Soul Survivor: Al Green is Still in Love With You

Al Green is Trying Something New

I was sitting on the bed in my pajamas, on the phone with the publicity president at Blue Note, and we were talking about doing a duet album. But there was just so many people wanting to duet that there was too many to duet with.

Over the past three decades, Al Green has proven a master of transformation. In the early ’70s, he helped reinvent Southern soul with his lush ballads. By the latter part of the decade, personal tragedy steered him from secular music to the church—though not before he released transitional masterpiece The Belle Album, a revelatory explosion of spiritual soul.

Green devoted himself to fulltime ministering for years at his Memphis tabernacle, cutting a few hit gospel records in the meantime. Then, in the early years of this century, he returned to the studio with his original Hi Records cast—including longtime producer Willie Mitchell—and dropped two well-received R&B albums on the Blue Note label. Now he’s recorded a new album for Blue Note, Lay It Down, co-produced by Roots drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson. Neo-soul stars Corinne Bailey Rae, Anthony Hamilton and John Legend contribute vocals—and instead of Green’s trusty Hi rhythm section, the reverend is backed by a lineup of ace contemporary R&B players, including the Dap-King horns, keyboardist James Poyser, Jill Scott’s bassist, Joss Stone’s guitarist and others.

“This is his true follow-up to The Belle Album,” ?uestlove says. “Over the last 30 years, The Belle Album is considered by most Al Green colleagues as the final Al Green record, and that came out in 1978. So I consider this the true follow-up.”

Al Green Knows What You Want

“This is a designer’s original, a collector’s item. If you liked ‘For The Good Times’ or ‘How Can You Mend A Broken Heart,’ you’re probably going to want to buy this album.”

The Roots were touring with The White Stripes when Jack White was getting ready to make Van Lear Rose, with Loretta Lynn. White’s plan got ?uestlove pondering the concept of working with an idol of his own: “Once Jack White told me he was getting Loretta Lynn, then I was sitting backstage like, ‘Damn. Rick Rubin has Johnny Cash. Jack gets Loretta Lynn—where’s my Loretta Lynn at? I sent my manager a message … about six months later we started working on Al Green.”

Green says he was ready for anything when he headed into the studio. But rather than funking it up with the hybrid style The Roots are known for, ?uestlove kept it decidedly old-school. Most of the tracks emerged during a single 2006 marathon session originally intended as a get-acquainted meeting for ?uestlove, Green and Poyser at New York’s Electric Lady Studio. “I didn’t have no problem with whatever they wanted to play,” Green recalls. “But they said, ‘We want to keep Al singing like Al.’”

That first session and subsequent ones that took place over the next two years were highly collaborative. Green would vocalize horn and string parts for the musicians to transcribe, and songs were written line by line as all the players scribbled together. “I told them to play like they played,” Green says. “But mostly, they would wind up matching and doing the songs in the style that originally was created by Willie Mitchell.”

Channeling Mitchell is no small thing to aspire to. When the pair hooked up in late 1969, Green was still touring on the strength of Back Up Train, a record that was almost two years old, with no follow-up in mind. It took another two years for Mitchell to give Green a hit— his 1970 remake of The Temptations’ “I Can’t Get Next To You”—but with that, Green and Mitchell were off and running in a history-making partnership that would reinvent the sound of Memphis soul. Soft and sophisticated, and anchored by the deep-bottomed bass of Leroy Hodges, the new sound—pretty, yet weighty—earned them seven top-10 hits in four years.

From the beginning, the future Reverend Green’s sound had a hint of praise music in it. Raised on Sam Cooke and The Soul Stirrers (a clear influence on his soft-spoken style), Green sang about love with reverence and ecstasy that was nearly religious. On Lay It Down, that same touch is there: Anthony Hamilton and Green chant together on the title track, and they testify over the choir-at-the-disco vibe of “You’ve Got The Love I Need.” Some of the churchiness likely comes from guitarist Chalmers “Spanky” Alford, who plays with gospel ensemble Mighty Clouds of Joy. Still, Green wants to make it clear that—even when R&B has soul—church is church. “I wanted to sing a secular album. I’m very adamant about that,” he says. “If I want to make a gospel album, I will make a gospel album. But I’m not interested in being anything I’m not. I am an R&B/soul artist.”