GREEN SHOOTS
And (mostly) scores. All of Al’s Hi albums, rated by
Green Is Blues ★★★ (Hi, 1969)
For his first collaboration with producer Willie Mitchell and the Hi Rhythm Section, Green does Motown (My Girl) Sam Cooke (Talk To Me) and Bobby Bland (I Stand Accused) with only the startling opening track, One Woman, pointing the way forward; a seductive, melancholy tale of moral duplicity in which Al plays both angel and devil.
Gets Next To You ★★★★ (Hi, 1971)
Two roads diverge. For much of Green’s second Hi effort he is tearing up standards (Light My Fire; Driving Wheel) and getting down to muscular Southern soul. But it’s the testifying rework of The Temptations’ I Can’t Get Next To You and Tired Of Being Alone’s sweet physical pleading that points towards a soul road less travelled. Let’s Stay Together ★★★★★ (Hi, 1972)
Green’s first emotionally autobiographical work, caught between the personal and the political (the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the collapse of the Black Panthers). The title track and his cover of The Bee Gees’ How Can You Mend A Broken Heart capture that pain perfectly, anger dampened down into introspection.
I’m Still In Love With You ★★★★★ (Hi, 1972)
Next came the sell-out gigs, the women, and an ever-growing tension between angel-anddevil Al. The Hi Rhythm guys saw it and kept him in check with deep, slow, seductive grooves. Audrey Williams, Hank’s ex, introduced him to For The Good Times, and a new elegant Countrypolitan melancholy was brought into the mix as well. Call Me ★★★★★ (Hi, 1973)
His masterpiece. Al’s inner struggles intensified (You Ought To Be With Me is addressed directly to God), the country covers doubled, and Al’s double-tracked delivery seemingly fluctuates between secular pleasure and religious fear (Jesus Is Waiting), while the sound ascended to a kind of hypnotic exercise in multi-dimensional aural bliss.
Livin’ For You ★★★ (Hi, 1973)
As the live shows became more euphoric, something turned strange in the studio. Born again, but running from God, Green sounds emotionally lost, alternating between a deep weariness (the title track) and creepy paranoia (Beware) while the band sound utterly exhausted, only really coming alive on the playfully off-the-cuff groove of Let’s Get Married.
Explores Your Mind ★★★ (Hi, 1974)
The in-the-pocket proto-disco of Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy); the haunted baptismal funk of Take Me To The River and the sweet gospel gratitude of God Bless Our Love. It all starts so well. But constant touring meant there was little else left in the tank. It’s never bad, per se, although the funk-by-numbers of One Nite Stand comes pretty close.
Al Green Is Love ★★★★ (Hi, 1975)
Recorded following the suicide of his girlfriend Mary Woodson, this is a curiously unsettling record about “the elevation of the mind” which slides from L-O-V-E’s soaring declaration of higher-power devotion to the eerily enigmatic The Love Sermon and There Is Love, where Green chillingly declares, “I know what Santa Claus is about/Glad I never seen him.”
Full Of Fire ★★★ (Hi, 1976)
Another schizophrenic LP from a time when Green was struggling with depression. There is doubt and regret bound up in love songs like There’s No Way but the split is best typified by the pivot from the crawling, paranoid mysticism of That’s The Way It Is to the light, coltish jazz of Always. The centre could not hold.
Have A Good Time ★★ (Hi, 1976)
Deep into religion, Green was preaching on-stage and scaring off fans. In the studio, Willie Mitchell, still reeling from the murder of M.G.’s’ drummer Al Jackson, started to dabble with disco strings and horns. The Hi Rhythm crew are barely detectable, their nerve and identity gone. It’s a sad end to Green and Mitchell’s working partnership.
The Belle Album ★★★★★ (Hi, 1977)
Recorded in his own eight-track studio, with a loose team of semi-pros and the synthetic strings of the Polyphonic Orchestron, The Belle
Album is a weird, rough stylistic rebirth. Playing guitar throughout, Green sounds humbled, discovering his spiritual and country soul in a series of spontaneous born-in-thestudio communions with the Lord.
Truth N’ Time ★★★ (Hi, 1978)
Whatever strange magic was in the studio for The Belle
Album had mostly deserted Green by the time of this follow-up. Aside from the tight Carwash funk of Wait Here (based on The Book Of Job and a leftover from its predecessor) his final Hi recording is but a 26-minute sleepwalk through old Hi styles with little fire or purpose.