Al Green @ M.E.N. Arena
Paul Taylor
30/ 6/2007


29/06/07

AL Green tells a great anecdote about an air stewardess once showing him a picture of her child and confiding “You made me do it”.

“The people at the BBC said I make baby-making music,” Green told the crowd at the M.E.N. Arena. And from hinting at the aphrodisiac powers of soul music, he then launched into a gospel song, praising the Lord unabashed.

   There you had it - the great, intriguing tensions between church and secular, faith and sex, God and getting-on-down which have fuelled so much of the greatest soul music. It’s been there from the very moment Sam Cooke left the Soul Stirrers behind and went for the big bucks.

   Nowhere are those continuing tensions more joyously evident today than in the person of Al Green. He has agonised between his duties to the Lord and his passion for that baby-making music these past 30 years.

Now a bishop of his church, the 61-year old soul preacher mingles romance and worship in music which still aches with soulful expression and drips with raw funk. Al Green has not lost an ounce of his unusual talents.

Nearer My God To Thee

   On the religious side, he led us in a singalong of Amazing Grace, reprised the old Soul Stirrers’ version of Nearer My God To Thee and gave us a mini sermon on the subject of banishing drink and drugs from our lives.

  On the more sensual side, he distributed fistfuls of red roses to the ladies and indulged himself in some stage moves worthy of  the late James Brown.

This was a crowd pleaser of a set. Let’s Stay Together and Let’s Get Married came on strong and muscular, while How Can You Mend A Broken Heart was slow and yearning, but with a fit of giggles from the Rev Green after hearing the tone-deaf caterwauling of a woman in the audience.

There was a tribute to soul greats – the Four Tops’ I Can’t Help Myself, Cooke’s Bring It On Home, The Temptations’ My Girl and much more.

Falsetto

  Then Green sang Tired of Being Alone, deploying the big, imploring falsetto sigh which was always his heart-melting calling card.

   The long-in-the-tooth soul greats often tend to disappoint. They come on with splashy, synthetic  arrangements, closer to Las Vegas than their gospel roots, dish out cheesy medleys and self-serving patter.

   Green remains the real deal. His 12-piece band provide a masterful evocation of the Memphis soul sound. They were never better than on an epic version of Love And Happiness – a song which consisted mainly of a bluesy guitar riff,  pin-sharp stabs of horn, some vocal attitude and more funk than any piece of music has a right to possess.

   “I love you,” Green hollered at the audience over and over. He’s a man of God, so he couldn’t be lying. And, anyway, he was preaching to the converted.

this article is available at:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/entertainment/music/live_reviews/s/1010/1010306_al_green__men_arena.html

Guess who I will be watching tomorrow....?      WooooHoooo !!!

WooooHoooooo....hello everyone...am just home after singing myself hoarse in the Playhouse Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. Our beloved Rev sang to a FULL house and charmed everyone. He can still work an audience and everyone sang along with him, knowing all the words which must please him greatly. The newspaper reports detail everything better than I could write but I CAN say to everyone here...it was FAB, GREAT.