Al Green
The soul legend talks about insecurity and the power of L.O.V.E.
After making his chart debut 40 years ago, Al Green went on to become the first major soul superstar of the 1970s, thanks to his horn-based, drum-led musical partnership with the producer Willie Mitchell and drummer Al Jackson. It was with these pioneering musicians that Green wrote “Love & Happiness”, “Simply Beautiful”, “Call Me” and that old copulation classic, “Let’s Stay Together”. To date, he has sold over 40 million records, and been sampled by everyone from RZA to Kanye West. It’s not all been easy coasting though. In 1974, at the height of his success, Green’s girlfriend Mary Woodson, broke into his house and poured boiling grits over him after he refused to marry her. She then went into the next room and shot herself. Seeing this as a sign from God, Green stepped away from soul music, converted to Christianity and became an ordained pastor at Memphis’s Full Gospel Tabernacle, a church that he still owns and preaches in to this day. Currently preparing for a UK tour as well as recording a new album with The Roots and D’Angelo, the hyper 61-year-old spoke to me about his legendary career while cruising up and down Elvis Presley Boulevard in his home town of Memphis.
Tim Noakes: You started singing with your brothers on the gospel circuit. Was there a particular moment when you realised that you had a gift?
Al Green: I guarantee you Tim, there was no specific moment when I knew that I had a gift for singing. I started young, when I was like nine or ten, but it wasn’t natural for me to get on stage. It was actually quite scary for me.
What were you scared of?
Well, I was just a kid and there were all these people looking at me just standing there. Everybody was sitting back waiting to see what I was gon’ do. It was kinda frightening. D&C: Do you still get stage fright? AG: Yeah, very much so, it can still be frightening. Before I go on, I pace across the floor like a wild panther. I’ve been doing it a long time, but I still can’t get used to it. There’s nothing you can do to calm your nerves until you go out there and say, ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen’, and then it all goes away. It doesn’t matter to the band whether it’s 2,000 or 20,000 people, they just play what they play and Al sings the way he sings.
What was the biggest lesson you learnt as a kid?
That there was not much money to be had singing in a group of five!
So, what is the difference between your stage persona and the real Al Green?
Sometimes I can’t cope with life as it is, so I have to cover it up. It’s like being a clown. I put on a mask, go out and act like I’m somebody else so I don’t have to be this person all the time.
“Sometimes I can’t cope with life as it is, so I have to cover it up. It’s like being a clown. I put on a mask, go out and act like I’m somebody else so I don’t have to be this person all the time.”
Really?
Riiight! It’s like there’s two totally different people inside me. Being on stage is one thing, whether it’s performing on Broadway with Patti LaBelle or doing a song with Annie Lennox, that’s the entertainment side of Al that everyone knows. But there’s another side that maybe you don’t know. There’s a tug of war. And you know who should win… the big man upstairs.
You had an amazing musical relationship with Willie Mitchell, how did all of those hit songs come out?
There was magic there. Al played Al, Willie played Willie, Al Jackson played Al Jackson and the result was a sound that everybody was baby-making crazy about. I’ll say that again, everyone was baby-making crazy about this music! Yesterday, I met this lady on a plane and she showed me a photo of her little girl. She then said to me, ‘Look at what you made me do Al!’
So how many children do you think you’re indirectly responsible for?
Woooeeeey! (laughs) Don’t ask me that… awww God! I was at the ticket counter and this guy said to me, ‘Al, I have three kids and I know good and well that two of them were conceived to your music’. I was like, ‘Ah man, that’s okay, just don’t tell me nothing else y’hear!’ (laughs) I’ve got quite an extended family I guess. But what my music really does is bring in the royal commandment, which is L.O.V.E.
Which obviously inspired one of your biggest songs, ‘Let’s Stay Together’.
Yeah, no doubt about it, that’s the biggest one.
Did you say to Willie, ‘Give me a few minutes and I’ll write some words’, and five minutes later it was done?
It was ten minutes, but that’s right. He kept playing this pattern over and over (sings the intro horn melody), and I said, ‘What’s that? What are the words?’ At the time, I wasn’t that bothered about it, I just wanted to get back to recording this other song. Willie replied, ‘I don’t have any words, go write something real quick’. So I sat down and sketched out a few lines; ‘Let’s stay together, dadadada, whether times are good or bad, yadayadayada,’ I then threw it back to him and said, ‘Okay, now can we do something important?’ It turned out to be our biggest-selling record. I just wanted to get it out of the way so we could get back to recording versions of everybody else’s songs.
Did it have anything to do with the 1968 riots?
Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad? Maybe. People that were in those riots were pulling down their own neighbourhoods, so in the end they’d just have to pay for more insurance, so it was better for everybody to stay together!
Did you think it was weird when it became popular again on the back of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack?
Well, Willie told me how popular it was, but I was doing all these tours, so I just told him to cut out the news clipping from the magazine and save it for me. I did the same when the Talking Heads version of ‘Take Me To the River’ got popular.
How have you stayed so grounded?
I’m just a natural man. Do you know what Willie said to me yesterday?
What’s that?
He turned to me and said, ‘Al, these songs and this music gon’ outlive you and me. It’ll be selling for a long time, because the people just keep buying it.’ I mean, gee whiz, who would have thought it?
“Willie Mitchell said to me, ‘Al, these songs and this music gon’ outlive you and me. I mean, gee whiz, who would have thought it?”
So, what new projects are you working on?
I’m doing an album in New York with The Roots. Ahmir Thompson is producing the record and it sounds so different to the Willie Mitchell trademark sound. This music is so fresh. I’ve got D’Angelo doing it with me and maybe Alicia Keys. I’ve done eight songs and I’ve got to do five more.
Do you think most modern musicians have forgotten how to make a long-lasting love song?
I have to agree with you. I don’t want to, but I have to because their rendition of a song is usually one little chorus which is looped back around. They’ve wiped out the whole art, the structure of the thing. You’ve got to have a couple of verses to tell her how you feel, then you’ve got a bridge in there to put the cream on top of the apple pie, and then you need another verse, so you can eat the crust off the apple pie. It’s the truth! I can’t lie!
First published in Dazed & Confused in June 2007
