Artists

Al Green

He has been called 'the quintessential soul man,' and certainly Al Green's highly distinctive vocal style has not only assured him a permanent place in contemporary history but inspired a whole generation of young singers. An eight-time Grammy winner and inductee into The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Al has been thrilling audiences the world over with his emotive blend of gospel and R&B for close to three decades now: as Your Heart's In Good Hands, his superlative new album for MCA Records shows, he's sounding better than ever. Hitmaking producers Narada Michael Walden and DeVante are among the exciting creative personnel involved in crafting Al's first secular album in eighteen years. Grammy winner Walden produced the infectious title track (and first single), written specifically for Al by renowned songwriter Diane Warren; while Jodeci's DeVante produced, wrote and arranged "Could This Be Love," with his fellow group members supplying backup vocals for a track tailor-made for the Memphis-based musical legend. David Steele and Andy Cox of (Fine Young Cannibals) produced five tracks including a fine cover of the Temptations' 1965 chestnut, "Don't Look Back." Arthur Baker, who has worked with Al on a variety of projects in the last few years contrived three tunes in all (with one track, "Keep On Pushing Love," co-produced with Tommy Farragher), and served as the album's executive producer. Talking about the album's lyrical theme, Al -- who co-wrote six of the albums ten tracks notes, "Love is the message ... and the message is love.

After eighteen years of recording gospel music, this album is a continuation of who I am musically. Whenever I've done shows, I've had to include hits like "Let's Stay Together," and "Tired of Being Alone" because that's what the people want to hear. My gospel audiences know that I was in this business before I started recording gospel. When it came time to do a new album, I thought, 'love is a good thing - I can sing about that' and that's what I did all through this record." From the upbeat "One Love" to the lilting feel of the standout R&B ballad, "Your Love, Al's new album fuses '70's Memphis sensibility with '90's rhythms and grooves. The result is truly emotionally satisfying: tunes like "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" (which makes lyrical references to many of Al's classic '70s hits) and "What Does It Take" typify the creative approach taken on Your Heart's In Good Hands. With members of The Memphis Horns, Andrew Love, and Wayne Jackson (who played on Al's original string of hits for Hi Records) are among the musical guests on the album. Says Al, "Each of the songs has that special soulful ingredient. I'm very excited about record. Everybody who worked on it put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into making this album ... I'm very proud of what we did." Making great music is nothing new for Al Green, who was ordained as the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in Memphis in 1976.

Born in Forrest City, Arkansas, Al's earliest years were steeped in gospel: he toured with his father Robert Green as part of the family group The Green Brothers. Moving to Grand Rapids, Michigan in the mid-'60s, he formed his own group - Al Green and the Creations - before becoming lead singer with another group known as The Soul Mates. It was with this musical team that Al first tasted chart success when the song "Back Up Train" became a Top 5 R&B hit and Top 50 single as 1967 became 1968. Two years later, Al began his solo career, singing with Memphis-based Hi Records. Teaming with producer and noted instrumentalist Willie Mitchell in 1970, Al spent the next eight years racking up an unprecedented eight million-selling singles including "Tired Of Being Alone," "Let's Stay Together," "Look What You Done For Me," "I'm Still In Love With You," "You Ought To Be With Me, " "Call Me (Come Back Home)," "Here I Am (Come And Take Me)," and "Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)." In all, Al enjoyed six R&B chartoppers out of some twenty-six hit singles from 1970 to 1979. Fourteen of Al's albums appeared on the nation's Top 200 charts, five of which were certified gold. Al's exciting 'live' performances garnered rave reviews and won him a loyal fan base throughout the world.

Other triumphs included a stint in the Broadway musical "Your Arm's Too Short To Box With God" (with Patti LaBelle), and in 1983, Al recorded his first all-gospel album "The Lord Will Make A Way." Over the next six years, the right Reverend Green recorded nine best selling gospel albums, returning to the secular music charts in 1987 with "Everything Is Gonna Be Alright." A year later, a duet with Annie Lennox covering the '70s classic, "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" (featured on the soundtrack for the movie "Scrooged") gave Al a Top 20 pop hit. In 1989, "As Long As We're Together" featuring singer Al B. Sure! took Al back to the R&B Top 30 for the first time in ten years. While continuing with his ministry in Memphis, Al has taken time to tour worldwide over the past few years. Performing a mixture of gospel and R&B favorites, Al's global audience has continued to expand and in 1993, he began recording for BMG International. That year, his first album for the company "Don't Look Back" was released in different territories outside the U.S. and eight of the tracks form the basis for Your Heart's In Good Hands.

Al's association with MCA Records began as a result of his participation on the company's platinum-plus "Rhythm, Country, And Blues." His duet with Lyle Lovett on "Funny How Time Slips Away" was one of the album's standouts prompting Al Teller, CEO of MCA's Music Entertainment, a longtime admirer of Al Green's soulful vocal style to work with BMG International to secure the U.S. release of Al's first all-secular album since 1977's "Belle" set. With a "Greatest Hits" album on the nation's Top 200 album chart, 1995 appearances on major television shows (including "The Tonight show with Jay Leno," and The David Letterman Show"), and a showstopping performance with soul queen Aretha Franklin at the opening of The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Al Green's career is reaching a new plateau. Sure to satisfy Al's many staunch fans as well as creating awareness among a whole new generation of music lovers, Your Heart's In Good Hands is a '90s soul classic. "I feel good because I think this album shows that I'm the kind of guy who won't change his style, no matter whose music's hot," says the right Reverend. As his latest work shows, Al Green is a one-of-a-kind artist, a soul legend whose music bridges generations, and is quite simply timeless.

2nd Bio:
"Don't you remember me? I'm Al Green." It was six o'clock in the morning, nearly two months since producer Willie Mitchell had asked Al to come to Memphis to record with him. Now, here he was, knocking Willie awake for a bright and early start.

Recovering from the initial surprise, Mitchell invited Al to begin the easy relationship and the near telepathic communication they would share throughout the ensuing years. Almost immediately Al began to settle into his new musical home, Royal Recording Studios, the home base of Hi Records. Royal to this day is a renovated movie house in South Memphis, used by Bill Black, Ace Cannon, and Mitchell to record classic instrumentals during the 50's and 60's. Ironically, it is just around the corner from another well-known renovated theater known for its earthy tracks of Southern Soul: Stax.

Big plans were devised for Al. What had caught Mitchell's ear was not so much Al's gritty soulfulness but rather his unique ability to sweeten a phrase and release it softly. It was exactly the voice capable of counterpunching with the legendary Memphis Horns as it floated above the Hi Rhythm section, the superb house band comprised of Howard Grimes on percussion and the Hodges brothers -- Teenie on guitar, Leroy on bass, and Charles on keyboards -- that formed the nucleus of the Hi sound.

All the ingredients were in place for Al to offer a sweeter, more-refined take on the rawer formulas that, over time, were becoming worn, staid. Falling just shy of the towering achievements Al was soon to make, his debut album, Green is Blues, nevertheless was an impressive outing peppered with cover songs by the Beatles and Gershwin. Critics and astute fans alike took note, for here was an original voice that bore watching.

It didn't take long for Al to hit his stride. One album, in fact. His very next outing, Al Green Gets Next to You, shed most of the remaining deference's to the gritty grooves coming out of Stax and Muscle Shoals; instead it kindled the sultry sparks thrown off by songs like "I Can't Get Next to You" and "Are You Lonely for Me Baby" into the passionate flames of "Tired of Being Alone," the first of many hits to land in the upper heights of the charts. Make no mistake, this was luxurious, elegant music readily accessible to the sophisticated and common folks alike. It transcended "mere" soul.

Anyone who thought Al might quickly fade into a quick-hit sunset was sadly mistaken, for Al had traveled those roads before in Michigan. He was now surrounded with some of the most talented writers (namely Al Green himself!), arrangers, and musicians Memphis had on offer -- no small order. For his next serving of sumptuous soul, Al served up Let's Stay Together, featuring the self-penned smash title cut which achieved the lofty accomplishment of topping both the pop and r&b charts. For those who have yet to experience this classic recording, the gospel-tinged yearning of "Old Time Love" and Al's mesmerizing take on the Bee Gee's "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" are not to be missed.

Al, most assuredly, was on a roll. His talent was undeniable, a generous measure of success assured. The only questions were: Could he keep up the hits? And if so, how? By this time, Willie had convinced Al that the mix should be sweetened even more than before, that Al's swooning falsetto might blend with strings to create an undeniably lush "ultra-cool." Al was about to register a most astonishing phase in all of soul.

Released the same year as Let's Stay Together (1972), I'm Still in Love With You is perhaps half a brushstroke from being a masterpiece. Most obvious are the Top 10 hits, "I'm Still in Love With You," a tender declaration of love tettering much too close to the precipice, and "Look What You Done for Me," an upbeat, sassy tonic to love's vagaries. Tucked in the middle is the kind of joyous classic by which Al Green is best known, "Love and Happiness," a driving cover of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" and a haunting remake of Kristofferson's "For the Good Times" that sounds as if it pains each note to be played.

Call Me, released the following year, is the elusive masterpiece few artists achieve. It's a towering manifesto to the devastating powers of love. Starting with the top hit gems, there's the title track, which peaked at #10, "Here I Am," which leveled out at #2 r&b, and the chart-topping "You Ought To Be With Me." Each explores a mature dimension of love, one that expresses yearning and loss and promise, the same themes that are yoked to empathy in the elegiac "Have You Been Making Out O.K." Every cut is a wonder. From the upbeat thumper, "Stand Up" to the indescribably beautiful turns of the country classics "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away," Call Me is a miracle of exacting song selection and of the perfect song executed perfectly.

But Al's golden run was far from over. His follow ups, Livin' For You and Al Green Explores Your Mind mined the same rich musical vein as his previous releases, turning up such nuggets as "Livin' For You" (#19), " Let's Get Married" (#22), "Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)", possibly Al's most exuberant cut, and the cathartic "Take Me to the River" which cleanses the listener in much the same way old spirituals sung in the Arkansas Delta must have in earlier times.

No, Al wasn't through. He had yet to record the ebullient Al Green Is Love , Full of Fire, or Have a Good Time, all solid sessions yielding the timeless Al Green style, shimmering on each precious cut. Increasingly however, even as Al maintained his status as a soul superstar, his gospel roots and the firm religious foundation his parents had instilled in each of their children began to predominate his thoughts. Religious songs had always been welcomed on his albums -- "God Is Standing By" (Al Green Gets Next to You); "God Blessed Our Love" (Al Green Explores Your Mind); "Jesus is Waiting" (Call Me); "My God Is Real"(Livin' For You) -- but now, unbeknownst to his millions of fans worldwide, Al was in spiritual turmoil. The critical question that began to dominate his every thought was this: Could he in good conscience continue to receive the musical praise he was receiving, or was it now time for him to give musical praise to One more worthy?