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The relationship between producer and artist is paramount in nearly all recorded music, but perhaps nowhere more so than in soul, a sound which depends so much on an indescribable and unpredictable mix of elements best summed up by the old guys as "feeling." Yet the history of soul contains only a few nearly infallible producer-artist teams: Holland/Dozier/Holland with the Four Tops, the Stax team with Sam & Dave, Norman Whitfield with the Temptations, Gamble & Huff with the O'Jays... and Willie Mitchell with Al Green. Green, a man of God with his own Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis, Tennessee, also owns one of the most unforgettable voices in soul. And he has used it -- whether serving the Lord or us here on Earth -- with rare integrity.
So it's a sizable chunk of news that Green has reunited with producer Mitchell, with whom he recorded the string of classic early-'70s albums Gets Next To You, Let's Stay Together, Explores Your Mind, and Full of Fire, in addition to the underrated 1985 gospel LP He Is The Light (buy them all, now). They've also returned to Mitchell's Royal Recording Studio on Memphis' South Lauderdale Ave. (now renamed Willie Mitchell Avenue!) with many of their original session players, including vocalists Rhodes, Chalmers & Rhodes, bassist Leroy Hodges, and Memphis Horns vets Andrew Love and Jack Hale.
With that kind of buildup, unfortunately, it would be difficult to avoid some form of disappointment. After all, you can hardly catch lightning in a bottle twice (Mitchell and Green did for four solid albums!), and we're 30 years down the road from their glory days. Times have changed. But the three major mistakes of this album could have been avoided. The first is a simple case of sequencing -- as it stands, the album doesn't even feel like it's started until "Real Love" (track six), the first song with true passion. Why track two had to be a cover of the worn-out ballad "You Are So Beautiful," I'll never understand. Green tries to blow some life into it, and nearly does, but why bother?
Secondly, despite being filled with horns, strings, and backing singers, the classic Green-Mitchell albums had a simple production philosophy that felt so intimate and natural it was like Al really was Getting Next To You! Not so here, where everything, including Green's voice (still in fine form) is enveloped in a Vegas-style slick sheen. And lastly, Green's lyrics simply don't have the poetry of his older work. One of the strongest songs is titled "Magic Road," which seems destined for a car ad.
Good things could be said about Everything's OK, but when it comes to Green and Mitchell, OK is not good enough.
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