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Al Green - I Can't Stop


Stefan Wood

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Picked this up yesterday and basically listened to it several times last night. My expectations were met!! This is an outstanding soul album. It is a mixture of Hi records past and Memphis soul present -- As I was listening to this I kept thinking of Syl Johnson's "comeback" album on Delmark in the mid to late 90's, and in some ways this is similar, except that this contains all new tunes. There are some classics here - the title track, "I Can't Stop," to "My Problem is You," "Million to One," "I'd Write a Letter," and more. The arranging and playing is excellent, and Al had not lost anything in vocal range. There are a few weak tracks, and they happen to be near the beginning, with "Raining in My Heart" and "You." Weak because of either the compositions or they just needed to work on the songs a bit more -- they leave the mind once the tune is done, and are eclipsed by the foot stomping tunes I mentioned. The sound is excellent overall, except at times I thought the drums or horns were too high in the mix, or Al's voice a bit down in the mix. Again, these were noticable more in the weaker tracks. The cd really kicks in with track 6, "Not Tonight," evoking the mid to late 70's Al Green, then takes off from there for the rest of the cd. Funny how Cucusna's name is on it, but that's because Al and Willie Mitchell were looking for a label, and was brought in touch with Cucusna. This has nothing to do with Blue Note other than distrubution, but what an album! One of my top faves of the year.

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A review from today's WSJ:

MUSIC

The Rev. Al Green Loosens Up

By ASHLEY KAHN

Memphis, Tenn.

The Rev. Al Green is slightly restless and visibly moved. The 57-year-old soul singer turned church leader is seated in a corner of Royal, this city's oldest active recording studio and a former 1920s movie theater.

Mr. Green, casually dressed in gray running pants, a tiger-pattern jacket and a white T-shirt, a large six-pointed gold star around his neck, points to a battered RCA microphone still reserved for his use only. "There's the old mike No. 9. There's a certain something about this old mike. It's probably haunted!"

The entire garage-sized room has a preserved, spirit-laden air about it: clean, yet with exposed, age-old insulation hanging above; an ancient organ and well-trodden carpet below. Mr. Green looks up and laughs. "He don't want nobody to tear the damn padding off the walls, or take off the old spider webs. He says, 'No, that makes the sound.'"

"He" is producer Willie Mitchell, the man who helped shape Mr. Green's classic soul sound in the early '70s and still runs Royal Studio. Only a few months ago, the two reunited to record Mr. Green's new album, "I Can't Stop," their first collaboration in almost 20 years. That in itself is news. That Mr. Green traced his own footsteps to the site where, over 30 years ago, he first alchemized his enduring, sugar-and-satin formula can be startling. Even for him.

AL GREEN

I Can't Stop

Blue Note Records

Tonight Show With Jay Leno

NBC, 11:35 p.m. EST, tonight

"I would pick any spot in the studio [to stand] except the very same spot where we sang 'Let's Stay Together' and 'Tired of Being Alone' and 'I'm Still in Love With You.' But here I am, and this is it!"

Some historical context: Before Barry White or Marvin Gaye recorded their own takes on bedroom soul, Al Green was already in place as the voice of seduction for an unbuttoned decade. He posed bare-chested on his album covers. His falsetto moan -- straight from the church -- was filled with a longing all could grasp. He put the afro into aphrodisiac, writing songs ("Love and Happiness," "Here I Am," those above) that inspired a generation -- and helped create another.

"I mean, people still show me pictures of a beautiful little kid. I say, OK, what's that about? 'Well, it's because of one of your songs . . .'"

Mr. Green's fans weren't the only ones influenced by the music's sexual charge, the reverend himself confesses. "In my 20s, I was running to the Holiday Inn, kissing and naughty little things. The sins of our youth, OK?" But as the '70s drew to a close, all that changed -- the escapades, the music -- as the singer gradually yielded to a higher calling.

Mr. Green was raised by strict churchgoers. His religious awakening was first triggered in 1973 by what is best described as a late-night visitation. His concerts soon took on a Sunday morning feel as he began preaching between performances of his romantic hits. Mishaps and misfortune deepened his devotion: the suicide of a girlfriend after she tossed boiling grits on him in '74; falling off a stage in '79.

It was also in '79 that "the new Al Green" (as he dubbed himself) became a minister, founded a Memphis church and chose to sing only gospel music. Despite a few pop dalliances over the next two decades (duets with Annie Lennox and Lyle Lovett; a less-than-stellar secular album in '95), he generally held to the line that a true servant of the Lord should be singing neither of romantic love nor physical passion. "If I'm gonna sing blues, then come on sing the blues. If I ain't, let me sing the gospel . . . but don't try to fool the Lord and the Devil," he preached in the 1983 documentary "The Gospel According to Al Green."

Everybody's been waiting on the music. Al Green's new album, "I Can't Stop," is a return to his secular side. "I've got to reach the people," he says.

When that line is read back to him today, Mr. Green sighs and offers an explanation born of experience.

"At that time, I was wrestling with my conversion. I couldn't help the way I felt! The balance I've come to now is the wisdom that spiritual things are spiritual things and carnal things are carnal things, but God made both of them."

The tempering of Mr. Green's zeal, and a recent street-corner encounter with a few fans, helped return the reverend to songs of love and Royal Studio. "I was in Baltimore dressed incognito -- big hat, glasses -- and there were four of them just trying to act like they didn't know me. But one of them kind of just went off. 'Oh Al, you know everybody waitin' on the music.' And that, verbatim, inspired me to go to Willie Mitchell and say, 'Let's do the music.'"

"I Can't Stop" is no mere reunion, nor simple updating; the album artfully weaves the old (same studio and most of his studio musicians from the '70s) and the new (freshly minted ballads and blues) into a satisfying portrait of the singer in middle age. Mr. Green's voice is more robust now, yet ably delivers the emotive squeal of his youth. One critic describes the collection as "a whole new dish for a feast, a lot more than just reheated leftovers." Mr. Green is more humble. "I heard it a couple of times -- sounds pretty good."

The 12 tunes render familiar sensuality with nary a mention of Jesus. The title track is a declaration of perseverance with disco-era flourishes. "My Problem Is You" is an unhurried blues that conjures the best of Bobby Bland, Little Milton and others ("The blues is what makes Memphis; Memphis, what makes B.B. King, B.B. King.") "Rainin' In My Heart" is a slow-as-molasses heart-dragger, while the upbeat "I'd Still Choose You" is Mr. Green's admitted favorite. He dismisses a request to identify the tune's inspiration: "That's my business. I tell you my business, I won't have none."

Nonetheless, the refrain -- "If I had to do it all over/I'd still choose you" -- reveals much of the reverend's present-day philosophy, answering the God-fearing who might have trouble with lyrics addressing "girl" and "baby" rather than the Lord. But Mr. Green, it seems, has divine support. "I asked God about 'baby.' God said, 'Don't get too carried away with the baby part. If you mean what you say, then do it.' So I did it.

"I've got to reach the people. They want to hear 'Baby I love you,' 'I'll never choose another.' That whole lifestyle, the family, the husband, the wife, the kids, the staying together, is what I promote.

With a look, Mr. Green lets on that he's done. He adds one last point.

"I was having to answer a question for the churches. They said to me, 'Well, Reverend? How should we receive this secular album that you've put out here?' I would say everybody in this room got here some kind of way and it wasn't all just holding hands."

Mr. Kahn is an independent journalist and author of "A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album."

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  • 2 weeks later...

Read an interesting fact recently. This cd sold 33,972 units in its first week. Not too bad, and the resaon BN signed Green in the first place. I wonder how Green's numbers stack up to someone like Jason Moran.

FWIW, the Amazon sales ranking for the new Al Green CD is #39. For Moran's "Bandwagon," it is 5,921. "Modernistic" is 18,480.

My guess is that the new Green outsold the new Moran 10 to 1. Frankly, most jazz sales are miniscule. Once acceptable to Alfred Lion (and even he wanted a "Sidewinder" every so often) but not to EMI.

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