One Track Mind: Al Green, "Tired of Being Alone" (1971)

You made out to Al Green. It’s what worked.

Only later, did you realize all that had gone on in those records, starting with this — Green’s first charting hit, “Tired of Being Alone.”

His is a voice that whips around, like a sparrow, from flat-footed baritone — all silky-smooth grace and twinkling smile — to burning, yearning falsetto. He was Motown plus Stax, both smooth and gritty.

More particularly, Al Green worked within the rhythm like a refined jazz singer, even if he appeared in all of the outsized 1970s soul-man accoutrements of the day — large-lapelled coats, sometimes shirtless, with bell-bottomed jeans and a ten-gallon afro.

It was R&B in the sense that it touched something in the center of your chest, but his way of bending and shaping a line, of slowing down and then inching forward across the tempo spoke to a broader talent.

That makes Al Green’s genius, for me, the more modern equal of Sinatra’s and Cole’s. Like them, Green was talking with frankness about romance and with grace about eroticism. Not an easy thing to do at all, much less well.

And to a greasy beat.

In 1971, “Tired of Being Alone” would go to No. 11 on the pop charts and No. 7 on the R&B charts, cracking the door for what would become, three months later that November, Green’s first No. 1 — “Let’s Stay Together.” There followed, in 1972-73, six consecutive Top Ten singles. This eventual Rock and Roll Hall of Famer would eventually sell more than 20 million records.

It started here.

Working with Hi Records producer Willie Mitchell in Memphis, Tenn., and anchored by the late drummer Al Jackson (of Booker T. and the MGs fame), Green unleashes everything that would make him a star on “Tired of Being Alone,” this sparkling burst of creativity.

I still thrill to the punchy horn section, with Green sounding at times like one of its harmonic elements, the goose of gospel joy from background singers Rhodes-Chalmers-Rhodes, and a vocal style by Green that’s as much based on feeling as technique.

He seems at once confident, and doubtful, full of wonder and too scared — or too scarred — to make that first move. Seems Al Green was always of two minds: The guy who once put out a record titled “Al Green is Love” yet had previously issued an LP called “Green is Blues.” The guy whose first American single was a lithe, sexually charged take on the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” but who later became an ordained minister.

There is, deep in these grooves, an abandon associated with being saved — but also an electric current of passion sent from another place. Al Green, you came to surmise, would always be a man in search of the perfect balance — at the altar, or at the boudoir.

That’s Al Green. Unsecular, but never uncool. A singer of towering conviction, defined by contradictions.

And it’s still true, even if you’re too busy trying to get to second base to notice.

NICK’S NOTE: Click here for Al Green’s performance of this tune with Chicago.

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Nick DeRiso

Nick DeRiso has written for USA Today, American Songwriter, All About Jazz, and a host of others. Honored five times as columnist of the year, he oversaw a daily section named Top 10 in the U.S. by the Associated Press before co-founding Something Else! Nick is now assistant managing editor with Townsquare Media. www.nickderiso.com

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