AL GREEN: CLASSIC OR DUD?

Listen to "Beware." Savor that outro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pupeAPWStR4

minor coincidences on Let's Stay Together and I'm Still in Love With You:

- both released in 1972
- the first side of each features 5 songs, leading off with the legendary title track co-written with Jackson and Mitchell, along with a second co-write with one other musician, and 3 solo green credits.
- the second side of each features 4 songs, starting with 2 covers, and ending with 2 al green originals (although "Look what you done for me" has to ruin it by being a co-write with Mitchell and Jackson)

They're not bad but the songwriting, once tight as hell, starts to develop flab.

yeah, that was generally my feeling about Livin' for You, and allmusic reviews and the like kind of paint a similar picture with Is Love, Have a Good Time, and Full of Fire.

thing is, i would listen to him sing a phone book, so they're still solid. it's hard for there to be a bad al green song.

the thing about have a good time is that it has 'something' on it and that's easily his best ballad and maybe even his best song, full stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX84PMkoCuE

also: not to worry, it's not the beatles tune.

oh dang, i will listen to that in a moment! that's exactly what i'm looking for - that gem that makes the whole album worth having, if you can find it.

i splurged the other night and got several albums that i've been meaning to get for a long, long time - the 2 ur-legendary al greens i mentioned above, but also Curtis and Muddy Waters Sings 'Big Bill'. my living room is a nice place to be, for a few hours

Livin' For You is a hair's breath less amazing than Call Me.

I was scared to open this thread. When I saw him at Jazzfest last year he was in noticeably not great health and voice. That billboard is beyond awesome.

I have everything from Al Green Gets Next to You through Livin' For You, an unimpeachable five album run, and I have The Belle Album which is also great, but I wound up selling off the four albums in between. The stuff I'd want from those four I already have on a compilation - and it is great stuff - but I didn't feel like those albums had the material to sustain them for the whole LP.

Beyond that, Love Ritual is a great archive/rarities collection, and for someone decades past his hit-making days, I Can't Stop and Lay It Down has some fine cuts. They don't hold up as great albums on closer listening, but there are a few great tracks and at minimum the albums sound good playing in the background.

Wish there was a great live video somewhere, but at least there's some prime shit on YouTube. (The live album from Japan isn't bad, but it feels lacking. Honestly, live albums feel more and more lacking in the age of YouTube.)

Like CCR, a casual fan could live with the famous Greatest Hits never suspecting how the studio albums boast gestalt, deep cuts, and looser arrangements.

*As with CCR

Marley's Legend, too. Wall to wall great tracks, but there's so much more out there.

oh dang, i will listen to that in a moment! that's exactly what i'm looking for - that gem that makes the whole album worth having, if you can find it.

teenie hodges deserves credit for some of those perfect but unlikely chord changes.

yup

I got to meet Teenie once. He was playing a club in New Orleans, and dressed like a ninja.

was he trying to play music in secret?

I was scared to open this thread. When I saw him at Jazzfest last year he was in noticeably not great health and voice. That billboard is beyond awesome.

― Orson Well Yeah (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, September 2, 2020 7:57 PM

Too bad. He looked well and sounded pretty good at his church when I saw him there in August 2017. Although he didn't sound quite as good as when I first saw him outside DC at Wolf Trap Farm Park many years before that.

I saw him in 2012, his "Amazing Grace" was fantastic that evening

Saw him in May last year, and he mentioned difficulties in the past year (alluding to health difficulties). But he was fine and in good spirits walking around, especially when handing out one rose after another. I didn't expect his singing to be in his '70s or even '00s form, especially at 72, but he was mostly fine and there were sublime moments.

I could never get into Al Green. Obviously his own voice is fantastic, but there's something about his stuff that's just really flat. I don't know if it's the production jobs or whatever, but the actual music invariably sounds a bit lifeless.

Lifeless ??
I mean, it's all a question of taste obviously, but lifeless is quite an amazingly mind boggling description of his music !
It's so vibrant and groovy and sensual. Love him.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEprvjwA4ZJ/

(Ah, of course that was what revived this thread in the first name--apologies for the double-poewhoawhoawhoawhoast [it is the Al thread after all])

(place, that is)

he was mostly fine and there were sublime moments.

Just wanted to add that this was really my experience too. The health/voice concerns were mostly when he seemed winded and would sit and sip Gatorade for a bit and let the audience singalong power the song. The high points of the show were joyous.

https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/festivals/article_2e73dbe9-8dce-5107-9486-aa5226689125.html

want to just stick up for "truth n' time" which, while maybe not on par with the peak HI / hodges / willie mitchell records, i think is definitely worth a spin. and it will only take less than 27 minutes of your time !

This might work on the 'songs which' thread but listening to the Belle Album and wondering if, like in the title track, there are any other tracks which are explicitly about a threesome with big JC?

Dylan's "Covenant Woman".

Shout Factory TV posted this on YouTube a month ago - it's the full episode but skip to 22:00, Green starts his half-hour set after the break. Grab it while you can, this is some damn hot shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBjBgVwbCw4

h/t to Jimmy McDonough who turned me on to this appearance.

Man, it's actually not a half-hour, it's two songs, then a third about 20 minutes later, but still great stuff, especially for how it's shot.

The second number, "I'm So Tired of Being Alone," is just AWESOME, especially when the camera floats up close and circles to his front. Just a flat-out AMAZING performance.

Wow thanks for that it’s fantastic indeed !
What a magnetic performer.

h/t to Jimmy McDonough who turned me on to this appearance.

This is another of those threads we all have to be careful bumping. (throws salt over shoulder.)

Do love the gets next ToYou album which is where teh studio version of the Tired of being Alone appears.
I think the version soul/r'n'b that the band is playing on that lp is about an absolute apex of teh form for me but was apparently just a point the band was passing through on their way somewhere else.

Finding something similar with the band backing Little Richard on the Rill Thing. Sublime but I think just a transitory thing that was part of a longer curve or not dependent on whether that band actually played together more. Still would love to find more of the sound both of those records coalesce to individually.

knowarrimean

Is it mentioned in the bio?

Yes, but it kind of gets a brief mention in his Neil Young bio. The TV show wasn't available (or at least easily found) when I read it years ago, so I forgot about it, and then flipping through the book again, I was reminded of it. He brings it up in the chapter on Freedom while listing other great TV musical performances.

McDonough doesn't actually focus on the broadcast uploaded by Shout Factory. According to his Al Green bio, Green made TWO appearances on Soul! that year. By the time Green did the latter, he had blown up into an enormous star, and he was invited as the only guest. He gets the full hour, and it's apparently treasured by some Al Green aficionados as his greatest live performance on film or record: http://www.trunkworthy.com/witness-al-greens-finest-hour-a-moving-soothing-grooving-dose-of-soul/ (Bits and pieces can be found on YouTube, but unlike the earlier appearance I posted, there's no official upload, much less one that's been restored or sourced from the original broadcast master.)

McDonough doesn't say much about the earlier broadcast, but despite its brevity, that appearance has one big advantage over the later performance: the camera work. Unlike the later appearance, they've cleared out the floor space around Green, allowing them to place their cameras MUCH closer, and it makes a world of a difference - you see every nuance in his face and gestures including some long, unbroken shots of Green in close-up. It's so good, it's actually disappointing we only get three songs.

thanks a lot for posting that. i am very tempted to screen/video capture it so i can keep it after it gets taken down. the performance and filming of "tired of being alone", in particular, is astounding. the set is minimal, but whoever filmed it did a fantastic job. starting with his velvet-tipped shoes, profile shot from the side, catching him tapping his foot, panning up to the face, with the black background. and he is in peak, al green handsome, perfect voice, can do no wrong, no surprise. already some small beads of sweat showing on his forehead. the second verse comes around and the camera slowly shifts from the profile to the front shot, with this lovely era-specific soft-orange glow. i'm not sure words are appropriate for the magnificence of that middle 1/3 of the performance. then the final verse/chorus, a final shift of the camera and zoom out, to show his band behind him as he brings it home.

i think it's all one shot, too? brilliant performance.

i watched the rest of the show, too. holy shit. that was a good fucking show and i would like to track down the rest of the episodes too.

i watched the rest of the show, too. holy shit. that was a good fucking show and i would like to track down the rest of the episodes too.

Shout Factory seems to have put up a bunch from the masters, but I'm hoping they or someone get around to the Stevie Wonder episode. He plays for the entire 60 minute show and is amazing.

yeah, i took a moment to dream on this wikipedia paragraph:

Among the musical performers who appeared on the show were Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind, and Fire, the Dells, Ashford and Simpson,[3] Al Green, Tito Puente, McCoy Tyner, Max Roach, Gladys Knight, The Delfonics, Kool & The Gang, Mandrill, and Black Ivory, as well as African performers Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba.[5] Others who appeared on the program included boxer Muhammad Ali, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, minister (later politician) Jesse Jackson, actor / singer Harry Belafonte, actor Sidney Poitier,[5] and Kathleen Cleaver, wife of Eldridge Cleaver.[6] Legendary poetry collective The Last Poets also performed on the show.[7]

patti labelle on the premiere, too

that’s great footage of a wonderful performance!

a propos of nothing: Al Green has been one of my all-time favourite artists for more or less forever, and yet I never realised what an incredibly hot guy he was in his prime.

i think it's all one shot, too? brilliant performance.

You're right, they did that whole song in ONE shot!

There's another priceless moment in "Let's Stay Together." For the bulk of it, the camera's off to the side, so Green's rarely looking at the camera...but deep into the song, right after he sings "But you'd never do that to me?" he glances to the left, finds the camera, and flashes that awesome, seductive smile and croons "...would you baby?" Even without the video, it would've been awesome because his phrasing is ridiculously perfect. But seeing it? DAMN.

yet I never realised what an incredibly hot guy he was in his prime.

i think there's an unspoken understanding among all people in relationships that if 1971 al green shows up at your door and wants to sweet talk one or both of you and maybe stay up til 3 o clock in the morn, then that's just going to happen

PBS just ran an Independent Lens doc on Soul!! last week. Questlove raves about those Al performances.

_yet I never realised what an incredibly hot guy he was in his prime._

i think there's an unspoken understanding among all people in relationships that if 1971 al green shows up at your door and wants to sweet talk one or both of you and maybe stay up til 3 o clock in the morn, then that's just going to happen

got kind of worried when i saw the revive but instead it's just exactly the kind of ho-hum "best ever is best ever" revive that i love to see all day every day.

Here's another favorite, from a Soul Train appearance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vntdKHhhWw

Quality isn't great - looks like a VHS recording - but Green's amazing, incredibly lively even with his arm in a sling.

"Have You Been Making Out Okay with Al Green?"

more than okay, friend ;)