MUSIC-USA: Reverend Green Comes Back to Soul

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Nov 21 1995 (IPS) - Few soul singers have been as widely loved and popular as Al Green, but in recent years he has been forgotten by the wider public.

Green, who sang on such big U.S. soul hits in the 1970s as ‘Let’s Stay Together’ and ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart’, has never stopped singing. But in the past 18 years the only albums Green recorded were devoted to God rather than featuring the love songs that first won him fame.

Now, as the Reverend Al Green — an ordained minister since 1976 — has released a new album of secular love songs, ‘Your Heart’s in Good Hands’ (released by Sony), the peculiar career of the soul-gospel star turns another page.

For years, Reverend Green has been the most popular minister in Memphis, Tennessee, where the faithful and music fans alike flock to hear his preaching and singing. And his gospel albums continue to draw listeners with its combination of passionate beliefs and sweet, delicate vocal grace.

But Green’s career has never been the same since he turned his back on stardom in 1977, following years of hit records that added jazzy sophistication to southern rhythm and blues music. At the time, as he told his longtime producer Willie Mitchell, Green was tired of fame and the empty world of show business.

The soul singer had been through emotional turbulence in his life already. In 1974, a girlfriend whom Green had rejected marrying threw a plate of hot grits (oatmeal) on him, scarring his back, and then killed herself. Years later, Green married but was soon divorced when his wife argued — with Green’s acknowledgment — that he beat her.

Green’s sordid life at the time, the reverend conceded later, was a lost period. Ironically, it also produced some of the softest and most poignant music of the era. Even on his later secular albums, Green often pointed to the contrasts between secular and spiritual love, as on the song ‘Belle’, where he sings to a lover, “It’s you that I want/ But it’s Him that I need.”

At the same time, for Green, almost any type of love song could also be a spiritual tune. Corny pop hits from Lulu’s ‘To Sir, with Love’ to Carole King’s ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ were transformed by Green into gospel songs praising God.

That attitude is much evident on ‘You’re Heart’s in Good Hands’, where most of the songs, which on the surface are about love between people, in fact easily can also apply to religious love. (MORE)

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MUSIC-USA: Reverend Green Comes Back to Soul

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Nov 21 1995 (IPS) - Few soul singers have been as widely loved and popular as Al Green, but in recent years he has been forgotten by the wider public.
(more…)