The Reverend

I’ve always listed Al Green alongside the late Philippé Wynne
from the Spinners as my favorite voice in soul music. Simply put, the
man is a legend. When I was scheduled to speak to Green, I told friends
at parties, complete strangers, and even my own mom. Everyone was
impressed that I would be talking to the Reverend, but that’s my first
issue: How do you address Al Green? Al? Mr. Green? I am not even
remotely religious, but I chose Reverend. It just felt right.

To be honest, I was not prepared for the Reverend to take our
conversation where he took it. Hell, I don’t even know where he took
it. There was no path, no direction, and no structure. But I do know
that at six minutes and 32 seconds into our conversation—out of
nowhere—Green started singing, at the top of his voice, “I’m so
tired of being alone.” He did this a number of times, as he’d hum the
first few bars of “Let’s Stay Together,” or (while talking about the
Beatles) serenade me with a verse of “Something.” From that point on,
all bets were off.

It might not be the most enlightening, or logical, conversation of
all time, but Al Green sang to me—to me—over the
phone. So at least I’ve got that going for me.

MERCURY: Reverend, you have not been to the
Northwest in a while. Are you bringing a full band this time
around?

REVEREND AL GREEN: Yeah, we’re bringing the people that know stuff.
I don’t want to bring in somebody that’s trying to learn the songs. I’m
not interested in that, [we’re] bringing the people.

You started out in a band alongside your brothers, but your
father kicked you out because he caught you listening to Jackie
Wilson.

Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that amazing? Just because I
listened to Jackie Wilson. I mean, think of what the kids are doing
these days. They’re posting stuff online that’s more vulgar than Jackie
Wilson’s “Baby Workout.”

Did you ever get a chance to tell Jackie about what happened to
you?

No, I never did get a chance to tell Jackie. I think he read it one
time, because we did several shows in Chicago and Detroit. It kind of
dumbfounds you that this could happen, but then again… you go one
block over to your friend Lee Burgess’ house. He and Palmer James are
working up this group called the Creations and they ask me, can I sing?
I’m going like, “I don’t know, man. I really don’t know if I can sing
or not. I sing in the choir at school.” We cut this song called “Back
Up Train” and that starts all this. It’s quite a career, isn’t it?

The Creations were around 1967 or ’68, right?

’67 or ’68, yeah. “I Can’t Get Next to You” was in 1970, and “Tired
of Being Alone” was in ’71. “Let’s Stay Together” was in ’72. “I’m
Still in Love with You” was in ’73… with the white suit on [the album
artwork]. Come on man, I don’t know. I know there’s a lot of kids been
born to those songs.

When you were singing about love, some of your contemporaries were
singing about social issues. Did you ever get people telling you to
quit singing about love?

No, they left me to sing “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” “For the
Good Times,” “Oh, Pretty Woman,” “Take Me to the River,” and all these
things… because we need love. Everybody needs love. Everybody needs
somebody. Portland, Oregon, as sparsely populated as it is, everybody
is going to definitely have their main squeeze. When the snow falls,
I’m going to have the, you know, the hot chocolate and everything.

Reverend, this part of the state has about a million people living
here.

That’s fine! That’s what I’m talking about. We’re going to need
about a million people to get this done. Yeah.

Do you still enjoy touring?

It’s kind of a feely-feely thing. All the music has a personal type
to it. I use “Let’s Stay Together” as a National Anthem because
everybody stands on their last day together and they sneak a little
kiss in on the person that they’re with.

Reverend, nine months after your show here our population is going
to be at 1.1 million.

It may be 1.2 million. Because, you know, we’re going to bring it
on. You know. We came out here to do a show. It’s like a boxer, you
know, before you go into the ring. There’s no sense in going into the
ring with rosaries hanging on the arm, you gonna get yourself beat. So
you have to go into the ring after a lot of practice and a lot of
abstinence. You go into the ring to defend what you stand for, and we
stand for the highest goal, for the love of Christ and the population
of the world.

You are happy every single minute of the day, aren’t you?

Well, yeah because we’re not into using a bunch of stuff to make us
happy. We’re happy naturally. I’m not a coke fiend or a heroin fiend,
or anything. My doctor won’t give me nothing but Advil, I just hate him
for that. I’m saying he give me a damn Advil! He says, “Here Al, take
one of those. You got a muscle ache, take one of these.” I’m going
like, “This is an Advil! This Ibuprofen, man!” He says, “Al, that’s all
you need. You don’t need a pill for every time you ache, my god.” So
that’s about all he’ll give me.

We’re just happy because, number one, we’re still here. Because we
started with a lot of folks who’ve gone on now, even Luther [Vandross]
has gone on now! We started with him at the Apollo Theater. Johnnie
Taylor, Tyrone Davis, Phyllis Hyman, Lou Rawls… I mean you go on.
Billy Preston, my best buddy on piano.

Billy Preston was amazing.

Oh, talk about amazing on an organ. He played with the Beatles, come
on! Nobody wants to give him credit for playing on a lot of the Beatles
tunes, but he played on a lot of these songs [Green singing “Something”
by the Beatles], that was Billy back there. I got to be with him
sometimes at the church. Reverend James Cleveland’s church, no doubt,
and him playing the piano there and playing the organ on a few of the
gigs. The Mandela tribute… what was that? You can’t have nothing?

“Nothing from Nothing”

Yeah, that’s it. He was phenomenal. Just like these other people.
But you know, like they say, if the candle burn bright, the shorter the
life of the candle, so you kinda have to go back to studying what they
was saying to us a long time ago. This little pal, Al, this little
light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine. Little light, I said. There was
a big light, lot of meteors come across the sky, light up the world.
And they go out just as fast.

[I have no clue how he segues into this, but he continues to
refer to himself in the third person—Ed.]

I go to Walmart. That just gives you the Al Green I’m talking about.
I go to Walmart and people in Millington [Tennessee] are taking
pictures with their little camera phones… they talk about it in the
papers, “That’s the way to treat a crowd down there. Al Green he took
pictures with everybody, hugged everybody, they took photos, and he
signed their autographs. It only took an hour and 10 minutes.” And Al
is going, “Yeah an hour and 10 minutes!” But I mean, you know, in a
small town like Millington, they like you to be yourself. I mean you
can go up there in some big, fancy automobile and everybody says, “Good
afternoon, Mr. Green.” But if I go up there in my old, raggedy Toyota
pickup truck, everybody goes, “ALLLLLLL!” So that’s just the way people
are. If you are approachable, I can approach you with the
approachability that I know is in your music.

But if you are, way, way, way, way up there, I may call you “Mr.
Green” instead of “Al.” I go in my jeans and shoe ain’t tied, because I
know the people that are getting up for work at six in the morning,
their shoes ain’t tied. And their hair ain’t combed. And they are
trying to stand in line to get coffee just like me. And that’s how we
get along. The fire department, police department, everybody been up
all night and they headed home, baby. Gimme the coffee. A couple sugars
and a cream and I’m outta here! And that’s the way it is around here,
man. And they love it. If Al comes around in his raggedy truck. “Oh,
man. Hey, Al. What’s going on?” But in a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley, they
go, “Oh. Ahem, good evening Mr. Green.”

And you’d rather be Al, right?

I’d rather be Al.

You once said, “I’m not a God or an idol, I’m just a kid from Grand
Rapids, Michigan, who wrote a couple of songs.”

That’s Al. You’ve got it right there. That’s the quote, man.

Reverend Green, thanks for the chat, I really enjoyed it.

Tell everybody at the Mercury I said, “Simply beautiful.”