Born Albert Green on April 13, 1946, in Forrest City, AR. Addresses: Office--Full Gospel Tabernacle Ministries, P.O. Box 9485, Memphis, TN 38109. Website--Al Green Official Website: http://www.algreenmusic.com.

Considered by many music writers as the last true successor of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, Al Green has enjoyed a long and rewarding career as a pop and gospel singer. His pop and religious works have earned consistent praise from musicians and critics alike. Unlike the great R&B shouters and early soul singers, Green has a voice that, although capable of rich blues-drenched tones and soaring falsetto cries, displays plaintive emotion without harsh delivery or guttural technique. His silken voice landed him a string of million-selling hits in the 1970s. Following his departure from popular music in 1980, he became a member of the ministry and a singer of gospel music. His recent return to pop music and the appearance of his music in documentaries and film soundtracks has once again brought him widespread notice. Able to straddle the fence between secular and religious music, he has devoted himself to the universal message of music.

Sang from an Early Age

Albert Green was born on April 13, 1946, in Forrest City, Arkansas. As a teenager Green and his brothers, Walter, William, and Robert, formed a gospel quartet, The Green Brothers. Though he sang in the gospel group, Green had developed an affinity for both religious and popular music. He stated, as quoted in the book Black Popular Music by Arnold Shaw, "I didn't make distinctions between spiritual and secular music to any great extent back then. If they sang with feeling, from their hearts, I loved the music."

At age 12 Green moved with his family to Grand Rapids, Michigan, a city about 180 miles west of Detroit. Four years later he and several school friends formed a pop group, the Creations. In 1967 the group, renamed Al Green and the Soulmates, recorded the pop hit "Back Up Train" for the Hotline label; the song rose to number five on the R&B charts and number 41 on the Billboard charts. Despite the song's success, the group did not score a follow-up hit and disbanded soon after.

In 1968 Green performed at a club in Midland, Texas, backed by Memphis bandleader and trumpeter Willie Mitchell (who had scored a hit with a remake of King Curtis's instrumental "Soul Serenade"). Impressed with Green's talent, Mitchell, a part-time talent scout and producer for Hi Records in Memphis, invited the young singer to record on the label with the promise that he could make Green a star within a year. About six months later, Green arrived in Memphis. As author Shaw explained in Black Popular Music, "Together, Green and Mitchell sought to forge a style that combined the pop-soul of Detroit's Motown with the down home soul of Memphis's Stax [label], aiming for a black-white synthesis that blended black soul with white pop." In the studio Mitchell assembled a stellar lineup of backing musicians to perform behind Green. They included the family team of guitarist Teenie Hodges, organist Charles Hodges, and bassist Leroy Hodges, as well as veteran members of Booker T. and The MG's and Stax studio drummer Al Jackson Jr. (who had also played with Otis Redding). The music formula put forth by Mitchell and Green proved an outstanding combination. As music writer Peter Guralnick wrote in Sweet Soul Music, "Willie Mitchell and Al Green came up with an old idea phrased in a new way, the last eccentric refinement of Sam Cooke's lyrical gospel-edged style as filtered through the fractured vocal approach of Otis Redding and the peculiarly fragmented vision of Al Green himself."

In 1968 the Green-Mitchell collaboration released a cover of the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand", as well as a commercially unsuccessful rendition of the Hayes-Porter ballad "One Woman." Not until he recorded a remake of the Temptations' hit "I Can't Get Next to You" did Green establish himself as pop singing star. For Green's next single, "Tired of Being Alone," Mitchell sought a more subtle sound in Green's voice. "We started working, trying to get him to sing softer," explained Mitchell in the Chicago Tribune. "We started coming up with jazz chords--pretty music on top and heavy on the bottom. And it just clicked." Accompanied by Teenie Hodges's relaxed and tasteful guitar work, "Tired of Being Alone" emerged as Green's first smash hit. These singles appeared on Green's 1971 LP Al Green Gets Next to You, which also included Green's gritty number "I'm a Ram," as well as a cover of blues pianist Roosevelt Sykes's "Driving Wheel." (Green's rendition was inspired by a later remake of the song by blues singer Little Junior Parker.) Green's original "You Say It" owes a debt to Green's early Memphis singing mentors Sam and Dave.

Hit Number One

Green's title cut of the 1972 LP Let's Stay Together brought him his first number one hit. "This third record," observed Robert Gordon in the liner notes to the album, "solidified Green's direction. After modeling himself on Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, he established his own style." In Sweet Soul Music, Peter Guralnick also noted the impact of the Green-Mitchell collaboration on the black music scene: "Willie Mitchell and Al Green would soon take soul music--real, unabashed, wholehearted soul music--to quiet, luxuriantly appointed places it had never been before."

The year 1972 also saw the release of Green's biggest selling album, I'm Still in Love with You, which, with the exception of a token cover of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman," was a showcase for Green's talent. Green drew upon material ranging from the Doors' "Light My Fire" to Kris Kristofferson's "For the Good Times." On the popular and driving number "Love and Happiness," Green conjured up the dual role of preacher and soul singer, creating a pop music classic.

In 1973, according to his memoir Take Me to the River, Green experienced a religious awakening. He wrote that while staying in a hotel, he was suddenly awakened in the night by shouting: "There was something oddly familiar about the voice. Where had I heard it before? It was then I realized the voice was my own." He added, "Jesus himself had laid in wait for me and picked the moment from out of all eternity to reveal Himself in all His glory and splendor."

In 1974 Green released the LP Al Green Explores Your Mind on the Hi label. That same year, the momentum of his career suffered a severe setback. While he was climbing out of the bathtub at his home, Green's girlfriend poured a pot of boiling grits on him, causing second-degree burns to his back and arms. The young woman then committed suicide. After recovering from the physical and emotional affects of the much-publicized incident, Green recorded the 1976 LP Full Of Fire for the Hi label, once again joined by the stellar line-up of Wayne Jackson and the Hodges brothers. In 1977 Green, expressing increasing interest in recording gospel music, parted company with Mitchell and, without the lineup of the Hi rhythm section, recorded the critically acclaimed LP The Belle Album. The album was noted for Green's playing of acoustic and electric guitar and his use of inventive sound techniques. In 1978 Green cut Truth N' Time, an LP that included the gospel songs "Blow Me Down" and "King of All," and a religious treatment of Burt Bacharach's "Say a Little Prayer for Me."

Left Secular Music

In the late 1970s Green purchased his own church, The Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis, and became the institution's pastor. In 1980 Green left secular popular music to devote himself to religion. In the book Black Gospel, Green explained the work involved in his dual role as singer and pastor: "I have to divide my time between my singing and my church in Memphis and well, I do my best to rightly divide it. And I have to devote a sufficient amount of time to do a good job, which is kinda difficult sometimes."

His new religious direction led Green to a modern gospel recording career, and led to the albums Higher Plane (1981) and Precious Lord (1982). Taking note of Green's gospel career, Tony Heilbut commented in The Gospel Sound that Green's voice exhibited "a limber falsetto, a breathless crooner, a growling preacher--in three-way encounter." In 1982 Green also starred in the stage production Your Arms Too Short to Box with God with Patti LaBelle. He signed with A&M Records in 1985 and recorded three albums for the label, including the 1987 release Soul Survivor. In live performance Green continued to awe audiences. In the New York Times Jon Pareles captured Green's on-stage energy in a review of the singer's performance at New York's Radio City in August of 1987: "He would bring a song down to a whisper; he'd break into his clear, agile falsetto, or show off by walking away from the microphone as he sang, projecting his unassisted voice well past the first 20 rows. ... By the final song he was jumping into the air at musical peaks." The year 1987 also saw the release of his documentary, The Gospel According to Green. The 94-minute documentary, co-written and co-produced by Green and Mitchell, featured concert footage and interviews with the two artists.

In 1988 Green appeared at the Nelson Mandela Birthday Concert in London; two years later he performed at the John Lennon Memorial Concert at Peir Head, Liverpool. Green's 1989 A&M album I Get Joy contained the lead track "You're Everything to Me"--a number, as Bill Dahl described in the Chicago Tribune, that "could just as easily be construed as an ode to a lover as to the Lord." Green's 1991 release, One In a Million, for the Word/Epic label, was followed by the LP Love is Reality, a religious-based blend of up-tempo numbers immersed in synth-pop and funk rhythms. Love is Reality contained a set of numbers that, as Bill Dahl wrote in the Chicago Tribune, "are nearly indistinguishable from the standard urban contemporary fare, with slick arrangements and occasionally ambiguous lyrics."

By 1993 Green began to once again record secular material, and in the following year appeared in the music film Rhythm, Country, and Blues, a tribute to the musical cultures of Memphis and Nashville. The film's soundtrack, produced by Don Was, featured a number of musical performances by R&B and country stars, including a duet by Green and Lyle Lovett of "(Ain't it Funny) How Time Slips Away." For his 1995 release for MCA Records, Your Heart's in Good Hands, Green was backed by the legendary Memphis Horns.

By the late 1990s, Green had overcome diminishing record sales and was enjoying a surge of fan interest. His song "Take to Me the River" had become, as a result of a 1980s cover by the Talking Heads, his most famous composition. His 1970s hit "Let's Stay Together" attracted renewed interest when it was featured on the soundtrack to the 1994 film Pulp Fiction. His career received another boost in 1999 when he made a guest appearance on the popular television series Ally McBeal, singing his 1972 song "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart." In 2003 Green worked with his old companion, Willie Mitchell, on the release of I Can't Stop. On this well-reviewed album, Green successfully returned to the sound that made him famous in the 1970s, on such tracks as "I Can't Stop" and "Not Tonight." At the same time, he was receiving recognition for the broad range of his work, with induction into both the Gospel Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.

In 2005 Green released Everything's OK, the first album released under his identity as a preacher. According to Gavin Martin in the London Times, the album blends "earthy testifying and high-flying wonderment" and "treads the secular/sacred divide with panache." Ed Bumgardner wrote in the Winston-Salem Journal, "His vocal power is magical." Also in 2005 Green was chosen to headline the Hampton Jazz Festival in June. In the Virginian Pilot, Craig Shapiro commented that the festival's organizers "could hardly have landed a brighter light than Green."

Through stardom, religious sojourns, and self-resurrection as a pop music performer, Green has remained a dynamic artist whose ability easily crosses the borders of secular and religious music. Unlike his mentor Sam Cooke, who left the church in the late 1950s to embark on a career in pop music, Green left a successful pop recording career to devote himself to God and church. In discussing Green's career, Shaw related in his book that "there is little indication that his immense success as a popular entertainer has brought the serenity he seeks in his colloquies with God." Dividing his time between church and concert stage, Green, whether singing the praises of God or celebrating the temporal joys of life, has remained one of the last of the great soul singers.

by John Cohassey and Kelly Winters

Al Green's Career

Recording artist, 1969-; Full Gospel Tabernacle Church, Memphis, TN, minister, 1976-.

Al Green's Awards

Grammy Awards, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1994; inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1994; inducted into Gospel Hall of Fame, 2004; inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2004; BMI, Icon Award, 2004.

Famous Works

Further Reading

Sources

BooksPeriodicals

Visitor Comments Add a comment…

almost 14 years ago

I work in Home Healthcare and have a 72(tomorrow) patient who just loves and adores Al Green. She watches your Tokyo DVD daily..sings with him, praises the Lord with you. She has ot to be your biggest fan. She has been having alot of health problems latel and wants nothing more for us to get her on her knees so she can pray, i've been working with her daily and feel she's almost ready. It would e her dream come true to hear from you and it would mean the world to me also. Her name is Velma Guider at 6949 DelawareSt. Merrilliville, In. I drive 2 hours a day just to care for this wonderful women and she means the world to me, thank you and God Bless. Margaret Wright(Winamac, IN)