, Oh My," "Here I Am, Come and Take Me," and "Full of Fire."
Hodges has continue to record and tour as guitarist in the Hi Rhythm Section
Hi Rhythm Section
The Hi Rhythm Section was most notably the house band for hit soul albums by several artists, including Al Green and Ann Peebles, on Willie Mitchell's Hi Records label in the 1970s. The band included the three Hodges brothers, Charles Hodges , Leroy Hodges , and Mabon "Teenie" Hodges , together...
, often with major soul acts like Syl Johnson and O.V. Wright. The Hodges brothers, with Grimes, recorded the 1976 LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
On the Loose, as Hi Rhythm, and in 1994 issued Perfect Gentlemen. They also recorded comeback albums with both Syl Johnson and Al Green. In 2005 Teenie Hodges recorded with Cat Power
Cat Power
Charlyn Marie Marshall , also known as Chan Marshall or by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer/songwriter and occasional actress and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has come to refer to her musical projects with various backing bands...
on her successful album The Greatest. He has also recorded with Alvin "Youngblood" Hart. He continues performing in blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
groups today, based out of his home in Memphis.
He has three children Calvin, Breal and Adrian Robinson and grandsons Kato, Chevarus, and Rod Robinson. His nephew is rapper/actor Aubrey "Drake" Graham
Drake (entertainer)
Aubrey Drake Graham , who records under the mononym Drake, is a Canadian recording artist and actor. He originally became known for playing Jimmy Brooks on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation....
., Teenie is the uncle of jazz musician Anthony Lofton.
External links
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/herschell/307586060/Live Photo, playing with Cat Power at The New Daisy TheatreThe New Daisy TheatreThe New Daisy Theatre is an all-ages venue located at 330 Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.The New Daisy plays host to both local and national acts as well as being available for rental events....
, Memphis, November 2006]