The
Reverend Al Green is known the world over for his extraordinary voice,
his unmistakable sound and his legendary hits. With Everything’s
OK, his new release for Blue Note Records, Al Green comes to an
exciting new chapter in his artistry. Strong in voice and in spirit, the
Rock & Roll Hall of Famer sings a dozen songs that reveal his
renewed passion for the kind of music that made him a household name
some 30 years ago.
It was in the early 1970s that
Green carved his place in music history with a run of celebrated hits
that made him not just an R&B star but a pop icon. Since 1976,
however, Green has concentrated on gospel music (recording numerous
albums, but only two pop offerings), and since 1979 has led his Baptist
congregation, the Full Gospel Tabernacle, in Memphis, Tenn. For Everything’s
OK, Green embraces both worlds by releasing a "secular"
album under the name the Reverend Al Green—a symbolic gesture,
perhaps, but a significant one nonetheless.
"I wanted to put on this
album who I am—to 'fess up to it," Green says, laughing.
"I'm the Reverend Al Green, and everybody calls me that, from
Argentina all the way to the Catskills. So that's who I am.
Everything’s OK
is not a gospel album, however—musically, it draws on classic R&B
and pop, and the lyrics speak of love relationships and life lessons.
But for Green, 58, it has come time to spread his message beyond the
pulpit.
"I've got people in the
church saying, 'That's a secular song,' and I'm saying, Yeah, but you've
got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday to be
anything other than spiritual. You've got to live those days, too!"
says Green, clearly revitalized by his latest recording. "Everybody
still needs love, needs happiness in the family, needs to keep the kids
on track."
For Everything’s OK,
Green once again teamed up with producer and arranger Willie Mitchell at
Mitchell's Royal Recording Studios, the same studio where the two
recorded those early hits—classics including "Tired of Being
Alone," "Let's Stay Together," "I Can't Get Next to
You," "I'm Still in Love With You," "Call Me,"
"Here I Am," "Let's Get Married" and "Love and
Happiness." Green also reunited with Mitchell for his 2002 Blue
Note debut, I Can’t Stop. (That recording was their first
collaboration since 1985, when they recorded the gospel album He Is
The Light.)
To explain what brought the two
back together, Green says, "Willie has that twinkle in his eye, he
has a talent. He's the founder of the Al Green sound, that personal
sound. It's finishing the aural painting that we started with 'Tired of
Being Alone,' 'Let's Stay Together,' 'For the Good Times' and all those
things. It's a beautiful painting and we should finish it, so that's
what we're doing."
In fact, their renewed
partnership inspired the album's title. "We've been recording now
for 32 years, and we went through some hills and valleys, some low
points and high points, some great spots and not-so-great spots. But we
looked around and we said 'Hey! Everything's OK!' Regardless of how we
thought it would turn out, everything has turned out OK."
Actually, better than OK, as
proved by this recording and recent concerts (including Green's
show-stealing version of "What'd I Say" on the recent CBS TV
special Genius: A Night For Ray Charles). Throughout the album,
Green's voice is strong, his performances spirited. Hear him sweetly
pleading on "Be My Baby," rejoicing on "Another Day"
and "I Can Make Music," grooving on "Build Me Up."
Listen for that unmistakable falsetto on "I Wanna Hold You,"
and for his trademark screams throughout the album.
On ballads ("Perfect to
Me," "Real Love") Green is sweetly restrained as he sings
straight from the heart, his voice real, intimate, and genuine. And for
his tender rendition of "You Are So Beautiful," a cover of the
song made famous by Joe Cocker, Green reworks the melody with subtle yet
emotionally powerful turns, instantly making the song his own.
"That was Willie Mitchell's baby," Green says. "He loves
that song, and I already knew it because I love Joe Cocker. Willie told
me 'Let your guards down, and then just sing it,' and that's what I
tried to do." His vocals perfectly offset Mitchell's understated
arrangement of organ, strings and woodwinds.
Listen too for the sound of
joy, heard in the flow of Green's lyrical improvisations, in the
laughter in his voice, and in the sound of him literally dancing around
the vocal booth.
"Willie tried to get me to
stay quiet, to stay still, but it's hard to stay still singing something
like 'You Are So Beautiful' or 'Nobody but You,' or 'I Can Make
Music." I mean, how am I supposed to stay still? So he said, 'Well,
just go on then, as long as we get it on tape.'" In fact, on
"Perfect to Me," the song fades out as Green insists,
"That's all I got to say," while actually dancing out of the
vocal booth, still singing.
Of the album's 12 tracks, six
were written by Green alone ("Real Love," "Be My
Baby," "Magic Road," "I Wanna Hold You,"
"Another Day," "All the Time"). In these songs,
Green revisits the intimate sound he began exploring with 1977's The
Belle Album and 1978's Truth And Time, albums he produced
himself at his own American Music studio. In 1979, Green devoted himself
to gospel music, recording a series of albums that have earned him eight
Grammy’s in gospel categories (Green also received two nominations for
I Can’t Stop in this year’s 47th Annual Grammy
Awards, one for Best R&B Album and one for Best Traditional R&B
Vocal Performance for the title track).
Green started singing
professionally at age 9, when he and his brothers formed a gospel
quartet, the Greene Brothers, in their hometown of Forest City,
Arkansas. (Green dropped the final "e" from his surname when
he went solo.) They toured the gospel circuits in the South, and then
began performing around Michigan when the family relocated to Grand
Rapids. At 16, Green formed a pop group, Al Greene and the Creations,
with high school friends, and they released a single, "Back Up
Train," in 1967 (under the new name Al Greene and the Soul Mates)
that went to #5 on the national R&B chart.
Green and Mitchell's historic
meeting took place in 1969, soon after Green decided to go solo.
Mitchell—by then a renowned bandleader, arranger and trumpeter—hired
the young singer to front his band for a gig in Midland, Texas, and
hearing something special, approached Green after the show. "I told
him, ‘You come to Memphis and you can be a star,'" Mitchell says.
"Al asked me, 'How long?' and I said 'Eighteen months, it's going
to take a little work.' He told me he didn't have that much time,"
says Mitchell, laughing. Green quickly reconsidered, though. "I
didn't have any money," Green says, "so I told him, 'About
this star thing, if that's what you really wanna do, fine—but I need
fifteen hundred dollars.’"
Green signed to Mitchell's Hi
Records label and began recording at Royal, with Mitchell arranging,
producing and engineering the sessions himself. Mitchell also coached
Green, pushing him to find his own, unique voice. "I was trying to
sing like Jackie Wilson and Wilson Pickett and James Brown and Sam
Cooke," Green says of those early days. "And Willie said 'Just
sing like you.' I didn't know what that was, and so we just had to find
that balance."
"It took a long time to
find it," Mitchell adds," but we did it by working from 11am
'til two in the morning, every day. 'Can't Get Next to You' was close,
but 'Tired of Being Alone' was it." Indeed, Green and Mitchell
collaborated to shape a sound that defines its own place in pop and
R&B music. They recorded eight albums that sold over 20 million
copies worldwide, working together until 1976.
Nearly 30 years later, Everything’s
OK returns to and updates the signature sound that Green and
Mitchell pioneered, a sensuous groove layered with strings and horns
that showcased Green's remarkable voice. And with this album, Green is
coming full circle, embracing his world inside and outside the church.
"This minister wrote me a
letter saying we need an apostle, someone who can be a positive
influence outside of the religious community, someone to preach love and
happiness," says Green. "He said, 'Al, please step up to the
plate and take that position. You've got to be the apostle!'
"It means that, when you
come home from work, tell your wife 'You Are So Beautiful.' Bring her a
dozen roses—or one rose—and take her in your arms and tell her, ‘Hon,
I'm knocked out from work and I'm so glad dinner's ready.’ Tell her,
'Nobody But You' I don't even want anybody else but you. Tell her
'Everything's OK,' honey, we can make it.
"The music is the message,
the message is the music. So that's my little ministry that the Big Man
upstairs gave to me—a little ministry called love and happiness."
