The gospel according to the Rev. Al Green

The Rev. Al is singing. Ask Al Green a question, and the answer is likely to come wrapped in a song. Explaining why he returned to making secular music, after years as a gospel singer, he offers a few bars of "Let's Stay Together" as proof that the Holy Spirit can thrive in a pop song. Recalling a concert he once performed with Ray Charles and B.B. King, he not only offers a perfect imitation of the weeping wail of King's guitar "Lucille," he segues into the opening lines of "Love and Happiness."

Even on a creaky cordless telephone, one is instantly swept away by Green's impeccable voice -- who can think of anything else when he is singing, "I-I-I, I'm so in love with you, whatever you want to do, is all right with me-ee-ee-ee-ee." More than 30 years since he first hit the charts, that inimitable voice remains as perfect as a sunrise.

That's why his latest album, "I Can't Stop," was one of the best albums of 2003 and why Green has been on tour -- and in high demand -- since February. He's scheduled to perform tomorrow at the Orpheum Theatre with Mavis Staples.

"This last year has been amazing and fun," Green says during a conversation from Memphis. "If I go to Michigan, (he was scheduled to play the Kalamazoo State Theatre Oct. 15), I can't do Michigan [without] Michigan State saying, `Why are you over there?' Then the University of Michigan calls and they say, `Excuse me, why are you going to Michigan State?' It's been a trip. I've never seen anything like it."

And Green, 58, has seen a lot in a career that began before his first big hit, "Tired of Being Alone" in 1971. Mention the names of the great soul singers, and Green's is usually near the top of every list. His wide influence can still be heard in such up-and-coming singers as Reggie Watts from the Seattle soul-rock band Maktub, and newcomer Ricky Fante.

"Among the singers whose careers got started in the '70s, Al Green belongs in the first division of that group," says author David Nathan, who has written several books about soul artists, and runs the website soulmusic

.com. "The music he made in the 1970s has such a timeless quality. And even back then, although the core of his audience is black, he always had crossover appeal. There were a lot of pop music fans who bought Al Green records in the '70s. Some of those songs just resonated with pop audiences as well as core R&B audiences." With his unique combination of trembling vulnerability and gentle sensuality, Green rode a wave of hits such as "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)" and "I'm Still in Love With You" and such remarkable, redefined covers as the Temptations' "I Can't Get Next to You," and Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away." But in the late 1970s, he walked away from his career and turned his attention to the church. He became an ordained minister, founded the nondenominational Full Gospel Tabernacle, and, for more than a decade, stopped performing pop music.

"I wouldn't sing, `Let's Stay Together,' I wouldn't sing `Love and Happiness,' I wouldn't sing `For the Good Times,' " Green recalls. "But after I grew and learned what God is doing, and what He's designed, I felt like if God did it, it's got to be good. I can sing, `Baby I love you,' and feel good about it."

Something else Green feels good about is working with Willie Mitchell, his longtime producer and cowriter, who first signed Green to his label, Hi Records, in 1969.

Asked whether "I Can't Stop" could have been made without Mitchell, Green says, "All things are possible, but I don't think so. This thing started with Al Green and Willie Mitchell. . . . We have this electricity, this common union between us where we can sum up with these songs."

Until "I Can't Stop," the two had worked together only once since the mid-1970s, and that was on Green's "He is the Light," a gospel album, in 1985. For his current album, Green returned to Mitchell's famed Royal Studios in Memphis, housed in a former silent movie theater. Approaching this project, Mitchell told the singer he was only interested in teaming up again to make a soul album, Green says.

"Willie's at the age (76) where he doesn't want to produce anything if it's not genuine," he says. "If it's not coming from a place where he can feel it, from the heart, he's not interested."

All of the songs on "I Can't Stop" were written by Green or Green and Mitchell, and as has often been Green's way, they deal more with love than lust -- in the 1970s, as Marvin Gaye suggested "Let's Get It On," Green sang about wanting to settle down in "Let's Get Married."

Still, some have questioned how a preacher can make any joyful noise unto anyone other than the Lord. To reassure his parishioners, Green played them a selection of the album's songs.

"They said, `Al, when you sing `I love you, I can't stop' if you really mean I love you, then you have to make the CD,' " Green says. "If it's just a joke or a fad, then it's not worth doing."Green also played the songs for his octogenarian mother, who gave her approval: "If I could get Mama to say that's really nice, I don't care what anyone else says."

Which is just as well, since it seems some have lots to say about Green's return to secular music. Earlier this month, after he performed the Ray Charles classic, "What I'd Say," at a tribute concert, Green says he was criticized, especially for the song's line, "Shake that thing."

"There was this roar about Rev. Green singing" -- and yes, Green begins to sing again -- " `Hey, mama, don't you treat me wrong, come and love your daddy all night long.' But they really got on me for `Shake that thing.' I asked them, `Do you have to add sin to everything I say? Are you the judge to add sin to every word I utter?' Then they left me alone.

"I was there to be a participant in a tribute to Ray Charles, and I think it's a great song. So I got up there and rocked that sucker the way I felt Ray would do it if he were there."

Anyone who finds any conflict between a minister who preaches on Sundays and urges screaming fans to shake their thangs the rest of the week, doesn't understand the curative and unifying power of music, Green says. Besides, he maintains, he's not singing about "some little one-night stands." "People think I'm singing these things about some girlfriend, and that's not the case. I'm singing it because I'm married, have three kids, and I'm getting grandkids now," he says. "It's a family thing.

"I ain't got time to `Holiday Inn' with `Pat' and `Suzanne' and them. Those times are done. I'm singing about commitment." Then Green adds, with a hearty laugh, "But believe me, we had our `Holiday Inn' days."