Still, this small, unassuming building is where Green, producer and studio owner Willie Mitchell, the Hodges brothers, Jackson, and others made all of Green’s classic albums. Unlike the giant Stax Museum just a mile away, Royal Studios at 1320 Lauderdale in Memphis isn’t a major tourist attraction. One key to Green’s Hi classics is their unmistakable sound. A few other, slightly later developments - like the dominance of disco and the new technology that flooded R&B in the 1980s - firmly closed the door on this era. It pre-dates Green’s abandonment of soul for gospel and the murder of drummer Al Jackson, Jr. ![]() It was recorded when strings in soul were ascendant - thanks to Isaac Hayes up the street at Stax Records and Gamble, Huff, and Bell in Philadelphia. King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, so these records don’t have as much hopeful buoyancy as most 1960s soul. Green created this music in a narrow window of time, between “Tired of Being Alone” in 1971 and “Full of Fire” in 1975. Each was certified Gold, outperformed among Green’s singles only by the epic, ubiquitous “Let’s Stay Together”, released just a few months earlier, in late 1971. The album’s two primary singles, “I’m Still in Love with You” and “Look What You Done for Me”, both reached top five pop (number three and number four, respectively) and R&B (number one and number two, respectively). Of course, it also hit number one on the R&B chart and stayed there for five weeks. Before the music market became so segregated, it wasn’t a shock that a record like this one would reach number four pop, the highest chart position of any of Green’s classic albums (it’s the only one of them to be certified Platinum). That’s the Al Green who released I’m Still in Love with You 50 years ago, right in the middle of his trifecta of soul perfection (after Let’s Stay Together and before Call Me).īack in 1972, the appeal of I’m Still in Love with You was enormous, and its reach was vast. But I won’t, because none of that is as interesting as Al Green on Hi Records in his prime, when he was the greatest soul singer alive - maybe even the best ever. I could write about his upbringing and the early, less successful stages of his career, his long turn to the church after being assaulted by his girlfriend, or his return to (secular) form in 2003 and the years that followed. Mitchell provides a texture in his production that is the perfect complement to Green’s singing while establishing its own richness but avoids calling attention to itself with those hey-hey-aren’t-I-hot touches so many big-time producers love to indulge themselves with.A l Green is a complicated figure. ![]() It’s never trite, never obtrusive - none of those wedges of unrelieved production (something quite different from music) you find driven into so many other albums - and always several steps ahead of being just right. As with most Al Green songs (this one written in collaboration with drummer Al Jackson and producer Willie Mitchell), the lyrics are simple, almost unremarkable and in this case touchingly inarticulate: “Spending my days/thinkin' ‘bout you girl./Being here with you/being near with you/Can’t explain myself.” Throughout, Willie Mitchell’s production work is as consistently strong as Green’s vocals. He stretches the word “heaven” and it shimmers or he dips his voice down low at the end of a line as if to insinuate it into every possible corner of the song. The line, “I’m … wrapped up in your love,” delivered twice, is sung high, almost disappearing at the end of his range, and yet enveloping - the perfect vocal equivalent of being hugged tightly in someone’s arms. “I’m Still in Love with You” opens the album with one of Green’s more extraordinary vocals.
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