TIME OF THE PREACHER

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
September 16, 2005

When The Rev. Al Green was a teenager his father kicked him out of their family gospel group after finding young Al listening to Jackie Wilson records.

That’s a classic example of the conflict between the sacred and the profane, a Faustian struggle that has been a major and ongoing theme in the history of American music.

“There’s a difference, of course, in both worlds, the secular and the sacred,” said Green -- who is performing at the Santa Fe Opera Saturday -- in a phone interview Monday. “But I can only be one person. I have to reconcile these things in my mind to persevere and press on.”

This conflict was apparent from the earliest days of rock, when Little Richard denounced the sinful ways of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle to become a preacher -- at least for a few years. And when Jerry Lee Lewis told Sun Records owner Sam Phillips in essence that he knew rock ‘n’ roll would lead him straight to Hell, but he intended to rock all the way to the flames. It was central to Sam Cooke, who stunned devotees of his gospel music by going to the secular world and helping create a sound known as “soul music.” It ate away at Marvin Gaye -- shot to death by his father, a minister -- whose biography is titled Divided Soul. It’s been a major issue for Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Prince, Robert Randolph and who knows how many others.

Filmmaker Robert Mugge, who made a 1984 documentary called The Gospel According to Al Green, said in an e-mail interview this week that “the sacred-secular conflict clearly represents both the heart and the soul of Al Green.”

Mugge said he used to introduce the movie saying, “This is a film about love, about the connections between soul music and gospel, and about a man who flew to close to the sun, got his eyeballs burned, and has been singing ever since with fire coming out of mouth.”

But Green said Monday he long ago reconciled this inner conflict.

“I don’t have any blockades to hinder me in the things the Lord has allowed me to do,” he said. “I look at what God has done, and I think `How magnificent!’ … I don’t have to draw lines. Other people might think they have to draw lines on everything, but not me. No, because I’m Al. I know who God is. To me, God performs a miracle every day when I wake up in the morning.”

Born in rural Arkansas and migrating with his family to Grand Rapids, Mich. at an early age. By the age of 20, after his dad had thrown him out of the gospel group, Green was pursuing a musical career in the world of soul.

In 1969 hooked up with a trumpet player and producer named Willie Mitchell in Midland, Texas. (They’d both been cheated by a nightclub owner there.) Recognizing Green’s vocal prowess, Mitchell took him to Memphis, where he was a producer for Hi Records.

Together, Green and Mitchell created a new soul sound. And by 1971 Green was swimming in hits: “Love and Happiness,” “Let’s Stay Together,” “Tired of Being Alone,” “I’m Still in Love With You.”

“I was 21 and this sex-symbol type of Al Green,” Green said. “ There was a poster of me with my shirt off and a picture of me with my thumbs in my pants. That was back then. It doesn’t make for me today. I wrote those songs about girls, not the Lord. But as time goes on, you begin to reconsider about what‘s important.”

As documented in Mugge’s film, Green’s guilt and conflicts with his soul star lifestyle and his religious upbringing were becoming apparent even by the mid ‘70s.

It all came to a head in a horrible 1974 incident in which a spurned girlfriend threw a pot of boiling grits in his face as he was bathing, causing second-degree burns. She then went into a bedroom and committed suicide with a gun.

Green converted to Christianity and by 1976 was an ordained minister. By the end of the decade he turned his back on secular music for years.

Mugge said his interview with Green for the documentary was one of the first time Green publicly talked about some of his darker times.

“Some of his longtime musicians were in the control room of his studio, basically standing there with their mouths hanging open,“ Mugge said. “I learned from them afterwards that Al had spoken to me of things that, to their knowledge, he had never discussed with anyone. Naturally, the so-called `hot grits incident’ was, for him, the most painful subject for him to address. But I had the sense that he really did what to talk about it that day -- to get the matter out on the table, to let people know exactly what had happened, and then to be done with it.”

Though his past two secular albums, I Can’t Stop (2003) and Everything’s O.K. have received strong critical acclaim, Green considers his church, The Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis, his true work.

He says he preaches there 52 weeks a year, including Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night services. The church, which seats 150, has become a Memphis tourist attraction.

“People come from all over,” he said. “Yesterday there were people from Finland. We’ve had people from Austria, Japan, Australia, Ireland, they come from everywhere. The word has spread that if you’re really into Al Green, you’ve got to go see him at his church. You think he’s something on stage, you should see him at the Tabernacle.”

Green said his secular work serves God as well as his gospel music.

“Love will make you do right,” he said. “Of course it can sometimes make you do wrong too. But I’ve had couples come up to me and say they got married to my music.

“Some have said they had their children because of my music,” he said. Green said he asked one woman how that was possible. She answered in song, he said, then he imitated her: “Lay your head on my pillow …” he sang. (This is from his version of Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times.”)

Green said he’s already begun a new album, which he said will include a cover of a Marvin Gaye song, though he refused to say which one.

He’s also going to be the subject of an upcoming biopic starring Mekhi Phifer. The working title is “Tired of Being Alone.”

As for the show Saturday night, Green said, “Tell Santa Fe I’m going to bring them `Love and Happiness.’ "

Who: The Rev. Al Green with opening act Raul Midon
What: Soul Music
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday Sept. 17
Where: The Santa Fe Opera
How Much: Tickets range between $25 and $85. Call Santa Fe Opera Ticket Office 986-5900
Contact Fan Man Productions

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: LET'S ALL GET DIXIE FRIED

A version of this appeared in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Sepetember 16, 2005

Every time I hear classic Southern rock these days, I always recall a weird bit of trivia from an old Beavis & Butthead cartoon that makes me chuckle. Beavis, according to a passing reference from Butthead, was sired by a roadie for The Marshall Tucker Band.

I’m not sure why that struck me as so funny. But it always makes me wonder how many little Beavises were spawned around this great land of ours during the bluesy, boozy era when hairy hoards of Southern rock warriors -- Marshall Tucker, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Wet Willie, Grinderswitch and of course The Allman Brothers roamed the Earth.

No one is calling it a “movement,” but in recent years there have been several bands from the South that proudly play upon their Southern roots. Though these groups don’t really sound much alike -- and none of them consciously imitate their 1970s forefathers -- in all of them I hear a little bit of the spirit of Duane Allman and Ronnie Van Zandt. And a little bit of Beavis & Butthead too.

Here’s a look at some recent Southern rock CDs.

*Aha Shake Heartbreak by Kings of Leon This is one of the most interesting and most satisfying bands from any region to arise in the last few years.

Originally hailing from Oklahoma, (now settled for several years in Tennessee), the core of the Kings consists of three brothers, Caleb, Nathan and Fared Followill, whose father, Leon Followill was a traveling Pentecostal preacher with an earthly fondness for The Rolling Stones and Neil Young. With their guitar-playing cousin Matthew, the Kings play a melodic, though stripped-down, style of guitar rock with a Southern accent.

The Kings’ 2003 debut album Youth and Young Manhood appeared on many a critic’s Top 10 list that year -- including mine. That album was so refreshing I feared a sophomore slump, like what happened with The Strokes (a non-Southern band with which the Kings are frequently compared.)

Luckily that’s not the case with Aha Shake Heartbreak. While it doesn’t quite have the element of surprise like their first one did, there’s not a dud in this new batch of songs.

“Slow Night, So Long,” the first track on the album starts off with a frantic guitar punctuating a tawdry tale of a one night of sin with a 17-year-old girl. “So far so good, she’s absolutely wasted,” Caleb sings in his slurred drawl. “She’s opened up like she really knows me/I hate her face but enjoy her company …”

The guitars build up to a Who-like frenzy before slowing down to a jazzy, almost Latin groove, over which Caleb croons a harsh refrain: “Rise and shine all you gold-digging mothers/Are you too good to tango with the poor poor boys?”

Indeed, sex and sin, often with hints of revulsion though usually with a big grin.

And a fair amount of self effacement, or at least self-consciousness about rock-star pretensions.

“Honestly I can see/ the giggling virgin overlooking me,” Caleb sings in a slow, Kinks-like melody “Rembo.” On another song, he sings “Girls are gonna love the way I toss my hair/Boys are gonna hate the way I seem.” Yet, in a previous tune, “Milk” he realizes a woman has noticed his comb-over.

For the purest pop pleasure, this CD offers the pumped-up, break-neck workout “Velvet Snow,” which features some Beach Boys-style harmonies on the last verse. I’m not sure what they’re singing about here. I’m not even going to check the lyrics in the CD booklet. The music sounds so revelatory, I don’t care what the words are.

* Electric Blue Watermelon by North Mississippi All Stars. As the sons of famed Memphis producer and session player Jim Dickinson, Luther and Cody Dickinson -- along with band mate Chris Chew on bass -- are true to the musical traditions of their region.

They’ll bend it, they shape it, make love to it and stomp on it. They’ll add elements of hip hop, New Orleans brass, basic funk and even feint echoes of electronica. They’ll bring in guests like Lucinda Williams and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band Robert Randolph. They’ve got some contributions from the late Otha Turner, who, until his death in 2003 at the age of 94, championed an obscure tradition of Mississippi fife-and-drum music.

Basically, Electric Blue Watermelon is an upbeat joy from start to finish. There’s wild abandon in romps like “Mississippi Boll Weevil” and “Bang Bang Lulu,” while tunes like “Deep Blue Sea” and the 7-minute “Mean Ol’ Wind Died Down” have haunting, melancholy melodies. Meanwhile, you’ll hear references to The Allmans’ “Blue Sky” in the guitars of “Hurry Up Sunrise.” And Luther’s slide guitar will remind a listener of Ry Cooder on several tracks. (Daddy Jim played on and produced several Cooder albums.)

My only complaint about the record is that the lyrics of so many songs, (“No Mo” and “Moonshine,” especially), are so nostalgic, wistfully harking back to a happier time when you could drink cheap booze in Junior Kimbrough’s bar and party down in the country on a Sunday night. Come on guys, you’re way too young to get hung up on the good old days.

The North Mississippi All Stars are opening for Lucinda Williams Tuesday at the Lensic Theater.


*Get Some by Nashville Pussy. This band’s basic sound can be described as a lot of Nuge and a lot of Iggy Stooge. It’s wild, raunchy good-time metal with lyrics about sex, drinking and raising holy hell. Pretty dumb, but tight, relentless rock.

A look at the song titles probably tells you as much as you need to know about this album: “Pussy Time,” “Hate and Whiskey” “Lazy White Boy,” “Meaner Than My Mama” and my favorite, “Hell Ain’t What It Used to Be,” (a comical conversation with the Devil. Remember when all those pinheads used to be seriously concerned with “Satanic” metal?)

And to their credit, Pussy does a great cover of Ike & Tina Turner’s “Nutbush City Limits”

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: RAISING FUNDS FOR WHAT?

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Sept. 15, 2005

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards talked a lot about the “two Americas” when he ran for president — and later vice president — last year.

Tonight he’ll be in New Mexico speaking to the America that can afford to pay $1,000 to go to a political shindig.

Edwards is the scheduled guest of honor at a fundraiser for a political action committee started by state Attorney Patricia Madrid. The event is planned for Los Rondeña Winery in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.

Madrid was Edwards’ state campaign manager for last year’s New Mexico Democratic presidential caucus. On one visit to the state Edwards referred to Madrid as “my rock star.”

Most national political observers believe Edwards is running for president again.

What’s uncertain are Madrid’s political plans. Her term is up at the end of next year and she is legally prohibited from seeking a third term.

In addition to the fundraiser, Edwards also is scheduled to speak today at a luncheon of the New Mexico Council on Crime and Delinquency and an event to support the proposed minimum wage increase in Albuquerque.

The money raised at the winery will go to Madrid’s PAC, Justice for America (not the Justice League of America, as I mistakenly said a couple times around the office Wednesday.) The stated purpose of the PAC is for “supporting and mentoring minority women in politics.”

In the most recent report filed with the secretary of state, the PAC had raised $93,500 between December 2004 and May 2005.

Madrid spokeswoman Caroline Buerkle said Tuesday that the funds eventually could be used for a campaign if Madrid runs for a state office.

However campaign finance laws prohibit money from a state PAC — like Justice for America — to be used in a campaign for federal office. There has been some speculation that Madrid might run for the Congressional seat held by Republican Heather Wilson.

Buerkle declined to comment about her bosses’ political intentions but said to expect an announcement in the near future.

Wouldn’t it be ironic: If someone took out a payday loan to go see John Edwards — just one day after Madrid called for tougher restrictions on payday loans?

Speaking of fundraisers: Gov. Bill Richardson had one for his re-election campaign Tuesday night at the Eldorado Hotel. But tickets to that only cost $50. Of course Edwards wasn’t there. Edwards and Richardson very well could end up as rivals in the 2008 presidential contest.

Richardson’s political director Amanda Cooper said Wednesday that about 300 people attended.

A growing force: The Bill Richardson Flack Army is adding another member. On Monday Jon Goldstein, who currently is director of communications at the state Environmental Department, will go to work at the governor’s communications office.

He will join Billy Sparks, Gilbert Gallegos, Pahl Shipley and Yasine Mogharreban in spreading the word about the “bold,” “innovative,” “dramatic” and “historic” actions of the administration to “move New Mexico forward” and “help the working families.”

But Shipley said Wednesday that Sparks, whose title is “deputy chief of staff for communications” will be doing more work in areas like homeland security, emergency response and immigration and less work with the news media. Shipley recently was given the title “director of communications.”

The governor’s staff didn’t add a new position, Shipley said. Richardson’s education policy adviser Liz Gutierrez is going to work for the new Department of Higher Education, so the governor’s staff remains at 49 — which is nearly twice the number he started out with two years ago.

The current fourth-floor press machine replaced Gov. Gary Johnson’s one-woman press office, Diane Kinderwater.

Feasting and freezing: In last week’s Roundhouse Round-up I wrote about Sen. Joe Carraro’s call for an investigation of Public Service Company of New Mexico for giving huge bonuses to its top executives while drastically increasing the cost of natural gas to its customers.

A PNM spokesman on Wednesday said he believes there are misconceptions about the company. “We don’t make a profit on the cost of gas,” said spokesman Don Brown. “We purchase gas on behalf of our customers and pass on the cost. The only way we make money on gas is on the delivery. But that’s only about 25 percent of the gas bill.”

Bonuses at PNM, Brown said are based on the financial performance of the company. “It has nothing to do with natural gas,” he insisted. “The customers don’t pay for the bonuses, the stockholders do.”

Brown admitted that it looks bad when the utility is talking about 60-70 hikes in heating bills while at the same time handing a bonus check of more than $900,000 to CEO Jeff Sterba earlier this year. Bonuses and salaries for PNM's top five executives totaled $3.1 million last year, up from $2.6 million in 2003.

But don’t expect the top PNM brass to forego their bonuses as a part of any p.r. move, Brown said. “We’re looking for real ways to help our customers,” he said. “The price of gas and employee bonuses are completely unrelated.”

MAYBE I SHOULD JUST STICK TO THE TEXT BOOK

While studying for my upcoming test in my political science class, I took a little side trip to read up on James Madison -- and came across a very funky influence in his first administration as president.

No evidence though that Bootsy ever served as secretary of war.

(I took this photo myself at the 1994 Lollapalooza in Phoenix)

A MUSICAL TIME WASTER

As if I have that much time to waste ...

I don't know why, but driving down to Albuquerque this morning listening to the Waco Brothers, I got the idea to compile an Amazon.com list of my favorite alt country albums of the '90s.

You can find The Santa Fe Opry's Top 10 Alt Country Albums of the '90s HERE.


My numero uno was The Waco Brothers' Cowboy in Flames, which I still lvoe more and believe is more essential than anything by Whiskeytown or Steve Earle or Lucinda ... or anything the Wacos have done since. (If you disagree, feel free to use the comment feature here to express your incorrect opinion.)

No, this isn't the first Amazon list I've created. A couple of years ago I did The Santa Fe Opry's Proto Alt Country Albums (60s & 70s). You can find that HERE