40 Year Itch : Some Late Season Soul

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   On December 6, 1973 Al Green released his second Gold album of the year with Livin' For Your Love. Though not as indispensable as Call Me or I'm Still in Love With You, Livin' For Your Love does contain the #1 Soul single in its title cut, "Let's Get Married" ( Soul #3) and , best of all, an 8-minute improvisation called "Beware" which must be heard.

                                                                     {out of print}

  The last Norman Whitfield production for the Temptations is a rarely heralded psychedelic soul classic.  A clash of egos can rarely be good for art and The Temps didn't appreciate being turned into studio instruments by Whitfield. That said, Motown really needs to put out a box set of the Whitfield years. Like Masterpiece, All Directions and Solid Rock, 1900 is another huge seller that is out of frickin print.

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Some of the hardest drivin' funk of 1973 came from the home studio of Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Jones produced and arranged and played some down and dirty bass on Madeline Bell's first solo album in 5 years. ( She'd been singing with Blue Mink)  One listen to this puts Led Zep's Houses of the Holy, and especially "The Crunge", in a whole new light.

40 Year Itch : The Dean's List

                           
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The  Deans' Lists 1973

Despite his hometown bias, New York rock critic Robert Christgau's list of favorite albums always offers music fans some esoteric treats along with some-- but never all --of  the year's universally acclaimed records.
No Dark Side of the Moon here, kiddies.

But among the albums on this list I'm really glad I've finally heard are Elliot Murphy's Aquashow, Esther Phillips's Black Eyed Blues, Meet "Mississippi Charles" Bevel and Coulson, Dean, McGuinness, Flint's  Lo and Behold. 

Albums with orange numbers were reviewed in this blog.

 A+

 1. Al Green - Call Me
 2. New York Dolls 
  
 A 

 3. The Harder They Come
 4. Wilson Pickett’s Greatest Hits 
 5. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced Leh-nerd Skeh-nerd 
 6. John Prine - Sweet Revenge
7. Sly and the Family Stone - Fresh 
 8. Africa Dances

 9. Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits
 10. Al Green - Livin’ for You
 11. Steely Dan - Countdown to Ecstasy 
 12. Stevie Wonder - Innervisions 
 13. Neil Young - Time Fades Away 

 A- 
 14. Asleep at the Wheel - Comin’ Right at Ya

 15. Bruce Springsteen - The Wild the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle
 16. Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall
 17. Slade - Slayed?
 18. Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire
 19. The Move - Split Ends
 20. Coulson, Dean, McGuinness, Flint - Lo and Behold
 21. Bonnie Raitt - Takin’ My Time
 22. Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy 
23. Tom T. Hall - The Rhymer and Other Five and Dimers
 24. Spinners
 25. Roy Brown - Hard Times

26. The Who - Quadrophenia
 27. The Great Lost Kinks Album
 28. Mott the Hoople - Mott
 29. The Best of Laura Lee

 30. James Brown - Soul Classics Volume II
 31. Marvin Gaye - Let’s Get It On
 32. The Hollies’ Greatest Hits
 33. The Allman Brothers Band - Brothers and Sisters
 34. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band - Get Your Rocks Off
 35. Elliott Murphy - Aquashow
 36. Frederic Rzewski - Coming Together; Attica; Moutons de Panurge

 37. Roy Wood - Boulders
 38. Howlin’ Wolf - The Back Door Wolf
 39. Meet "Mississippi Charles" Bevel
 40. Marlo Thomas - Free to Be…You and Me

 41. Derek and the Dominos - In Concert
 42. Miles Davis in Concert
 43. Loudon Wainwright III - Attempted Mustache
 44. Mike Seeger - The Second Annual Farewell Reunion

 
 45. Esther Phillips - Black Eyed Blues
 46. Swamp Dogg - Gag a Maggott
 47. Taj Mahal - Ooh So Good ‘n Blues
                                           

40 Year Itch : Losing Your Love, Acting Foolishly

                                 

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Call Me ( home to three great singles : "You Ought To Be With Me", "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)" and "Call Me ( Come Back Home)" ruled the charts in June and remains one of the highest praised soul albums of all time. Today Al Green is a minister at the Full Tabernacle Church in Memphis but 40 years ago he was sex incarnate. The smoothest ladies man of them all. He didn't belt out choruses like his contemporaries so much as whisper sweet things into the microphone.

     Call Me also stands out for its two soulful covers of country standards--Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away". The album ends with "Jesus Is Waiting". From here on out--a full year before the infamous grits episode--Green offered up at least one sacred gesture among all the profane.



   "I was born again in 1973, " he says. "It wasn't an incident that did it. No. People are silly when they write that. Nothing happened to bring me to Christ except coming into the knowledge of Christ and being transformed in mind and spirit on a particular morning".

40 Year Itch: Al Green Is Still In Love With You

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Al Green already had everything in place on his earlier 1972 album Let's Stay Together: his smooth singing "Lover Man" persona, Willie Mitchell in the producer's seat and a hot Memphis band featuring former MG's drummer Al Jackson Jr and guitarist "Teenie" Hodges. I'm Still In Love With You, released October 23, 1972,  is more of the same...just better.

The album kicks off with the Top 5 title track, and includes another Top 5 hit, "Look What You've Done For Me" which strikes me as a bit of a re-write of "Let's Stay Together" .

There's a future single here too. Hi Records waited five years before releasing "Love And Happiness" as a single. Not that it did much in the charts. I'm Still In Love With You also has cover songs by Kris Kristoffersen  ("For The Good Times") and Roy Orbison ("Pretty Woman") .The most recent release has two bonus cuts including "Up Above My Head". 

Is this the best Al Green album? The album hit the Top 5 on the Billboard album charts and ranks 285 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums. Robert Christgau called it "Easily the most consistent soft-soul LP of the year". But I'm still going with 1973's Call Me or 1974's Al Green Explores Your Mind.