Al Green's father threw him out for listening to Jackie Wilson
As a teenager, Al Green was kicked out of the family home when his devout father caught him playing Jackie Wilson records. A few years later, Memphis producer Willie Mitchell coached him to stop imitating his heroes and find his own voice. The result was Let's Stay Together and a run of soul classics that defined the early 1970s.
Albert Leornes Greene was born on 13 April 1946 in Forrest City, Arkansas, the sixth of ten children of Cora Lee and a sharecropper, Robert Greene Jr. Around age ten he sang with siblings as the Greene Brothers, and in the late 1950s the family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. He loved gospel greats like Mahalia Jackson, but what thrilled him most were the hip-shaking stars, Wilson Pickett and above all Elvis Presley, whose every record he bought at thirteen.
In high school he formed Al Greene and the Creations. As Al Greene and the Soul Mates the group released Back Up Train in 1966, an R&B hit that reached No. 46 on the Cashbox chart, but nothing after it charted. Then, in 1969, Willie Mitchell hired him to sing at a show in Texas. Noticing that Green kept mimicking Sam Cooke, James Brown and others, Mitchell became his vocal mentor. Before his first Hi Records album, the singer dropped the final e from his surname.
The partnership with Mitchell and the Hi Rhythm Section produced his biggest successes and made him a pillar of Memphis soul. Tired of Being Alone sold a million copies, the first of eight gold singles. The title track of Let's Stay Together, released in January 1972, topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and the R&B chart, and the follow-up album later that year went platinum. Hits such as Love and Happiness and Take Me to the River kept coming.
In the 1980s Green became an ordained pastor and turned to gospel recording. His honours include 11 Grammy Awards, among them a Lifetime Achievement Award, a 1995 place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Kennedy Center Honors. Rolling Stone ranked him No. 65 among the greatest artists in 2008 and No. 10 among the greatest singers in 2023, and he is sometimes called the last of the great soul singers.
Source: Al Green
