An Al Green Mystery

Could the best Al Green album in decades, perhaps the best album this year, actually be a decade old release? That’s the mystery I found myself in. Let me explain:

I’ve been known to bounce from streaming music service to streaming music service having done my time with Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music to name a few in the rotation (remember Mog?). Lately I’ve been using Amazon Music with its Ultra HD and Dolby Atmos offerings.

With Amazon, I check the “new” listings on a regular basis. It’s where I might listen to Bruce Springsteen’s new album Only the Strong Survive (Nightshift is terrific; the rest of the record less so); or discover Lainey Wilson’s Bell Bottom Country or that there’s a new Neil Young album World Record one of the half-dozen he has released this year (it’s awful but every so often Neil has a need to strike out),

So there I was, looking at the new releases on Amazon Music, when I saw what was advertised as a new album Al Green: Soul Legend (featuring Corinne Bailey Rae and Anthony Hamilton). I like both of them, so I was in.

Before I dive in, let me say that the album cover (or rather the thumbnail photo provided as a cover) featured a gleaming old-fashioned microphone. This is meaningful because a while ago when superstar producer (and Blue Note Records label President) the one-of-a-kind Don Was was producing an Al Green album, hoping to recapture the classic sound of Green’s early records, Was was determined to not only return Green to the same studio where he recorded his hits, but to use the very same microphone he used then, believing that as analog can deliver what digital can’t, this old school microphone was a lucky amulet.

Now, I don’t know if the microphone on the cover of Al Green: Soul Legend is that same microphone, or even is meant to signal that microphone’s use – but I took it as a signifier that I was in store for some deep Al Green grooves.

I wasn’t disappointed. Starting from the opening chords and horns on Take Your Time and the dulcet Corrine Bailey Rae leaning back on the beat, floating above and around the chorus, waiting until Al Green comes in, whispering, growling softly, and hitting his falsetto to push to the chorus.

How do I describe this? You know how you feel when you eat the best burrata you’ve ever had, and all the pleasure sensors in your brain shower you with happiness? That’s the feeling of this album which also features John Legend on Stay With Me a slow jam par excellence.

All I Need, Too Much, You’ve got the Love (I need) – you feel like you know these songs already and you may well have because…. Well, here’s where we get to the mystery.

When I heard Lay it Down featuring Anthony Hamilton, I thought this is awfully familiar. Then I went online to see who had produced Soul Legend – and I discovered that, in fact, Lay it Down was the name of a 2008 Blue Note Al Green release, one that features pretty much the same songs in a different order – and given that it’s a Blue Note Record (the third of a series of records Al Green did for Blue Note), Don Was may well have been involved. He may even have suggested putting that picture of a old school microphone as a record cover/thumbnail photo.

So was I listening to a new record, an old record, or a new version of an old record? And if I was being duped who was doing the chicanery? Amazon? Blue Note? Al Green?

I may never know. And I’m not sure I care. Because when you listen to Al Green: Soul Legend all your cares fade away. What matters is right there between your ears. Al Green is the sound of the sacred, of the yearning towards the impossible, of a raw love that is holy still, of a growling that becomes a falsetto, that is and forever will be that L-O-V-E we know as Soul Legend Al Green. Amen!