Al Green is 70-years-old today. Here's a moment:Soul Train. March, 1973. Audience packed around the stage. Al Green and Don Cornelius are on the steps in front of everyone. Al is swaying like he's waiting for a bus, squinting at the ground, hands behind his back, scruffy cheeks, green bowtie the size of a lily pad. Al is going to answer some questions and then he's going to sing some songs and then everyone is going to levitate, probably.
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On his cover songs he has an ability to turn something chaste and theoretical and old timey into something hot and vivid, something personal and his. Listen to The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and then listen to his version. The Beatles sound tame, playful, juvenile, like they're leading this girl through a crosswalk. They get her to the front door and say goodnight and walk home with their hands in their pockets. But Al's is a parade. He's begging you to call him your man; he says he wants to hold your hand in the evening, and then in the morning, baby. You can think about what he wants to do in between. Actually, no, he doesn't say he wants to, he says he's "got to." The Beatles are holding your hand; Al is tracing the lines on your palm and ordering room service while you both call in sick to work.Listen to the Temptations' "Can't Get Next to You" and then to his cover. Theirs is pandemonium, talking about changing the seasons with a wave of their hand, multiple leads rotating in and out like tenacious gods. Then listen to Al's. He slows it down to something slow-pulsing in the corner of a dark bar. "Ohhhhh my-my-my," he begins. "I can turn a gray sky blue," he says and blue lasts long enough that it feels like its own verse. Then, at the end, he drops the falsetto; his voice has a low-fi rattle now, like he's almost too close to the microphone. He says he's been trying to call her, he's been trying all day long, but he doesn't have her phone number. There is the heartache in some soul songs that feels whimsical and almost painless (Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" feels like the last day of school before summer vacation; The Chi-Lites' "Oh Girl" is like floating around the lazy river at Disneyworld), and then there is the cold reality of need and want and not being able to do a damn thing about it. Al Green's usually could be both.The Beatles are holding your hand; Al is tracing the lines on your palm and ordering room service while you both call in sick to work.
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Al Green was married, once, for six years. He's never been the best at ever-afters. On "Let's Stay Together" he sang "Baby, since we've been together/ Loving you forever is what I need." In 1973, he wrote a song titled "Let's Get Married." But the fairytale is always tidier than the reality.It's late one night in Memphis in 1974. Al brings home two friends in his Rolls Royce. One is his girlfriend, Mary Woodson. Mary's in the kitchen heating water on the stove. Al's tired. Mary says to him, "Al, honey, have you ever thought about getting married?" Al says, "Married? Maybe we should talk about this in the morning, baby."Al goes upstairs. He's in the bathroom in his underwear brushing his teeth. He's looking in the mirror. Mary comes up behind him and dumps a pot of boiling grits on his back. She runs into the other room. He hears gunshots. Al wrote in his autobiography that he remembers collapsing and feeling the cold porcelain of the bathtub against his skin before someone came to help him.Lots of Al Green's songs seem like a sketch artist rendering of a feeling, but there is always a moment where they become that feeling's mugshot.
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