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Soul Survivor: A
Biography of Al Green
by Jimmy McDonough
c.2017, DaCapo Press
$28.00 / $36.50 Canada
403 pages
By Terri Schichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
Difficult.
We all know someone like that, who could charitably be
called a challenge. Someone who swims against the
current, who rubs people the wrong way, who makes you
growly. In the new book Soul Survivor: A Biography of Al
Green by Jimmy McDonough, ruffled feathers can come from
surprising places.
Born to sharecroppers, Albert Leorns Greene (he later
dropped the “e’”) entered the world in April, 1946, on the
floor of a two-bedroom house near a town so small it barely
registered on a map. Greene’s family was church-going and
always had food on the table but life was hard, and young
Greene’s father often didn’t have but a few hundred dollars
to last a year. Some people said he had a temper.
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“Those who know Al,” says McDonough,” described him much the
same way.”
Even so, the family was close and singing was an important
part of their lives. When Albert was still a child, his
father assembled a gospel group with his sons, leaving
Albert out of the mix. McDonough says that Al “watched with
envy” as his brothers performed, and vowed that he would
become famous one day.
He was a “different” child, a “sensitive” one, but
determined: all he ever wanted to do was sing and if he had
to, he’d do it “on my own without anyone.” Despite his set
mind, Al was shy, and didn’t make friends easily; a family
move north didn’t help.
After a successful second try at high school. Al Green
scrabbled to find fame in Michigan and in New York before
heading for Memphis, a recording hotspot. He wrote songs and
had a few minor hits, although McDonough says he was “an…
idiosyncratic songwriter” and had a “strange relationship”
with the guys in his band. Still, what he had, “odd” as it
was, worked: by 1972, he’d finally achieved his fame.
Today, the Reverend Al Green has returned to his roots, at
his own church. He’s supposedly reticent to talk about parts
of his past, or about the women who came to him in lusty
waves. He’s, in fact, sometimes said to be reluctant to talk
about much at all; he even turned author Jimmy McDonough
away. McDonough was able to interview some of Green’s
friends and family – or he tried to – and what he learned,
plus what he gleaned from elsewhere, is the basis of “Soul
Survivor.”
Here, McDonough offers a level of respect and praises
Green’s musical genius, even as he interjects second-hand
anecdotes of Green’s quirks and conflicting stories. He says
Green is “the crazy-old-coot uncle” who’s perpetually
unpredictable, which underscores a biography that’s
interesting but shockingly less-than-complimentary.
McDonough says he’d been thinking of writing this book “for
over twenty years” but, based on narrative here, readers may
rightly wonder why.
With the feel of side-whispered gossip in a dark alley,
scandal fans may enjoy this book but, for others, it might
be a harder sell. Soul Survivor is good enough, but
wanting it on your bookshelf may be a decision that’s
difficult. |
