The black urban record buyer has inevitably turned against the rural soul style pioneered by Stax and Atlantic records of the Sixties. They've instead chosen the pop R&B preferred by some Motown producers and the entire Gamble-Huff-Bell Philadelphia cabal. And no wonder: Most such listeners are less disturbed by occasional allusions to the junkie on the corner than by the ethos of traditional R&B—an approach that reminds many of a Southern past that they would just as soon forget.
The musical style that characterized the best of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, Aretha Franklin and James Brown has lately been met with such indifference that only a handful of committed
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artists and producers continue to use it in any form. Of these, only Al Green and Memphis-based Hi Records owner and producer Willie Mitchell have enjoyed consistent commercial, as well as aesthetic, success. Together, on
Livin' For You, they once again make their stand, to serve as the essential link between Sixties soul and Seventies pop.
The modern black pop stylist adorns his album with psychedelic art; Al Green adorns his with old-fashioned tacky drawings and promo photos. The new arrangers prefer the mellowness of trumpets in their horn charts; Green and Mitchell retain the traditional saxophones. The new producers employ full orchestrations; Green and Mitchell create simple horn-like lines for small string sections. And, while other labels have turned to the often impersonal sound of vocal groups, Mitchell's Hi Records stakes everything on the passion that can only come from a single voice, most especially, Al Green's.
Green and Mitchell developed their style long ago. The superb house band lays down steady, tight and uncluttered rhythm tracks, while Green sings around the arrangement, feinting vocal jabs here and there, and landing solidly in the groove only at moments of greatest intensity. The contrast is most evident in the play-off between his free-flowing singing and the rock-steady, spare drumming of Al Grimes and Al Jackson, Jr., the latter the cornerstone of the now defunct and sorely missed Stax rhythm section.
Livin' For You contains no dramatic departures from the approach. But Green's decision to write most of the material and serve as co-producer has resulted in a subtly more personal work. He sustains a new level of intensity and has redeveloped the art of soul dynamics almost as if it hadn't existed before.
On "Home Again," he takes the band through three stages: a simple ballad beginning, an expanding bridge, and a startling, double-timed climax. Each movement reflects a different stage of his feeling about home, which he defines as the one place he can shed his role-playing and simply be himself. Similarly, "Let's Get Married" progresses from a conventional opening through a compelling fade, just as "So Good to Be Here" explodes towards its conclusion.
But even in the midst of an album
