Al Green

To a greater extent than even his predecessors Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, Al Green embodies both the sacred and the profane in soul music. He was one of the most popular vocalists in the '70s, selling over 20 million records. AlGreen's wildly improvisational, ecstatic cries and moans came directly from gospel music, and in the late '70s he returned to the Baptist church as a preacher. He continues to record albums in a pop-gospel style (to date he has earned eight gospel Grammys) with close ties to the Memphis soul music that made him famous.

Green (who dropped the third “e” from his surname when he went solo) was born to a large family of sharecroppers. When he was nine, he and his brothers formed a gospel quartet, the Greene Brothers. They toured the gospel circuits in the South and after the family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, three years later. Green’s father dismissed him from the quartet after he caught him listening to the “profane music” of Jackie Wilson. At 16 he formed a pop group, Al Greene and the Creations, with high school friends. Two members of the Creations, Palmer James and Curtis Rogers, founded a record company, Hot Line Music Journal, for which the group - renamed Al Greene and the Soul Mates - cut “Back Up Train” in 1967. The single went to #5 on the national R&B chart. Followups failed, however, and the group broke up.

Green met Willie Mitchell in Midland, Texas, in 1969. Mitchell was a bandleader, a producer, and a vice president of Hi Records of Memphis, to which he signed Green. He also became Green’s producer and songwriting partner for the next eight years. Green Is Blues introduced the sound that would distinguish all the records Green made with Mitchell: simple but emphatic backbeats riding subdued horns and strings, and Green’s voice floating untethered over the instruments.

His second album contained Green’s first solo hits - “You Say It” (#28 R&B, 1970), “Right Now, Right Now” (#23 R&B, 1970), and “I Can’t Get Next to You” (#11 R&B, 1970) - and his first gold single, “Tired of Being Alone” (#11 pop, #7 R&B, 1971), which he wrote. That began a three-year string of gold singles, most of them written by Green, Mitchell, and Jackson: “Let’s Stay Together” (#1 pop, #1 R&B, 1971), “Look What You Done for Me” (#4 pop, #2 R&B, 1972), “I’m Still in Love With You” (#3 pop, #1 R&B, 1972), “You Ought to Be With Me” (#3 pop, #1 R&B, 1972), “Call Me (Come Back Home)” (#10 pop, #2 R&B, 1973), “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)” (#10 pop, #2 R&B, 1973), “Sha La La (Make Me Happy)” (#7 pop, #2 R&B, 1974), and “L-O-V-E (Love)” (#13 pop, #1 R&B, 1975).

In October 1974 Green was hospitalized with second-degree burns on his back, arm, and stomach. A former girlfriend, Mrs. Mary Woodson of New Jersey, had poured boiling grits on him while he was bathing in his Memphis home and then killed herself with his gun. The incident apparently triggered a spiritual crisis in Green, and he announced his intention to go into the ministry. In 1976 he purchased a church building in Memphis and was ordained pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle.

He did not, however, give up his pop career, and he preached at his church only when he was not on tour. His records continued to place regularly on the R&B chart and occasionally on the pop chart. In 1977 he built himself a studio and, with Belle, began producing his own records, maintaining the style and standards he had set with Mitchell. But during a 1979 concert in Cincinnati, he fell off the stage and narrowly escaped serious injury. He considered the incident a warning from God. For a time thereafter, his public appearances were limited to religious services in churches around the country, where he both sang and preached.

His ’80s recordings, distributed by Myrrh, a gospel label, contain only religious songs, both standard hymns and Green’s originals, in a style that mixes Memphis soul with gospel. In 1982 he did a stint on Broadway, costarring with Patti LaBelle in Vinnette Carroll’s gospel musical Your Arms Too Short to Box With God. Talking Heads scored one of their biggest pop hits with a cover of Green’s “Take Me to the River,” and Green himself duetted with Annie Lennox of Eurythmics on the Jackie DeShannon classic “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” for the soundtrack of the 1988 film Scrooged. In 1992 Green signed a new deal with BMG Records and returned to the Memphis soul sound of his roots with Don’t Look Back, which featured production help from David Steele and Andy Cox (Fine Young Cannibals) and Arthur Baker (Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” and other early-’80s dance hits). MCA released the album in the U.S. under the title Your Heart’s in Good Hands in 1995. The year before, Green duetted with Lyle Lovett on Willie Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away” for Rhythm, Country, and Blues, a collection of duets that teamed up wellknown artists in each of these fields. That collaboration netted him a Grammy. Green’s box set, Anthology, includes not only the hits and other album cuts, but his onstage sermonizing and interview snippets. In 1995 Green was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He sang “Funny How Time Slips Away” with Willie Nelson at the induction ceremony.

Today, Green performs both gospel and soul material in concert. Most recently, he has had an ongoing role in the TV series Ally McBeal, where he plays an evanescent character who moves in and out of McBeal’s subconsciousness. In fall 2000 HarperCollins released his autobiography, Take Me to the River.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)