Album Reviews

If you'd have told me a few years ago when Vinyl Me, Please launched, that within a few years the curated based vinyl subscription service would be at the top of the vinyl reissue heap, I'd have said you've been inhaling too many PVC fumes. But here we are with a vinyl reissue that's perfect in every way.

Sourced from the original analog master tape, cut analog by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound, Nashville, plated and pressed on 180g vinyl at QRP and housed in a beautiful laminated "Tip On" sleeve, reissues simply can't be any better produced. Add to all of that a nicely produced mini-booklet enclosed in the jacket containing a thoughtful essay by Memphis based author Robert Gordon that gives you the background on Green's career and you have a full, satisfying listening, learning and touching experience.

I'm not sure what's more fun: listening to this record or imagining a vinyl "newbie" hearing Howard Grimes' and Al Jackson's meticulous time keeping expressed "crunch-free" as only analog manages to do. Each rim shot is a symphony of color and precise transient textures, though of course Willie Mitchell's economical arrangements are as well. As Gordon points out in his notes, the string arrangements by Mitchell's brother James are often overlooked but here, in RKS's mastering they get their full sheen and beauty expressed. The Royal Recording Studio sound is close-miked, intimate and deliberate. The pleasingly dry sonic precision perfectly matches the time keeping and tidy arrangements for horns and strings behind that mesmerising beat over which Green cooly and soulfully croons.

This 1974 release, Green's fourth in two years, is an eclectic mix of Memphis soul and C&W that includes Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" and Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". Never has the soul/country connection been better expressed and of course side two opens with one of Green's best known hits ""Here I Am (Come and Take Me). For me though the highlight is side one's closer "Your Love Is Like the Morning Sun". If you don't know this album and you're thinking thematically there's a Green/Ray Charles connection going on here musically, you're correct. Like Charles, Green crossed over into the mainstream (white) musical world.

Green exudes cool sex and sensuality on this record, with his voice direct, unadorned and often responding to himself off to one side. It would have been tragic had an inept producer bathed it in reverb. It's so direct here, and transparently recorded, it occasionally may make you jump if your system has the chops.

Sublime music making, perfectly presented and a "must have" reissue! If this one doesn't get your significant other in the mood, no record in your collection will. At that point it might be time to go full Tammy Wynette!