Slave To The Ism

My regal 82-year old mother rang me the day after the BET Awards to let me know that she was through with Al Green. “I’ll listen to his old records, but Lord if I don’t know what has happened to him today. What a mess.” Moms couldn’t hang with the Reverend’s loopy streak, unveiled in all its finest glory during last week’s annual Negropalooza. I felt especially guilty for having encouraged her to tune back into the show to catch Green after the first 10 minutes had scared her so much that she’d already turned it off. “I’m honored and humbled by the Academy of the B.E.T. Awards… What you laughing at?” As generation Youtube “filmmakers” Mickey and CJ declare on their Chappelle-in-training wheels short short short “Al Green BET LOL”: “We laughing at you!” Reverend Al’s chitter-chatter and wide-eyed mugging (lifting his sunglasses-at-night, no less) amped up the talk of a “crazy” label that some have quietly attached to Green in the post-grits era, even as the nostalgic affection for his warm, rippling, post-juke joint Memphis soul has waxed and flowed among black folks for more than three decades now. Even white listeners have pledged their undying love for Green, especially after 1990s Negro-ologist Quentin Tarantino jacked up the volume on “Let’s Stay Together” while Bruce Willis stood idle in a Pulp Fiction barroom. Jon Stewart, several years back on The Daily Show, swooned over his soul legend guest, back in an era when even less black peeps were regulars on that show (two and counting, Jonny boy—yes, we can!). But actually listening to Al Green talk can sometimes lead you to wonder what is going on with one of the greatest R&B singers of the modern era. Non-sequitars, tangential allusions to God and well, God knows what else… It may be our own fault that we expect our classic soul men to deliver the gravitas 24/7—Sam’s aching, existential longing, Otis and Curtis’s Civil Rights striving, Marvin’s brooding social critique. But even Stevie, our long-running shining pan-Africanist musical prince, has played with the fringes of the goofy in and out of song. One of my good friends once noted how she occasionally has to hold back the laughs when Stevie adds “a little extra” to the bass in his voice late in the chorus of, well most of his uptempo songs… Stevie’s playfulness is a mark of the wonder-full richness and joy of black life that his music so brilliantly celebrates. So perhaps Green’s occasional conversational inanity can best be likened to a perpetual state of preacherly get-happiness. High on life and love of God, his meanderings are a reminder that Green long ago found permanent fuel in the ether-lightness of the spirit. Thanks be to Questlove and James Poyser for catching it in a bottle on Green’s new album Lay It Down. And Hallelujah! for a shorn Maxwell (where art thou, Embryanic tresses?!!!) for coming the closest to invoking the vintage Reverend’s balance of buoyant freeplay and sensual showboating during his electric silk cover of the exquisite “Simply Beautiful” for the BET Green Tribute segment. Maxwell’s genius crooning and prowling the stage (minus the over-the-top banter about “sexy shoes” toward the end of his performance) made fans like my Mom long for the old Al Green (“Now that little one at the end could blow!”). The Al that turned up at Carnegie Hall last Friday night was neither fair nor fowl. His madhatter mix of earnest balladeering (Green even semi-scolded an over-zealous fan who, at one point, threw him off his lyrical game at one point) while cutting up and leading a never-ending sing-a-long was clearly disappointing to some of the crowd who, like my Mom, fondly recall all that was magical about Al in his prime—especially his ability to find the warm center of a keyboard-drenched groove and massage it—and you—into pure release. The court-jester reverend comes off more as part non-sinister Joker and part English-speaking Pootie Tang, chuckling at his own jokes, flirting with mischief, and speaking earnestly on a completely different wavelength to his audience. Much of this makes Green something of a puzzle to incredulous younger listeners like my ex-partner (10 years my junior) who asked me on more than one occasion why I liked Al Green (he also gave me an amazing Japanese import DVD of Green in the studio… so thanks if you’re out there…). That’s a question that threw me off at first, but eventually it inspired me to think more closely about how to respond to him. The answer hit me over the head while watching Green’s truly old school/new school brother dancers studiously coming forward to do their thing whenever the beat crept higher than on “For the Good Times.” Sporting tuxes, meticulous cornrow dos, and some easy-as-summer breeze choreographed moves, Green’s dancers were all business about their play while the Reverend bobbed and weaved around and through singing (some? most?) of the verses of his string of classics. I’d never laughed with a singer so much at a show—even if I wasn’t sure half of the time what we were laughing at or for or about. The sheer pleasure of living? The miracle of making music? How ‘bout the fact that the Reverend, in his own special way—is continuing to teach us some new tricks about our emotional selves—by hamming it up, and reveling in the ridiculously ineffable, illogical language of love and happiness. -Daphne Brooks