The ‘Reverend’ Al Green and his place in THE EVOLUTION OF ROCK ‘N ROLL

Al Green was born in Forrest City, Arkansas. He was the sixth of ten children born to Robert and Cora Greene. The son of a sharecropper, he started performing Gospel music at age ten in a Forrest City quartet called the Greene Brothers (he dropped the final "E" from his last name years later as a solo artist). The Greene Brothers toured extensively in the mid-1950s in the South until the Greenes moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, when they began to tour around Michigan--until his father kicked Al out of the group when he caught him listening to Jackie Wilson 

Green formed a group called Al Greene & the Creations in high school. In 1967, under a new name, Al Greene & the Soul Mates, the band recorded "Back Up Train" and released it on Hot Line Music; the song was an R&B chart hit. 

For many years thereafter Green continued to put out non-Gospel (secular) hits--Even during two full-time stints as a bonified minister with a church and congregation in Tennessee...

Here are a couple more secular tunes by

The Reverend Al Green

And one a bit less secular:

Learn more about Al Green on his official website…