Few performers climb to the pinnacle of their musical field.
Al Green has conquered two.
In 1980, after tearing up the R&B charts for a decade with his silky, sexually charged soul recordings on the Memphis-based Hi label, Green renounced secular stardom entirely.
Today, folks address the Chicago Gospel Festival’s Saturday night headliner as the Rev. Green (he’s the pastor of his own Church of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis).
While singing the praises of the Lord over the last 13 years, he’s played a major role in rendering the gospel idiom more accessible to younger audiences by combining the holy word with R&B stylings.
In fact, several tracks on “Love Is Reality,” Green’s 1992 album on the Word label, are nearly indistinguishable from standard urban contemporary fare, with slick arrangements and occasionally ambiguous lyrics that are a far cry from standard hymns (Green even attempts a brief rap at one point).
Al Green’s amazing saga stretches back to 1967, when the Forest City, Ark., native scored his first soul hit at age 21 for the Hot Line label with “Back Up Train” (billed as Al Greene & the Soul Mates).
But the young vocalist failed to follow it up with anything comparable. Green found himself stuck in Midland, Texas, in 1968, trying to find a way back to Grand Rapids, Mich., when providence arrived in the form of bandleader Willie Mitchell (then riding high with his remake of the King Curtis instrumental “Soul Serenade”).
“He wanted to get his fare back home,” said Mitchell by phone from Memphis. “I told him he could do a couple of tunes with the band that night, and I would help him get back.
“When I heard him sing, I said, `Well, he needs to go back to Memphis with me.’ So I asked him if he would like to go.
“I said, `You can be a star.’ He said, `How long would it take?’ I said, `About 18 months.’
“He said, `I don’t have that long to wait.’ “
It took slightly longer than that for Green’s career to take flight, but not much.
Mitchell, the chief producer at Hi Records, made his new acquisition a high priority, and in late 1970, Green hit with a bluesy revival of the Temptations’ “I Can’t Get Next To You.” The next year, Green enjoyed his first massive smash on Hi with the aching “Tired Of Being Alone.”
Green’s prolonged success was no fluke. Mitchell had assembled the premier Memphis rhythm section of the 1970s to serve as Hi’s house band: guitarist Teenie Hodges, his brothers Leroy Hodges on bass and Charles Hodges on organ, and either Howard Grimes or the MGs’ Al Jackson Jr. on drums. They laid down the surging, perfectly controlled grooves that powered every Green hit through 1976.
By the time “Tired Of Being Alone” shot up the charts, Mitchell had gradually refined his charge’s vocal approach (Green’s Hi debut 45, an unlikely but effective 1968 cover of the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” was a steamy imitation of Otis Redding, complete with lusty grunts).
“I was trying to get him to sing softer,” said Mitchell. “We started working, trying to figure out a new style for him. We started coming up with jazz chords-pretty music on top and heavy on the bottom. And it just clicked.”
That’s something of an understatement. From 1971 to 1974, Green notched eight gold records, including the sumptuous “Let’s Stay Together” (an R&B and pop chart-topper), “I’m Still In Love With You,” and “You Ought To Be With Me.” He also wrote or co-wrote virtually all of his major hits on Hi.
Sometimes inspiration arrived from unusual sources. Teenie Hodges co-wrote “Here I Am (Come And Take Me)” with Green after hearing the native American rock group Redbone.
“I was trying to make the music sound like Indians, that type of dance, that type of feel,” said Hodges from his Memphis home.
Green’s sensuous, vulnerable vocal delivery made him a particularly popular commodity with his female constituency. He responded in kind by frequently dispensing roses to his fans in mid-concert.
But the singer’s meteoric rise wasn’t without its share of tragedy. In 1974, Green’s girlfriend scalded him with a pot of boiling grits as he climbed out of the bathtub of his home, resulting in first- and second-degree burns to his back and arms. She then shot herself to death.
Hints of Green’s impending return to his spiritual roots surfaced as early as 1973, when the singer wrote “Jesus Is Waiting” for his otherwise R&B-oriented “Call Me” LP and spotlighted “My God Is Real” on his “Livin’ For You” set.
“Al always wanted to put a gospel song on each album,” said Mitchell. “He’d always pick the song, and we’d put it together.
“I had no idea he was going to become a preacher, but he was always religious,” Mitchell said.
“Take Me To The River,” one of Green’s best-known compositions (another collaboration with Teenie Hodges), is rife with religious connotations despite its secular slant (strangely, Green’s Hi labelmate Syl Johnson ended up with the hit single in 1975, with Green’s definitive reading relegated to album-only status).
Although the partnership of Green and Mitchell bore bountiful commercial fruit through 1975-“L-O-V-E (Love)” and “Full Of Fire” both topped the soul charts-Green decided to move in an overtly religious direction, and the two parted company in 1977.
“I told him I didn’t really know gospel music,” said Mitchell. “I didn’t know enough about it.”
Producing himself without benefit of the Hi Rhythm Section and playing his own lead guitar, Green emerged with “The Belle Album,” embraced by many of the era’s rock critics who apparently considered Green’s brilliantly polished R&B output too commercial. The album now seems self-indulgent in spots and spacey throughout (except for the title track, a very respectable R&B hit).
After cutting a similar collection in 1978, “Truth N’ Time,” that once again straddled the fence between the two musical worlds (including an inexplicable and awkward cover of Lulu’s “To Sir With Love”), Green bid farewell to R&B in 1980. (Ironically, by doing so, he followed in reverse the career path of his major influence, Sam Cooke, who took a great deal of heat from gospel fans when he crossed over to the pop milieu in 1957).
The spiritual rebirth of Green’s music revitalized it. When he wraps his melismatic pipes around Professor Alex Bradford’s bluesy “Too Close” on the Grammy Award-winning 1980 album “The Lord Will Make A Way,” the results are truly heavenly.
Some of Green’s initial gospel efforts strongly recalled the familiar Hi R&B sound. “Where Love Rules,” from his 1981 album “Higher Plane,” rides atop a clattering cymbal reminiscent of Grimes’ distinctive stick work, and the song’s muscular string section also harks back to the soul days.
“Soul Survivor,” Green’s 1987 album for A&M, was a particularly dynamic showcase for Green’s contemporary gospel style. “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright,” a surprisingly solid seller on the R&B charts, boasts a warmly uplifting Green vocal and attractive instrumental backing, while “Jesus Will Fix It” romps over a lowdown blues-based shuffle.
Green still hadn’t entirely exorcised pop music from his system, though. The singer covers the Carole King ballad “You’ve Got A Friend” on the same album as a duet with another ex-R&B stalwart, keyboardist Billy Preston, and goes it alone on a heartfelt reading of the Hollies’ “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.”
Also notable was the sparkling 1989 A&M disc “I Get Joy.” The album’s lead track, “You’re Everything To Me,” could just as easily be construed as an ode to a lover as to the Lord (and a gorgeous one at that), and when Green laments his loss on the self-penned “Tryin’ To Get Over You,” it seems to be an earthly departure rather than a heavenly one that’s got him down.
Even now, Green sometimes reprises a hit or two from his secular days in live performance; whether Saturday evening’s throng at the Petrillo Music Shell will be so anointed remains to be seen.
Interviewed on a 1978 episode of the PBS-TV program “Soundstage” that captures him in concert for an entire hour (one of the most electrifying entries in the acclaimed run of the series), Green was characteristically enigmatic about his existence.
“My life is like a book,” said Green on the show. “It’s like a movie-a guy asks for something, he gets it, and then after he gets what he’s supposed to have, then he starts to run, not doing what he’s supposed to do.”
He hasn’t slowed down yet.
