Thursday music corner: Al Green (b.1946) is a legendary soul singer who rose to prominence in the 1970s with recordings such as Tired Of Being Alone, 1971 US chart-topper Let's Stay Together, and three top-five singles in 1972: Look What You Done For Me, I'm Still In Love With You and You Ought To Be With Me. In November 1972 he was in Interview magazine:
I got started when I was nineteen. But I started singing earlier. I started singing when I was a little kid. I was about nine when we had a group with my four brothers. We sang spirituals. The old regular thing. The spiritual bag. Just about like everybody else I guess. It’s fun. A lot of religious feeling, but there’s no money. The money is funny. As they say. The group has since broken up you know. They’re all married fellows now. Big fellows. Families. That type of thing.
All N All features on Green's 1977 LP, The Belle Album, which was his last album before he turned to gospel music in the 1980s. Despite its secular setting, All N All is unashamedly a Christian record, setting out Green's religious devotion - 'Jesus is my everything, yeah' - but the effervescent, breathless enthusiasm of its taut pop funk and its acrobatic Green vocal performance helps the track stand out from its peers. It featured on the Beautiful South singer Paul Heaton's 2004 Under the Influence compilation album alongside tracks from Willie Nelson, Tower of Power and LaVern Baker.
Green returned to pop material in his 1988 duet with Annie Lennox, Put A Little Love In Your Heart - which featured on the Scrooged soundtrack - and 1989 single The Message Is Love. He released his most recent studio album in 2008.
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