Reverend Got High-Level OK to Sing Some of His Old Songs

A few minutes into Al Green’s performance Tuesday at the Coach House, he spoke to the audience about the apparent incongruity of an ordained Baptist minister, such as himself, appearing on the stage of a thoroughly secular nightclub and bar.

“I see you drinking your drinks and eating your steaks, and we just want to tell you to go ahead and have a goooood time,” Green said, beaming a beatific smile. “But we are Christians, and we’ve got a message for you.”

The performance that followed, which lasted just about an hour, touched only lightly on Green’s early pop hits, instead drawing heavily on the gospel material he has been singing since he turned to religious music in the late ‘70s.

It was a striking contrast to the approach he took earlier this year at the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, where he played to a different kind of audience and had a different mission.

On an all-gospel bill that also featured the Staple Singers, BeBe & CeCe Winans and the Famous Zion Harmonizers, Green had to persuade the audience that it was OK for him to be putting any secular material back into his repertoire.

Wearing the same style dapper cream-colored suit he wore for his Coach House appearance, the Rev. Green told that audience that the Lord had let him know that it was no sin to be singing his ‘70s hits like “Let’s Stay Together,” “Tired of Being Alone” and “I’m Still in Love With You” once again.

And sure enough, he went on to deliver more of the secular hits than he did Tuesday in the more temporal setting of the Coach House.

Moral to the story? The ways of the Lord are indeed mysterious.