Al Green: 40 years at Full Gospel Tabernacle

Al Green talks to God.

That’s not meant as metaphor or a figure of speech. Al Green literally talks to God. He banters, chatters, laughs, argues, questions, sings to and speaks with the Almighty on a regular basis — whether lying in bed, driving his car, sitting in his office or preaching in the pulpit. It’s a running conversation that began in the early 1970s, and has continued unabated for the past five decades.

“I’m talking all the time, back and forth, talking all the time, back and forth,” says Green, the pastor of Memphis’ Full Gospel Tabernacle church and one of the most famous soul singers in the world.

“Al, who been taking care of you all this time?

“You have.”

“Al, have I ever left you?”

“Well, no, I can’t think of no time You ever left me.”

“Did I ever forsake you or anything?

“Um, no.”

“Well, Al, I’m not gonna leave you now.” 

Green replays this recent exchange with Him from behind a desk at his business office in Whitehaven, located in the shadow of his church.

On this December weekday, Green arrives in a late-model white Cadillac, wearing a black Nike track suit, dress shirt and dress shoes. Though he turned 70 in April, he looks lighter and more nimble than in recent years (reportedly, a knee injury left him immobile for time and contributed to his weight gain). Reclining into a chair — beneath a gold framed photo of himself in his bejeweled, permed, bare-chested ‘70s glory — he begins.

An interview with Green is a little like watching a one-man show. He doesn’t answer questions so much as respond with stories and jokes, going off on random riffs, singing snatches of his famous hits, and doing spot-on imitations of Tom Jones and Elvis Presley, among others. Whatever wild tangents or diversions he takes, the discussion always returns to Green’s faith. It’s what led him to the open Full Gospel Tabernacle on Dec. 18, 1976.

Green will celebrate the church’s 40th anniversary Sunday. In addition to the regular morning service, there will be an afternoon commemoration featuring appearances by Rev. Dr. Melvin Charles Smith from Mt. Moriah East Baptist Church, and Green’s first wife, Shirley Green, who will perform, along with their three daughters.

When Green gave his first sermon in ’76, the message, he says, was, “I believe therefore I am.”

“I just believe what The Word says. I don’t try and explain, explain, explain. … Every man’s interpretation of [religion] is, I suppose, to his own liking. But I don’t think God is going to leave you much room to mistake about it.”

As Green tells it, when it comes to his particular path — one that took him from the heights of musical superstardom to the bosom of the church — there was never any doubt at all.

'Look at my hands'

Albert Leorns Greene, or Green — to which he would later change the spelling — was born April 1946 in Forrest City, Arkansas, the sixth of 10 children, raised in a devoutly religious family. He relocated to Michigan as a child and began singing gospel with his brothers. After his strict Baptist father kicked him out of the house for listening to Jackie Wilson records, he launched his career with an album for the tiny Hot Line Label in 1967, called “Back Up Train.”

Green's first single had been a small breakout, making it to the lower rungs of the Top 40, but his career soon sputtered. Stranded in Midland, Texas in late 1968, he asked if he could sit in and earn a few dollars singing with Memphis bandleader Willie Mitchell, who was performing in town that night.

“He started singing, and I heard that voice and I said, ‘Ah-ha! Look what I found here,’” remembered the late Mitchell, who told Green he should come back to Memphis with him, that if he gave him 18 months, Mitchell could make him a star.

It took Green a little while to arrive in the Bluff City, and a little longer to break out, but as Mitchell had promised, within a couple of years, he was a soul singing supernova. The first two albums they recorded for the Mitchell-run Hi Records, “Al Green is Blues” and “Al Green Gets Next to You”, were minor masterpieces, offering inventive R&B interpretations of songs by the Beatles and The Doors, among others. The latter album produced a top 10 hit in the Green-penned “Tired of Being Alone” and a gritty reworking of the Temptations’ “Can’t Get Next To You.”

Recording at South Memphis’ Royal Studios with backing by house band Hi Rhythm, Mitchell pushed Green to soften his singing and find his natural falsetto, resulting in the 1972 multi-million-selling smash single and album “Let’s Stay Together.”

The next few years would yield arguably the greatest run in the annals of R&B, with Mitchell producing and helping co-write many of Green's hits and Hi Rhythm guitarist Mabon "Teenie" Hodges collaborating on several others (“Love and Happiness,” “Here I Am [Come and Take Me]”). Green's love songs would come not only to dominate, but to redefine soul music in the early ‘70s, moving it from its church roots to the more sultry environs of the bedroom.

By 1973, Green was at the zenith of his career — money, women and every other kind of indulgence were his for the taking. Yet despite the fame and fortune, he was deeply unhappy. He began drifting away from music and toward religion. His spiritual shift began with an epiphany on the road in 1973, following a performance at Disneyland.

“I had a born-again awakening … in the Coach ‘n’ Four Motel in Anaheim, California. And I never been the same since. I was changed about or something,” says Green, who ran to his father, then traveling with him. “My daddy asked me, ‘What’s the matter?’ I say ‘Look at my hands … look at my feet … . they’re glowing — can’t you see it?’”

Then, he heard the voice of God. “He said, ‘I want you to come to me. Come to me.’ 'But I got to sing these songs and please all these people.' ‘You don’t have to anything, Al. Come to me, and I’ll make everything OK.’ I said, ‘OK. I’m easy, man, I’m easy as Sunday morning.'”

It marked the start of a personal and professional transformation that would alter his life completely within a couple years.

Green’s religious fervor became more intense in the wake of a tragic 1974 incident involving his girlfriend Mary Woodson, who attacked the singer at his home with a pot of scalding-hot grits, causing serious burns to his body. “I’m all burned up, got egg-size blisters full of water,” recalls Green. “I know what hot is. That’s one thing I do know. I don’t need to go to hell. They said let me show you what hot is before we get there so you can avoid that mistake. So I know what hot is.”

Shortly after attacking Green, Woodson — a married mother of four with a history of mental problems — retreated to a bedroom and shot herself dead with Green's own .38-caliber revolver. In the years since, Woodson would become something of a ghost haunting Green’s psyche. During the interview, Green brings her up unprompted, explaining that it was Woodson who had the vision for Full Gospel Tabernacle years before it existed.

“Mary is the one that told me, ‘You’re the one going to have a beautiful church, and a space saved for me in the front seat, and a lot of members.’ And I’m going like, ‘What are you talking about?’ At that time, I’m doing ‘Here I Am (Come and Take Me).’ What am I supposed to do — stop what I’m doing and start singing gospel music?

That’s exactly what would happen, though Green says it would be years before he could shake the specter of Woodson’s demise. “I was drowned with that for 14, 15 years. … I had years of looking for Mary in everyone else I saw, but Mary Woodson couldn’t be found in nobody else. She was just one of a kind,” he says. “I ultimately moved on… There’s no sense in looking for Mary in the other people. Mary gone. You got to make up your mind to move on with the best parts of Mary.”

In 1976, the newly ordained Rev. Green would record a final album, “Have a Good Time”, with Willie Mitchell and Hi Rhythm. Green would leave his longtime creative home for his own newly built American Music studio, where he would self-produce the spiritually resonant masterpiece “The Belle Album.” His Hi label swansong “Truth N’ Time” came out in 1978. After that, he abandoned secular music entirely for a decade, finding comfort (and considerable success) as a gospel artist.

Green’s music career has proceeded in fits and starts since then. His most recent active period resulted in a pair of Willie Mitchell-produced “comeback” R&B records, released on the Blue Note label in 2003 and 2005. He followed with 2008’s “Lay it Down,” co-produced by The Roots’ Amir “Questlove” Thompson and pairing him with a generation of younger artists like John Legend and Anthony Hamilton.

Green has not been in the studio proper in the eight years since. But week after week (most of them, anyway) he can be found leading services at his Full Gospel Tabernacle. The church’s congregation is spirited, if relatively small — but it swells with the tourist season, as fans and curious visitors come from all over to see Green preach and sing.

He doesn’t view these people as interlopers, but rather as pilgrims. “You might have come on your vacation — we get a lot of that,” says Green. “Well, we say while you’re here, why don’t we do a little bit of ‘Amazing Grace.’ It may help you along your way. I don’t take it as anything else but an opportunity. If God gives me this audience, I’ll preach the Word to them.”

'Just try your best'

Over the past few years, as his concert schedule dwindled almost to nothing, Green appeared to be inching toward a formal retirement from the stage. “It was burning me out,” he says. “I just wanted to take some time off to gather my head.” Today, Green allows he eventually may return to the road — noting the possibility of a tour of the Far East next year.

During this period, the most high-profile appearance he made was in Washington, D.C., where avowed Green fan (and sometime Green impersonator) President Barack Obama awarded him with a Kennedy Center Honor in 2014.

“I got this right here under my shoe,” says Green, reaching below his desk and pulling out the program from the Kennedy Center ceremony, flipping through its pages and proudly pointing out pictures of himself. Of his interactions with the outgoing president, Green says, “It’s hard to talk to great people, so I just hold my (tongue).”

Although he’s been off the road, Green has had plenty to keep him busy. Beyond the church and managing his music publishing interests, he’s got a large family and numerous kids — several adult children all the way down to a teenage daughter —  the product of several marriages. “The first marriage, the second marriage and the last one,” he cracks.

Although his music connected deeply with a legion of female fans, Green says he has no special insights into the opposite sex, no advice on how to make those relationships work. “I’m not trying to figure out anything about a woman. They hard to figure out,” he says. “You’re gonna have to get a hold to yourself and make sure you in line with the Man Upstairs, then you’ll be happy. Because you’ll be in league with what the truth is. I’m not trying to go to the moon — I already been.”

Asked if he has any remaining career goals — he’s a 14-time Grammy winner, a member of the Rock and Roll, Gospel and Songwriters halls of fame — Green sighs. “I done did a lot of stuff, man. There’s some things I’d like to do, maybe (play) three or four cities of the United States and then go back to the house and read some more of the (Bible),” he says, chuckling. “I’m not hankering for anything, not really.”

At 70, he thinks often about heaven, the great reward that awaits. As to whether he’s done enough to make his way in, Green seems assured. “If you try and sincerely try, that’s all we need. [Religion] says we’ll perfect that which is lacking in you,” he says excitedly, as if he’s just divined some new secret. “We’ll perfect that which is lacking in you. If you’ve got any shortcomings, we’ll take care of that. Just try your best. That’s what I do.”

With that, the interview is over, and Green is ready to go. He packs his bag, grabs his bottled water and hops back into his Caddy. Pulling away, through the tinted windows you can see him become animated, and it appears he’s once again talking with the Man on High. The conversation continues.