Hi JackyM & UK fans!

If you cannot find the new expanded edition of "The Belle Album" CD in stores, you can purchase it online.  I found it on www.amazon.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000F2CAMO/qid=1148820687/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl/203-8858213-4661549

Capitol Records' re-release of Al Green's "The Belle Album/Expanded Edition" is another example of a new-and-improved CD edition.

snipped from:

http://www.calendarlive.com/music/cl-et-hilburn8aug08,0,7121426.story?coll=cl-music-features

Al Green
"The Belle Album/Expanded Edition" (Capitol/Hi)

The back story: There are moments when I'd place Green above both Ray Charles and Sam Cooke as our greatest male soul singer, and his version of the title tune of this album is one of them.

Part of Green's appeal is how he surprises us with sudden shifts in vocal phrasing and tone — moving in a single song from bursts of falsetto to teasing growls to almost a whisper.

"The Belle Album" marked Green's turn to gospel music in the 1977, and a lot was at stake for Green, who had broken with longtime producer Willie Mitchell and Mitchell's band, to assert more control over his work.

The tension of that move adds to the power of the music. "It was the most important release of my life," Green says in the liner notes. "I had to leave the sensual for the spiritual."

The key line in the title song is directed at a woman, but he could also have been speaking to his old pop fans, explaining why he would sacrifice his massive commercial standing to sing about God: "Belle, the Lord and I have been friends for a mighty long time ... /Belle, it's you that I want/ But it's Him that I need."

Whereas Green's earlier pop albums regularly broke into the national Top 20, "Belle" failed to crack the Top 100. But it remains a stirring document of faith and commitment.

Special features: Capitol released "The Belle Album" in its original eight-song version in 1995. This expanded version contains three previously unreleased tracks, one of which ("Running Out of Time") outshines several of the tunes on "Belle."