Willie Mitchell played a central role in the rise of Memphis as a center for soul music as a producer, studio engineer, trumpeter, and bandleader. Born in Ashland on March 1, 1928, into a sharecropping family, he moved with his family to Memphis in the 1930s, took up the trumpet at age eight, learned to write musical charts from Onzie Horne, Sr., and said he studied music for three years at Rust College in Holly Springs. After an early 1950s Army stint with a service band, he worked regularly in West Memphis, Arkansas, and in Memphis with bands led by Al Jackson, Sr., Tuff Green, and his own group, which included Al Jackson, Jr., Lewis Steinberg, George Coleman, and Charles Lloyd. His first records under his own name appeared in 1959 on the Stomper Time label, and in 1960-61 he produced and recorded for Home of the Blues before moving to Hi Records, where he arranged recordings for Ace Cannon and Gene Simmons and began scoring instrumental hits. In the 1960s he assembled the Hi Rhythm Section with Mabon "Teenie," Charles, and Leroy Hodges and Howard Grimes, supplemented by his stepson Archie "Hubbie" Turner and the Memphis Horns, including his brother James Mitchell, and his group recorded prolifically for Hi, with its biggest hit, "Soul Serenade," in 1968. He increasingly focused on producing soul vocalists, most notably Al Green, and with the Hi Rhythm Section produced hits for Green, Syl Johnson, Otis Clay, and Ann Peebles at Hi and for O.V. Wright, Denise LaSalle, and others on other labels, while also producing blues and soul-blues for Hi subsidiaries M.O.C. and Pawn. Mitchell acquired stock in Hi in 1969 and became a vice president; after Hi was sold to Cream Records in 1977, he retained Royal Studios at 1320 Lauderdale, now Willie Mitchell Boulevard, and continued producing for Hi/Cream. Over a career of more than six decades he produced dozens of hits, shaped the sound of house bands at multiple recording studios, recorded artists including Lynn White, Bobby Rush, Otis Rush, Willie Cobbs, Pops Staples, and Al Green in later decades, and received more than 50 gold and platinum record plaques. He died in Memphis on January 5, 2010.