Al Green - SOUL!: WNET Studios, New York City, January 10, 1973

I really like soul music from the 1960s and 1970s. I wish I could post more of that kind of music here, but there seem to be way fewer "albums that should exist" for that type of music. One reason, I think, is because of a drastically smaller amount of live music to draw from, both officially released and bootleg.

Al Green is a case in point. It goes without saying that he's one of the soul greats, and one of the most commercially successful. But, remarkably, over his long musical career, he's only released one official live album, "Tokyo Live." Unfortunately, it was recorded in 1978 (and released in 1981), which means his music got "discofied." It's just not a very good album, and it was almost certainly released only because his record company got frustrated for new secular product from him after he switched to religious music in 1980.

But happily, there are some great live recordings from his peak era in the early 1970s. It's just that they're bootlegs. This one is one of the best. It's a 53-minute performance from "SOUL!" a PBS TV show that ran from 1968 to 1973. It was recorded professionally for the TV show, so it sounds as good as any official live album from the era.

Even better, Green put on an excellent performance. (He claimed in concert patter that he was suffering from a cold, but you can't hear it in his voice.) Almost all the songs he plays are his classic hits. He finishes the show with a cover of "We've Only Just Began" as part of a medley, which is a song he never did on an album.

01 Tired of Being Alone (Al Green)
02 Look What You Done for Me (Al Green)
03 How to Mend a Broken Heart (Al Green)
04 I'm Still in Love with You (Al Green)
05 talk (Al Green)
06 Judy (Al Green)
07 You Ought to Be with Me (Al Green)
08 talk (Al Green)
09 Love and Happiness (Al Green)
10 We've Only Just Begun - Let's Stay Together (Al Green)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15293050/AlGren_1973_SOULWNTStudiosNewYrkC__1-10-1973_atse.zip.html

The photo for the cover doesn't look very good, since it's blurry. That's because it's a still from a YouTube video of the actual concert in question. I wanted to go for accuracy over just grabbing some photo of Green from that era. Oh, and I took the exact text for "SOUL!" from a photo of an ad for the show that I found. So I stuck with the cowboy font for the rest of the text.