Let's Stay Together

"Let's Stay Together"

[song written by Al Green/Al Jackson, Jr./Phillip Mitchell]

Al Green had the voice, the music and the arrangements that bridged the gap between deep soul and the sound of Philadelphia.  His 1972 smash hit ‘Lets Stay Together' is the subject of this Smooth Soul Survivor spot yet a change in his life in the mid seventies that served to deny these obvious performing talents to his vast listening public marked Green out as a survivor in more ways than one.

Born in Forest City, Arkansas on April 13 1946 Al Green played in the gospel quartet The Green Brothers from the age of nine.  During the mid fifties the group toured extensively throughout the south before the family relocated to Grand Rapids, Michigan.  They continued to perform but Al's involvement with them came to a premature end when his father kicked him out after overhearing him listening to music by Jackie Wilson.

Not deterred, Green formed his own R & B band, Al Green and the Creations, later to change its name to the Soul Mates.  They enjoyed a surprise hit with their first release ‘Back Up Train' in 1968 but further attempts to recreate this early success failed to deliver.  It was in 1969, while on tour with the Soul Mates, that Al Green met an individual that was to change the course of his musical life.  That individual was vocalist and producer Willie Mitchell.  It took only this initial encounter in Midland, Texas for Mitchell to realise that in Green he had come across something special and he signed him to his label, Hi Records.

It took until 1972 for Al Green to have his first genuine hit album and the title track from it became his first #1 single.  It was ‘Lets Stay Together'.  His collaboration with Mitchell had made him one of the most popular and influential soul singers of the seventies yet an event that happened in October 1974 changed all that.

While Green was bathing, Mrs Mary Goodson, a former girlfriend, broke into his home and poured boiling grits over him inflicting second degree burns on his arm, back and stomach.  She then took his gun and shot herself dead with it.  Green saw this as a sign from god that his life had to change and that he should enter the ministry.  In 1976 he bought a church in Memphis, Tennessee and became an ordained pastor.  Green did not immediately wind up his recording career.  He released three further Mitchell produced albums through 1975 and 1976 but his record sales were beginning to slip.  Attempting to reverse the trend he broke from Mitchell in 1977 and built his American Music recording studio with the intention of producing his own music.  Despite this he was still not hitting the spot with his fan base and when, in 1979 while performing in Cincinnati, he fell from the stage and narrowly avoided injury, he saw this as a further sign from god.  He retired from performing secular music and devoted himself to preaching.

Since then he has, from time to time, dipped his toe back into the pool of R & B.  He recorded ‘Put A Little Love In Your Heart' with Annie Lennox in 1988 and released the urban contemporary album ‘Your Heart's In Good Hands' in 1995.  Despite good reviews for these later efforts Green was a product of the early seventies and that time, for him, seemed to have passed.  However he did achieve widespread recognition eight years later with his first album for Blue Note, ‘I Can't Stop'.  He followed that up ‘Perfect To Me' in 2004 and most recently with ‘Everything's OK'.

His music of those golden seventies remains and ‘Lets Stay Together' has had its credentials compounded by the many great covers that have followed along behind.  As early as the date of Green's original, souls and jazz organist Jimmy McGriff was putting his hallmark on the tune via his album of the same name while in 1979 jazz supremo Herbie Mann incorporated the track into his ‘Sunbelt' LP.

The Rippingtons included a big and expansive instrumental take of the tune on their 1989 release ‘Tourist In Paradise'.  This version can also be found on volume 2 of the WNUA 95.5 Chicago sampler CD ‘Smooth Sounds' and on a 1999 compilation titled ‘Smooth Sounds - Razor And Tie' which, incidentally, comprises a truly weird combination of music.

The nineties brought an absolute welter of covers, some noteworthy enough to be mentioned here.  The track can be found on Peters Whites 1994 seminal collection of covers, ‘Reflections', and, in that same year, master of movie music sound tracking Quentin Tarrentino used the original on his ground breaking film ‘Pulp Fiction'.  In many ways ‘Lets Stay Together' is tailor made for the vocal style of Al Jarreau so his interpretation on the 1996 album ‘Living For You' is particularly pleasing while from the previous year Roberta Flack offers up a predictably classy version on her CD ‘Roberta'.

In 1997 we find good jazz covers by Walter Beasley on ‘Tonight We Have Love' and by Houston Person on his ‘Opening Round' while in 1998 vocal covers by Phil Perry from ‘One Heart One Love' and by Tuck and Patti on ‘Paradise Found' keep the tributes coming.

Finally, jazz saxophonist Eric Alexander features the number on his 1999 release ‘Alexander The Great' while the original crops up on the 2000 compilation ‘Smooth Grooves Essential Selection'.  Tucked away in the archives of time is an interesting eight minute version by Bill Mason on his album ‘Getting Off' and, as befits a recording that was made to make love to, there are good versions from Isaac Hayes, Billy Paul and Tina Turner.

Across the spectrum of soul and jazz ‘Lets Stay Together' is a true Smooth Soul Survivor.

Denis Poole

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