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Talking to Solomon Burke about his latest album, Nothing’s Impossible, is tinged with sadness. It turned out to be the final work of legendary Memphis producer Willie Mitchell whom I met and interviewed several years ago, and who passed away earlier this year.

Later, Willie’s son Boo took me around Royal Studio, showed me Al Green’s famous microphone No.9 and allowed me to sit in on a rehearsal. So, I could vividly imagine Burke’s recording sessions and what Willie Mitchell would have been like.

Located on Willie Mitchell Boulevard (formerly Lauderdale Avenue) the studio is as humble as the man who created it. It was proof that you don’t need a multi-million dollar hi-tech facility if you are blessed with great songs. And for Burke’s album Mitchell wrote or co-wrote nine of the twelve songs, as well as steering the impeccable production.

“I’m very sad,” says Burke when I call him at his home. He is preparing for concerts in Japan, after which he will be in Europe during the northern summer.

“It was very unexpected,” he says of Mitchell’s death.

“You know exactly what I mean when I say it was his own kingdom there,” he says of Mitchell’s studio, made famous by Al Green’s recordings but used by numerous others. “It was very humble, very real and very right.”

“Well, you know, the studio is worth millions,” he continues. “It’s the idea of the technique, the sound, the tone, the wood, the drapes, everything. The way it was it’s like a great oven, or kitchen and you want to attend to the stove. You want to keep everything just the way a mother has it because the taste is there and the soul came from the mixture out of the studio. So that little Royal Studio there is actually very royal and very legendary.”

And very appropriate for a King to record there too, I suggest.

“I tell you I felt very comfortable and very at home,” responds Burke, “and the whole family made me feel at home.”

“After thirty years I met Willy, it took thirty years for me to meet him,” he continues. “We had talked, we told jokes, we made promises about recording, writing together and doing all these things together and there were so many times and occasions where we missed each other. He was in Memphis and I was gone, or he was gone and I was in Memphis.

“We finally came together. I thought ‘this is a joke, I must be dreaming.’ We just went on and I picked up his spirit and I picked up his tone. It’s so remarkable, so incredible that he’s no longer with us but he will forever be in my heart and my memories.”

It is surprising, I tell Burke, that he and Mitchell had never worked together previously, given Willie’s credentials.

“His heart was saying to me ‘I’ve been waiting all these years to do this with you’,” says Burke, “and he said to me ‘I’m not letting you out of this studio until you record here.’ He got on the phone and he called his musicians and within an hour they were all there - just like working in a fire station, they were ready to go. When he pulled out that new song I was blown away.’

Burke is referring to ‘You Needed Me,’ an international hit for Canadian singer Anne Murray back in 1978. He tells the story of the recording in detail, it was obviously a night that has stuck in his memory.

“Well, he wanted so much for this song to be done,” explains Burke. “He had played this song for other artists and they couldn’t do it, didn’t do and didn’t want to do it. He played it for me one time and went over it and the band went over it and they knew it.

“He said ‘I’m going to play the piano on it this time and you go into that booth and we’re going to cut it right now.’ I said, ‘I don’t know it’ and he said, ‘You don’t need to know it, someone write down the words for him!’ My daughter said, ‘We’ve got the words, it’s already written, Dad’ and we went into the booth and cut it the first time. I said ‘Man, I don’t know,’ and he said, ‘Do it again.’ I did it the second time and I said ‘I think I can do better’ and he said, ‘No, you can’t do no better. That’s it, man, we’re going to write another song now’.”

“That was the beginning of an evening that lasted to four in the morning and out of that evening came three songs including ‘Dreams.’ I tell you what a night and what a day! If you met him then you’ll know what I’m talking about, you’ll know that his magic was there.”

Burke also used Al Green’s favourite microphone Number 9 and adds, “That was the only one to use! They even went and got my throne chair for me when I got back. So it was just incredible. The story just goes on. It should have been a movie.”

Mitchell’s hands-on contribution to Burke’s album extended from the production to the song writing and his work on at least three-quarters of the material has guaranteed that it is stamped with his personality.

“It was just an incredible situation,” recalls Burke. “I want to tell you that normally I can talk about an album and talk about the songs but every time I talk about this I get choked up because I want so bad for his family to know how much we loved him and his music.

‘“Every one of these songs was hand picked and written by him with me in mind. That’s what’s so fascinating: to see the magic of the man working so diligently, so earnestly and so strong.”

The album kicks off with the emotive, ‘Oh What A Feeling,’ a song that Mitchell wrote with Julius Bradley, who passed away in March.

“You can feel the emotion, you can feel the tears, you can feel the joy,” says Burke. “These songs were tailor made for me, they’ve been like turning back the hands of time for me - and putting in all of the soul drops and stops that I’m so known for and that I’ve passed on for so many years to other people. It was just amazing how he collected all of it within the songs. That feeling is there, it’s all there.”

“He inspired me to write that song ‘Everything About You’,” answers Burke when I ask if Mitchell inspired him to write. (He is involved in three of the compositions and his daughter Candy co-wrote ‘The Error OF My Ways’ with Mitchell).

“I just started writing that song and it was just amazing,” he adds. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life where our families came together and they’re so close.”

Burke explains both he and Mitchell had grandsons called Ethan who were the same age and that his daughter and Mitchell’s granddaughter look like twins.

“Now tell me about that!” he enthuses. “Tell me that’s not God dealing with that, that’s hands of an angel. The timing was incredible.”

“Then ten days after he finished this record, after the horns was on, the strings was on he called me and played it for me on the phone electronically. I said, ‘You’re the man Willy’ and he’s gone, my man, he’s gone.”

Burke has worked with different producers for each of his last four albums including Joe Henry, Buddy Miller and Don Was. I ask him what he thinks made Willie Mitchell so special.

“It wasn’t the producer,” he replies. “It was the friendship. It was the friendship and kinship that we had rekindled, it was the togetherness we spoke about, the thoughts, the thrills, the memories, the laughter, the joy from Otis Redding and all those guys, Sam and Dave. It was all those things blended into him when he wanted me to come to Hi Records and I said, No, I’ll stay where I’m at [Atlantic].

“This was an amazing time in our lives, to watch the children grow and grandchildren and just to be a friend of a friend and not meet this person. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine having that friendship that lasted that length of a time? And then when you meet it’s like meeting you brother, it’s like seeing my brother.”

“Oh my God!” he exclaims when I say that he must feel fortunate to have finally met and worked with Mitchell. “I feel lucky and I feel sad because I realise the time that I missed and all the things that I missed and it hurts, it hurts inside.”

I tell Burke that I think that the album is a fitting tribute to Mitchell.

“I hope that others will enjoy it and listen to it and understand that this is a masterpiece,” he says, “not by me but a genius of a producer and writer. I’m so grateful that I was chosen to be this one at this time. I’m very grateful.”

As Burke starts to get emotional recalling his friend, we move onto other matters. He is already planning his next album release for September, a gospel record containing 21 songs: some of his favourites and some written by him.

“These are the personal songs,” he explains. “Some of these songs are sung at our church or our congregation. These are personal family songs, songs for our ministry. These are healing songs, songs of deliverance and songs of miracles and power. I’m sharing that now. I want people to hear them and people to feel like I feel. I want them to know how much God is wrapped around me and I’m wrapped around him.”

Burke might have just turned 70 in March this year but he shows no signs of slowing down, either in his recording or touring.

“I’m 7,” he laughs. “I’ve eliminated the 0 and turned it into a hero and we’re going to start it all over again.”

“Thank God, someone wants the old man to come out and sing a little bit,” he continues. “So I’m very grateful for that.”

“I miss Australia, I just can’t get enough of Australia,” he says when I ask when he is coming back here. “I tell everybody about the great lamb chops there.”

“When it comes to lamb chops and when it comes to the greatest bacon in the world you’ve got to be in Australia,” he continues, “and the people are so lovely and kind, just cuddly! Australia is a special place.”

I mention to Burke that now he has reached 70 he could be sitting back relaxing and ask what drives him to keep recording and touring.

“Well, two great things, love of God and love of my children,” he says. “I have 21 children and 90 grandchild, 19 great grandchildren.”

“Are you kidding?” he then laughs. “I’ve got to work as much as I can. You know what it’s like to put milk in this house?”

Nothing’s Impossible is available through Shock Records.