When writer Toni Morrison said that black artists always seem to move with ease, she was talking about someone like Al Green. He sings from the side of his mouth, seemingly straight from the heart — his every sigh, mutter, trill and moan worth 100 twenty-dollar words — yet it seems like he's just being Al. Which isn't to say that 1973's Call Me, now remastered to full luster, isn't about amazing singing, from phenomenal falsetto hollers to deep-throated innuendoes. Green delivers the seductive come-on "You Ought to Be With Me" with the righteousness of a holy man, and in "Jesus Is Waiting," he cries out like a man trapped in an ecstatic experience that's both spiritual and carnal. Explores Your Mind is earthier: The great soul singer revels in zipperless sex (the almost whimsical "One Nite Stand") and longs for innocence (the doo-wop-haunted "School Days"). The most poignant moment is "The City," wherein Green, who in 1974 was already quite world-weary, rapturously describes the bright lights and fame awaiting him in a distant metropolis. When he was singing about it, even ambition sounded like an act of faith.

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.