I've just turned my attention to the music of soul/R&B/gospel legend AL GREEN. I started my collection with a friend's cassette compilation about 25 years ago and over the next few years purchased nearly 2 dozen of his individual albums. I realize for many fans a "Greatest Hits" or other career-spanning anthology would be sufficient, and years later I might have felt that way too, but back then I was much more of a completist and now I'm finally going back & giving all of these albums the attention they deserve. In my first post in this series I discuss Back Up Train, Green Is Blues, Al Green Gets Next To You and Let's Stay Together:

http://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/201 ... s-a-ram-2/

[For those of you who don't know me, I'm revisiting the complete catalogs of artists in my music collection, and posting my thoughts on a few albums at a time. Instead of focusing on my favorites, I've been choosing artists whose catalogs I own but haven't played as frequently as I'd like. So far I've covered Van Morrison, Talking Heads, The Band, Roxy Music, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Television, David Bowie, Nick Drake, Black Sabbath, Big Star, Tom Waits, The Beach Boys, Foo Fighters, Uncle Tupelo, PJ Harvey, Neil Young, Alice Cooper, XTC, Metallica, The Jayhawks, The Kinks and The Stooges (plus "Compilation Or Catalog?" posts on The Commodores, Montrose, Jimmy Buffett, Echo & The Bunnymen and The Cure). If you'd like to know more about me and the reasons for starting the blog, check out the "About" page here]:
http://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/about/

I'm curious to see if there are any passionate Al Green fans here at Imwan. I hope to hear from you, either here or in the Comments section at the bottom of each post. Thanks.

Except for one track on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack I don't own any Al Green, but I'm looking forward to this series. With a few obvious exceptions, R&B artists don't seem to get the same attention for their individual albums that rock acts do, so this should be interesting. And as one who likes to explore the used bins, I'd love to know more about what to look for.

Definitely love Al Green. I have all his secular albums and a few gospel (Higher Plane is my favorite of these). Top favorite Green album is Call Me- it smoulders & sizzles and is brilliant from start to finish.

Personally I don't think enough praise is given to his most recent albums- I Can't Stop, Everything's OK and Lay It Down. They may not top his best Hi Records albums but each one retains the excellent soul form that makes Al so great.

Glenn, I agree with your point about how most R&B artists don't get the kind of album recognition that rock artists do, with maybe a few exceptions. I'm hoping to correct that in my own small way via this series. Please let me know if you end up getting any of Al Green's individual albums at some point. Would love to hear your thoughts.


LT, of the three recent albums you mentioned I have two of them (I never got Lay It Down). I doubt I'll buy it specifically for this series but it's good to know I've got at least one recommendation for that album which I might check out in the future. I have about 5-6 of his gospel albums. I don't remember much about them, and I'm not expecting to be blown away when I get to that portion of his catalog, but I don't think I'll ever tire of hearing his voice.

As for Call Me, that will be included in my next post. I played it once yesterday, along with three others, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with all of them next week.

Thanks for the feedback, fellas.

In my second AL GREEN post I discuss four albums he released between 1972 & 1974: I'm Still In Love With You, Call Me, Livin' For You and Al Green Explores Your Mind.

http://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/201 ... ears-away/

Wow, I thought the batch of albums I covered in the previous post was impressive, but these are even better. Please stop by & let me know if you agree. Thanks.

In the third part of this series I talk about 4 studio albums he released in the 2nd half of the 70s (Al Green Is Love, Full Of Fire, Have A Good Time and The Belle Album) as well as his first concert recording (Tokyo...Live).

http://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/201 ... ood-times/

Thanks for checking it out.

In the 4th part of this series, I discuss the five gospel-era Al Green albums in my collection: Precious Lord, I'll Rise Again, Soul Survivor, I Get Joy and the One In A Million compilation. I'm missing a few other albums from this period but I think I got a pretty good overview of what he was up to in the '80s after spending a week with these records. Here's a link to this post:

http://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/201 ... -the-lord/

Anyone else here a fan of this portion of his discography?

I just wrapped up this series with my 5th post on Al Green's discography. In this post I discuss the four most recent albums I own: Love Is Reality, Your Heart's In Good Hands, I Can't Stop and Everything's OK (the last two featuring a reunion with Willie Mitchell and the Hi Records musicians from his classic 70s recordings).

http://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/201 ... onclusion/

I hope you enjoyed these posts. Thanks to everyone who stopped by.