Howard Lee Grimes (August 22, 1941 – February 12, 2022) was an American drummer, best known as a member of the

Hi Rhythm Section The Hi Rhythm Section was 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, organist Charles Hodges, bassis ...

on records by

Al Green Albert Leornes Greene (born April 13, 1946), better known as Al Green, is an American singer, songwriter, pastor and record producer best known for recording a series of soul hit singles in the early 1970s, including " Take Me to the River", ...

Ann Peebles Ann Lee Peebles (born April 27, 1947) is an American singer and songwriter who gained celebrity for her Memphis soul albums of the 1970s for Hi Records. Two of her most popular songs are " I Can't Stand the Rain", which she wrote with her husband ...

and others in the 1970s.

Life and career

Born in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

on August 22, 1941, Grimes first performed in public at the age of 12, with

Rufus Thomas Rufus C. Thomas, Jr. (March 26, 1917 – December 15, 2001) was an American rhythm-and-blues, funk, soul and blues singer, songwriter, dancer, DJ and comic entertainer from Memphis, Tennessee. He recorded for several labels, including Chess Rec ...

. By his late teens he recorded regularly on sessions for

Satellite Records Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in 1961. It also shared its operations with sister label Volt Records. Stax was ...

, which later became

Stax Streaming API for XML (StAX) is an application programming interface ( API) to read and write XML documents, originating from the Java programming language community. Traditionally, XML APIs are either: * DOM based - the entire document is read i ...

, where he was tutored by Al Jackson, Jr. He also began working with bandleader and

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

Willie Mitchell at

Hi Records Hi Records is an American soul music and rockabilly label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1957 by singer Ray Harris, record store owner Joe Cuoghi, Bill Cantrell and Quinton Claunch (formerly producers for Sun Records), and three silent partn ...

, taking over as Mitchell's main drummer after Jackson's death. As a key member of the house band at Mitchell's

Royal Studios Royal Studios is a recording studio located in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Established in 1956, it is one of the oldest continuously operated music recording studios in the world. It is widely known for producer, recording artist and owner ...

in Memphis, Grimes was instrumental in creating some of the most memorable songs and soul grooves of the 1970s. After the demise of Hi Records in the late 1970s, Grimes continued to perform with

Teenie Hodges Mabon Lewis "Teenie" Hodges (November 16, 1945 – June 22, 2014) was an American musician known for his work as a rhythm and lead guitarist and songwriter on many of Al Green's soul hits, and those of other artists such as Ann Peebles and Syl J ...

and other members credited as Hi Rhythm or, on the 1994 album ''Perfect Gentlemen'', the Hodges Brothers. Grimes died from kidney failure on February 12, 2022, at the age of 80.

References

External links

* * 1941 births 2022 deaths 20th-century African-American musicians 20th-century American drummers 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century African-American people African-American drummers American male drummers American session musicians Deaths from kidney failure Musicians from Memphis, Tennessee {{US-drummer-stub