Blige's 'My Life' Documentary: 8 Things We Learnedīut I’m not really complaining.
Otis was sweet and funky Al Green is, more and more, just sweet. To some extent, it’s a choice between sweetness and funk, and yet these qualities were hardly mutually exclusive in Redding’s work. Whether Al Green is a better singer than Otis Redding is a question that doesn’t interest me, although I prefer Green’s iridescent falsetto to Redding’s rougher, gruffer voice. Is it going too far to say he’s the only truly great male vocalist to come along since Otis Redding? He’s certainly the only black singer since Redding to approach, and in some ways go beyond, Redding’s wide popularity and appeal while developing a style at least as idiosyncratic and exciting (both Bill Withers and Curtis Mayfield are taking steps in these same directions but neither have that certain ego-driven Star Quality that would qualify them as top contenders for the long-vacant Otis Redding heavyweight spot). With one hit single after another, all of them turning into a neat stack of gold if not platinum records, Green hardly lost his place on the charts, always seemed to have two or three slots on the jukebox, and now has his second album of the year.Īll this would be of only passing interest if Al Green weren’t so good, so very good. So is there any question that when the music trades rack up their year-end charts for 1972 (and you discover that some group you never even heard of mysteriously became Top New R&B Vocal Group), the number one Male Vocalist will be Al Green? I mean is there any doubt in your mind? 1972 is Al Green’s year and he seemed to snatch it up almost effortlessly.
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