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On June 27th, 2009 I was pleased to see the wonderful Reverend Al Green perform live just a few blocks from home. It’s not that I was attending a church service (more on that later), rather I was seeing Mr. Green wear his other, more famous hat…you know, the one where he is one of America’s greatest and most legendary soul singers?
Al Green was performing under the stars in Confederation Park as the Tuesday evening headliner at the Ottawa Jazz Festival, where he kept the mostly lawnchair-bound crowd nodding and we beer-fisted stand-and-gapers swaying. The reverend led his rather large band through a pile of music that he was famous for and a whole bunch of music that others of his era were famous for, but that’s just the kind of leeway a legend like Al Green deserves. Of course he did his signature song My Girl, likely saving it for near the end (okay, I don’t exactly recall whether or not he actually sang My Girl but he must have, right?) not to mention a medley or two of impossible-to-not-recognize songs specifically designed to show off Al Greens unmistakeable voice and his exceptional…well…soul.
But did you know that Al Green is (was? More on that later) an actual preacher? Yes indeedy, when he wasn’t out on the road Al Green used to hold Biblical court over a congregation every Sunday on the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee just a stone’s throw from Graceland. I know this because I still sting with regret for not attending one of those services one particular Superbowl Sunday that I happened to find myself in Memphis visiting Elvis Presley’s final resting place. I had intended to attend the morning service but at the last minute I felt (wrongly) that it might be somehow disrespectful to go to church just because I was hoping that the preacher would sing a tune or two, and I got cold feet and skipped it. And like I say, it still stings.
That said, it makes me that much happier that I at least saw this show.
(For some reason I had it in my head that Reverend Al Green no longer hosts his Sunday services, and my oft-struggling brain assumed that I must think that because he is no longer living, but as I write this the internet suggests that Mr. Green is happily still with us after all*. And despite the fact that I obviously have google at my fingertips I can’t really trouble myself to investigate if the good Reverend has indeed stopped preaching or not. Perhaps if I leave that chore to my ardent readers it could lead some of them to personal discovery and a possible adventure.)
*I guess it is easy bein’ Green.
Todd Man Out 