Everything's Ok / Al Green

Al Green

1. Everything's OK 2. You Are So Beautiful 3. Build Me Up 4. Perfect To Me 5. Nobody But You 6. Real Love 7. I Can Make Music 8. Be My Baby 9. Magic Road 10. I Wanna Hold You 11. Another Day 12. All The Time

The great soul singer made his secular comeback with 2002's I Can't Stop, but Everything's OK is truly Al Green's return to form. Green left the concert stage for the pulpit in 1979, and while his pretty falsetto reading of Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful" could easily be holy praise, he makes it clear in his asides that he's keeping things on a strictly earthly plane this time. Twenty-eight years after "Love and Happiness," these satisfying songs glide on those emotions as Green celebrates joy and carnal desire. He couldn't be clearer than in numbers like "I Wanna Hold You." When he sings about lovemaking his voice seems buoyed by helium, it's so light, high, and soaring. Green and producer Willie Mitchell made magic together at Memphis's Hi Records in the '70s with their mix of Green's buttery tones and ecstatic cries and deep percussion-, horn-, and keyboard-swathed grooves. They do it again here repeatedly, capturing the élan of their heyday on numbers like the title track and "Build Me Up." If Green's new missionary work is putting a little love in our hearts during these turbulent, conflicted times, this reassuringly titled CD is a great start. --Ted Drozdowski

Price: $19.98