Praise Be To Al Green -

After Graceland, Al Green's full Gospel Tabernacle is the primary place of worship in Memphis. It's smaller and more humble than the house of the King, and it doesn't have a Jungle Room, but the Tabernacle offers one important service that Graceland doesn't: it saves souls. For real. Just past noon on a Sunday, Reverend Green, the pastor here since 1976 and before that the voice of soul classics like "Let's Stay Together" and "Love and Happiness," makes an unobtrusive entrance. He wears a long black robe with bright yellow piping, and he has a 3-year-old boy with him, dressed impeccably in a two-piece suit. A hymn fades, and Green addresses the parish. A huge, welcoming grin spreads across his face. He's here to serve God, but he's also here to entertain. For him, the two aren't so different.

"It's so good to be in God's house today," he says. "It's so good to see your smiling faces. Everybody smile!" And everybody does. They're happy to be in Al's house today. "I want you to turn around and hug the person next to you!" he commands next. Everybody does that, too. Love is flowing freely. Green cackles. "I like to have fun," he says. "But I'm sincere. I'm for real." And suddenly the grin vanishes. His expression turns severe, almost threatening. "I want you to clap your hands and tell God thank you," he commands. A few hands come together; it's not enough. Green glares at the crowd. "Hello!" he yells. "Is anybody out there? Hasn't the Lord been good to you? Hasn't the Lord healed you enough times for you to thank him?" Shouts and claps ring out all over the church. He's stomping his foot; the band picks up the beat. Everyone in the crowd is with him. Some of them are regular parishioners, there for the religion; some are visitors, there for the music. Either way, they all believe in Al.

Green, 49, has been turning music into religion and vice versa for more than 25 years. Now, he's releasing his first all-secular album in 18 years, "Your Heart's in Good Hands." Produced by a team of established R&B hitmakers like DeVante of Jodeci, and Andy Cox and David Steele of Fine Young Cannibals, "Your Heart's in Good Hands" harks back to the deliciously sweet soul sound of his early '70s hits. It still sounds like an Al Green record, not a gussied-up new jack swing record with Al Green's voice on top. At the same time, Green's classic work is being rediscovered by a new generation. "Tired of Being Alone," his 1971 breakthrough, is included on the soundtrack of the latest Hughes Brothers film, "Dead Presidents," now No. 1 on the R&B chart. "Let's Stay Together" appeared on the platinum "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack. "We used a song of his in 'Menace II Society,' too," says filmmaker Allen Hughes. "Before Quentin Tarantino. He's one of our favorite guys. I don't think there's an artist from that era--or this era--that made so many great songs back to back."

It's ironic, in a way, that after more than 18 years of ministry work, Green's old glammed-out hipster image is having a revival. In "Dead Presidents," he's seen on an old episode of "Soul Train," wearing satiny hot pants and a giant "pimp hat," when one of the central characters is found dead of a drug overdose. Green has seen neither "Dead Presidents" nor "Pulp Fiction," and he says he is unaware of the films' content. "Of course," he says evenly, "we don't support violence and all that." And even though "Your Heart's in Good Hands" is technically a secular album, Green wants people to know that its messages are as positive and uplifting as anything he's done. "It talks about love between a man and a woman, yeah," Green says, speaking in slow, measured cadences. "But we're from a standpoint that love between man and God, love between husband and wife, love between boyfriend and girlfriend, all love comes from God. We have a wonderful Creator, he's blessed us with these things, so we know where our hope lies."

Green takes the business of saving souls seriously. Born in Arkansas, the son of a sharecropper, Green moved to Michigan in his teens and toured with gospel and R&B groups. A chance meeting with producer Willie Mitchell brought him to Memphis in the early '70s. Back then he could save souls with just the sound of his voice-- a delicate, mellifluous falsetto croon that could melt down words and phrases into pure emotion. Like Sam Cooke in the late '50s and Otis Redding in the '60s. Green stood at the crossroads where street soul and gospel grace combined into high romantic art. But even at the peak of his career, Green was colliding with darker forces. In 1974, a woman whose marriage proposal he had just rejected poured boiling grits on his back, then shot herself to death with his handgun. Over the next two years, Green sought refuge in the church, and in 1976 he became an ordained minister and founded the nondenominational Full Gospel Tabernacle. But he wasn't yet able to break away from his secular past. "Belle, it's you I want," he sang in the 1977 song "Belle." "But it's Him that I need."

Green had more practical problems as well. By then, disco had made his homegrown Memphis soul obsolete. The hits dropped off, the money dried up and he scrounged for a living on the chitlin tour circuit. He had married Shirley Kyles, a church administrator, but the marriage quickly derailed. In January 1995, Kyles told The Washington Post that Green beat her severely and repeatedly during their five-year marriage, which nevertheless yielded three children. Green admitted under oath during divorce proceedings that he had struck his wife.

In 1979, he took a wrong step off a poorly lit stage and fell 12 feet. It became clear to him that the soul that most badly needed saving was his own. "He came to my house about 1 o'clock in the morning." says Willie Mitchell. "He said, 'I'm going gospel.' I said, 'Man, I don't know a thing about gospel, and I don't want to know anything about it. Bless you. Do what you want to do'." Green's transformation over these last 10 or 15 years has helped him. He's now remarried, and the little boy in the suit squirming next to him in church is his son. When asked about the abuse of his ex-wife, Green doesn't flinch or deny it. "You're talking about 15, 16, 17 years ago," he says. "She might have experienced many things that were unpleasant. The way I saw it, it was just hopping in the car and going to the next gig. But I'm not a supporter of abusive families and abusive relationships."

There was a moment during Sunday worship when the shouts of the crowd, the rhythms of the band and the voices of the choir swirled into a chaotic rush of sound. Green was leaning over, sweat pouring down his face, when his shout metamorphosed into a falsetto cry. From that one wordless moan, he began to knit a complex melody of cascading notes, and the choir echoed him with gorgeous harmony. The band fell in behind them, and the entire church was swept along into a tightly arranged hymn of praise. Green straightened up, dabbing his forehead with a white cloth. He'd just created music out of chaos, and if he could do that he could do anything.

Uncommon Knowledge

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