New Al Green biography / 40th anniversary of "The Belle Album"

Jimmy McDonough has a new book on Al Green, and it coincides with the 40th anniversary of The Belle Album. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune has a feature published on this today, and Sound Opinions on NPR (a show he co-hosts) also released a podcast discussed the album with Jimmy:

http://soundopinions.org/show/625

Al Green's moment of truth: The 40-year legacy of 'Belle'

As mentioned in the article, the anniversary of this album has gotten a lot less fanfare than Dylan's conversion album, and quite frankly, Al's album SMOKES Dylan's, musically, lyrically, conceptually, vocally, in every single way, and I say this as someone who's a much bigger Dylan fan.

 

I wouldn't say it smokes Bob's conversion album (Slow Train Coming), but that's a matter of opinion but ultimately it's an apples to oranges comparison. The Belle Album is phenomenal in its own right. Interestingly if there's a Bob comparison to be made it's with Street Legal in that both albums were recorded around the same time and have stifled, muffled sonics. I'd be interested in hearing a remix/remaster of Belle.

 

Agree wholeheartedly. I got a bit of a break with Belle...my copy is pretty good. But my Street Legal?...yikes!

 

AG fan of 40+ years here.

I read McDonough's book about a month ago & I'm sorry to say that Green sounds like someone you would not want to know.

Now, I'm well aware that many (most? all?) of my musical heroes are less than perfect people (some far less). But cutting off one of your musicians simply because he had the audacity to buy a house similar to yours, with that musician's loss of income eventually resulting in him losing said house...well, there's a special place in Hell for that kind of petty vindictiveness. It's all in the book.

 

Was that before his full conversion? I got the impression he was pretty terrible before that moment, and he was somewhat aware of that before the burning/suicide incident changed him.

 

It was several years after his conversion.

 

YIKES.

 

Hear Al Green's First New Recording In Nearly A Decade

 

"The Belle Album" needed more Royal Recorders and Hi Rhythm (and more Willie Mitchell) , if it had been completed that way, it would have fared better. It sounds less than coherent, like it was finished up elsewhere. The performances are superb. But it lacks the Hi Mojo!

 

I'm reading the biography now and I had no idea what Al Green was like before (although a few concert reviews on this forum indicated Green could be a bit unpredictable). To say the guy has issues is an understatement. McDonough probably found his previous subject Neil Young a piece of cake compared to Green!

 

Oh no, it sounds like Green was pretty much always very strange. He admits it and seems proud of it too.

 

There's also a new 3-CD box set coming out containing all of Green's A & B sides (Hi Records).