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Go Tell It On the Mountain
The cover to his bare-chested Greatest Hits says it all. Crooning sweet hits like "Let's Stay Together" and "I'm Still in Love With You," Al Green was the '70s voice of love, a worthy successor to Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. Then in 1976, he bought a church in Memphis and became an ordained minister. Here the Rev. Al discusses his conversion, and how to successfully balance the religious with the secular side.
VH1: You've sold 40 million albums and can pretty much do what you want to with your life. But you've chosen to be the Rev. Al Green and live in the house of the Lord. Why?
Al Green: Because to me the ultimate thing is to be of some value and some use to someone else, to be able to serve the people, bearing a message. I'm not going to change from that. I'll sing some more songs but I'm not going to change the story.
VH1: How much was your music inspired by the civil rights movement?
Green: I really wrote "Let's Stay Together" after the marches and the fires and all of that. I wanted to say, "Let's stay together, whether the times are good or bad, happy or sad." I didn't really write it for a girl. Everybody thought I wrote it for a girl, about a personal relationship, but it's really not.
VH1: So music was a way of dealing with the civil rights struggle and the changes going on in America?
Green: It was a way of dealing with the change, because it weighed so severely on our own minds. I mean, John F. Kennedy died, then Bobby Kennedy, then Martin Luther King. From 1964 to 1968 was a very intense time. But then I got to see Louis Armstrong on TV. I never cared about Louis Armstrong, but I saw this guy on TV. I sat there with my mouth wide open, because he was so phenomenal. It was real spooky to me. Remember, he's this guy from the '30s and '40s who sung in places he couldn't get service at. He couldn't even stay at the same hotel he's singing at. He had to go down the road. And he says after all this, "What a wonderful world." And I'm going, "Yes, yes it is."
VH1: Could you talk about your conversion?
Green: I was on a plane, drinking champagne with a whole slew of girls. We were flying over the Rocky Mountains and someone said, "Hey, you're going to hit the side of one of these mountains." We were playing the music so loud you couldn't hear the engines go. That same night I told my girlfriend, "Babe, I'm tired. I've done two shows tonight," and she said, "I'll see you in the morning." I went to this side of the suite, she went to that side of the suite. I closed my door, she closed her door. The next morning I woke up and I was changed. I don't know what the reason was other than for me to see the light. I was converted.
VH1: So you just woke up and you were converted?
Green: Yeah, I woke up and I was converted, but you probably wouldn't understand. My father came down and I said to him, "Hey, look at my hands, look at my hands!" and he said, "What's wrong with your hands?" and I say, "They're brand new! Look at my feet!" and he says, "What's wrong with you, boy? What's wrong with your feet?" I says, "Look at them!" And he turned his back and went over to a corner and started to cry and said, "Thank you. I think you saved my son. If you saved my son then you also saved me. Thank you." I have never seen the master come into any room or place or person and not make a change.
VH1: You continued, however, to sing R&B. Was there ever a time when you questioned what you were doing?
Green: Well, as far as the church was concerned I was still singing rhythm and blues. They feel that if you're serious about what you're doing, you can't sing that anymore. Like the songs "Take Me to the River " and "Let's Stay Together" - you can't sing that. So for eight years I didn't sing any of my music. But I said, "Well, I need time off." So I went to Trinidad and I did a lot of concerts, and everybody wants you to sing the songs. It was really frustrating for people when they came to see Al Green and he wasn't singing the hit records. So I went to pray. I went up into the mountains as far as I could go. I went without eating for 21 to 30 days, just drinking water and coffee in the morning and maybe for dinner I had a glass of orange juice. I was asking about the songs and I was told right then and there, "I gave you the songs. Those are your songs. I gave them to you in your own heart. You wrote the music. I gave it to you. Use those songs, sing your songs. People are going to disagree with you - they disagree with me. But while you're singing it what I called you for is to drop a little seed over their head. In all our ways acknowledge our direct path. I want you to point that the light is this way, and the Lord he is good."
VH1: So can you tell us about how you incorporated gospel into your music and how you've brought gospel to audiences that may not have been exposed to it otherwise?
Green: That is for the purpose of being able to speak to people who wouldn't set a foot in a church if it was two inches from their house. That why I work the casinos in Las Vegas and Tahoe and Rio. When I sang "Amazing Grace," I had all the folks from the casino singing with me, some with slots in their hand. They sing it with me: [singing] "that saved a wretch like me!" One guy got up and said, "I'm going." I said, "Excuse me, sir, why are you leaving so fast?" He said, "You said, 'Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.' Well, that's the message right there and there's no bigger wretch than I am. So see y'all later. I'm out of here, I've been set free by the word." That's it right there; you heard him say it all when he said, "I am."
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