The Weird and The Wonderful: The Al Green Gospel Years
In the early 70s, no one fused R&B and pop better than Al Green. Green signed to Hi Records and released the 1971 classic, “Tired Of Being Alone.” By 1972, Green released classic albums like Let’s Stay Together and I’m Still In Love With You and became a pop culture phenomenon. This didn’t seem assured.
Vocally speaking, Green was an amalgam of Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and Claude Jeter. Early songs like “Hot Wire” and “Back Up Train” had a lot of promise, and a lot of it took a veteran and canny producer like Willie Mitchell. The one thing missing is Al Green. Mitchell got Green to sing a bit more quietly and refined, and his voice became the vehicle of love and romance. But was it enough?
Al Green’s religious career probably started seconds after his conversion in 1973. Although nothing was quite official beforehand, Green covering “God Is Standing By” and even “Jesus Is Waiting” from Call Me let us know it was possible.
Conventional wisdom points to the day of October 1974 when Green’s girlfriend poured hot grits on Green and later committed suicide as the impetus towards a heightened eccentricity and spiritual conversion. Probably so.
After the blithe romanticism of Al Green Explorers Your Mind, the cries for help from Al Green Is Love (and chill-inducing B side “Strong Is Death, Sweet As Love”), something had to give. Shortly after, Green’s religious concerns manifested themselves, and his next release, Full of Fire, had “Glory Glory,” “I’d Fly Away,” and “As Soon As I Get Home” on the same album. His Have A Good Time was arranged like a gospel album, so fans knew where he was going even if Al Green didn’t.
It is even more telling that Green seemed to lose his romantic fire during this era and was given to a heightened eccentricity. Some of his performances of the era have him onstage with sunglasses and with what could be best described as “Stevie Wonder blindisms.” Thankfully, this malady didn’t last too long.
In 1976, Green bought a church in Memphis, The Full Tabernacle Gospel, and was the pastor. At the same time, his career was approaching an impasse due partly to his religious concerns and changing muse.
Green and Willie Mitchell stopped working together in 1976. Green released the self-produced 1977’s critically acclaimed The Belle Album.
Green continued with Hi Records and released 1980's The Lord Will Make A Way through Myrrh/Word Records. The album was spare, a bit murky, and had more controlled singing than the Belle Album and certainly a better sense of purpose than 1978's Truth N’ Time. The album also conjured the sights if not smells of an old rickety church, it’s all fevered prayers, sweat and battered old bibles stuck in the back of a pew.
Who knows maybe someday I could be strong/So strong, but never on my own…”
1981’s Higher Plane got even closer. The album has the best facets of his personality: playfulness, eccentricity, and sensuality. Oddly, it was his most accessible album since Al Green Explores Your Mind, and it even has similar charms. Green romped through danceable religious tracks like “His Name Is Jesus” and “Where Love Rules” and swooned through “The Spirit Might Come- On and On.” Green is so charming here he gets away with the cutesy “By My Side” and puts “Amazing Grace” and “The Battle of the Hymn Republic” on the same album. Despite the varying declarations of religiousness, the overarching personality is congenital, upbeat, and hopeful.
The early ‘80s found Green dealing with another concern: Secular Al Green. In 1981, Hi/Cream was sold to Motown Records and put core Green albums back in print. How could he hide now since he’s back on the record racks?
Although this was a concern, this is about as problem-free as Green’s gospel adventure got. Green had multiple suits with his ex-wife Shirley, and they finally divorced in 1983. Green’s fans were insulated from many of his peccadillos and court time that wasn’t covered in Jet Magazine. The gospel seemed to give Green some much-needed consistency and sustenance.
In 1982, Green signed on to the Broadway revival of ‘Are Your Arms Too Short To Box With God?’ Green was no great actor and often had problems acting “normally,” yet he was there with Patti LaBelle, who was in the midst of a career renaissance herself.
Although Green seemed to like playing the role of country preacher, the opening night of the play was like a “welcome back” party for Al Green. Green hobnobbed with the likes of Ali McGraw, Ashford and Simpson, Stephanie Mills, and Johnny Mathis. The play ran from September 9th to November 7th, 1982.
Despite the initial splash and Green’s Tony nomination, this was just a pit stop in a career filled with twists and turns.
Sadly, Patti LaBelle spilled the beans on Green’s sometimes callous nature with a horrible story that has to be heard to be believed. Knowing how single-minded and capricious Green is, it’s not shocking.
Just when Al Green’s pop return might have seen some daylight, Green detoured. Precious Lord was released in 1982 and had Green recording in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Sound Emporium. The album lacks Al Green’s sound as the production has most of the accouterments of the southern white gospel. It didn’t matter; Precious Lord won the Grammy
To little or no surprise, Green’s inroads towards secular weren’t going to abate anytime soon. For 1983’s I’ll Rise Again, he embraced the newer tech-heavy sounds happening in R&B. “Look At The Things That God Made” and “I Know It Was The Blood” were ok. Oddly enough, the “real” gospel songs on the album, “Leaning On The Everlasting Arms” and “I Can’t Make It By Myself,” were given an asterisk on the back cover and were just perfunctory affairs.
Green did better in songs that blurred the lines between the sacred and the profane like the quirky and funky “It Don’t Take Much” and the slow and steady “Ocean Blue (I’ll Rise Again.”)
If Green had a penchant for blurring the lines, his next album was all but a Rorschach test. In 1984, Al Green returned to Al Green Studios to record Trust In God. Paul Zalenski produced the album. Unbeknownst to the listening public (or even Green himself), this album, in particular, may have hastened his gospel career’s demise more than anything.
On this effort, Green did covers of the Supremes, “Up The Ladder To The Roof” and Joe South’s “Don’t It Make You Wanta Go Home.” Green also turned in perfunctory covers of Bill Withers’ “Lean On Me” and Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
Not surprisingly, the best song was the semi-radio-ready “Never Met Nobody Like You,” which was basically a love song with Green singing “Thank you, Lord” to remind us of who he was singing to.
The Gospel According To Al Green was released in theaters in 1984. The documentary, filmed in late 1983, displayed Green as a walking contradiction, throughly engaging, filled with secrets, hiding yet opening the film, producer, and film crew to his church.
Green is seen at various scenes, including his church, a concert at Bolling Airforce Base in Washington, D.C., and rehearsing “Let’s Stay Together” at the studio.
Producer Willie Mitchell appeared and looked like he was on the verge of tears, recounting his glory days with Green. In a great dramatic scene, a 1978 Hi Records/Cream reissue album plays as Mitchell yearns in silence. Willie Mitchell missed secular Al Green as we all did.
In December 1984, Word was purchased by A&M Records. At this point, Amy Grant was by far the biggest seller on the label, and of course, a move to a strong and well-respected independent label would help Al Green, too. Green broadened his ‘80s profile with an appearance on Saturday Night Live and sang “Going Away” and “True Love.”
Green got to live in two existences. He was a gospel artist who had an ambivalent view of his secular past. On the other hand, “70’s Al Green” started to exist even more.
Al Green reunited with Willie Mitchell for the 1985 album He Is The Light. In Green musical terms, it’s probably like a cross between Livin’ For You and Full Of Fire. For the most part Green was engaged, if anything the production was too mannered, and the sound was odd, everything had an intrusive echo. Green’s rollicking cover of Sam Cooke’s “Be With Me Jesus” had enough eccentricity and charm to put the project over the top.
He’s coming back/Like he said he would
Green’s second album for Myrrh/A&M was called Soul Survivor. The album itself isn’t much to talk about, there’s genre straddling warhorses, “You’ve Got A Friend” and “He Ain’t He’s My Brother.” There was a surprise hit, though, that put Al Green on the radio with acts like the System and Midnight Star.
The percolating and cutesy “Everything Is Going to Be Alright” hit the R&B charts at #22. Green hadn’t had a single in close to a decade, and this song even had a video filmed in downtown Memphis. The song won a Grammy for Best Soul Performance.
At this point Green probably had brought every sheave in the traditional gospel sense, this was the perfect juncture to have fun Al Green Time. In 1988 Green dueted with Annie Lennox for a bouncy remake of Jackie DeShannon’s “Put A Little Love In Your Heart.”
Green’s next effort I Get Joy had even more overtures to pop as “As Long As We’re Together” got a remix from Al B. Sure and a video. Green also appeared on the late ‘80s early ‘90s nocturnal favorite Night Music. Green was the first act at A Concert For John Lennon, and sang “All You Need Is Love” and a rousing “Power To The People.”
By 1990, Myrrh had ended its association with A&M and moved to Sony. Epic issued One In A Million, a touching compilation of his 80–84 religious albums.
In 1990, Green appeared at the Apollo for a gospel concert. During this era, he was bringing worldly fire to regular gospel sets. Green didn’t even trouble himself to do it halfway here. At the end of the concert, he sang “Tired Of Being Alone,” “Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay,” and “Let’s Stay Together.”
At this point, the pull of secular was like his pull of gospel in the mid to late ‘70s. Even though Green ended up winning 9 Grammies in the gospel category, Secular was winning.
1991 seemed to be the watershed year, he appeared on Arthur Baker’s Leave The Guns At Home” and people barely batted an eye that he wasn’t quite doing gospel anymore.
Green recorded 1992's Love Is Reality and it was quickly forgotten. What was interesting about it was the amount of secular songs. But at this point, singing ambiguous love songs wasn’t going to make the news but Green no longer doing gospel certainly would.
The days of Green performing primarily gospel music ended with neither a whimper nor a high-pitched moan. Green tacitly made himself the religion or at least the conduit for love and good vibes.
In 1993, Green teamed up with David Steele and Andy Cox from the Fine Young Cannibals to create a purely secular album in the mold of Green’s 1970s albums with Willie Mitchell. Memphis Horns members Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love appeared throughout, and Willie Mitchell was named in the album credits.
Green’s subsequent albums (including two with Willie Mitchell) seem to blaze the same trail of recasting Green’s 70’s run under different lights, producers, and songs. Green’s artistic religiousness seems to be a radiant positivity that encompasses the secular and the profane.
Jason Elias
Jason Elias is a music journalist and a pop culture historian
