Al Green - Call Me (1973)

1. Call Me (Come Back Home) 3:03

2. Have You Been Making Out O.K. 3:42

3. Stand Up 3:25

4. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry 3:10

5. Your Love Is Like the Morning Sun 3:09

6. Here I Am (Come and Take Me) 4:14

7. Funny How Time Slips Away 5:33

8. You Ought to Be With Me 3:15

9. Jesus Is Waiting 5:36

Whenever I read reviews calling Let's Stay Together 'imperfect' I got all mad 'cause it featured the title track and How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?, both of which are sorta perfect soul songs, but then I heard Call Me which is just so good- it's country soul!- and found that those calling Let's Stay Together imperfect often at least admit that Call Me is, ya know, a masterpiece

Al Green reached his creative peak with the brilliant Call Me, the most inventive and assured album of his career.
-AMG

I originally believed people would buy this only so they wouldn't have to get up and flip I'm Still in Love with You, and I was probably right. But no other album documents Green's genius for the daring nuance so thrillingly. "Stand Up" is the subtlest black identity song ever, "Jesus Is Waiting" a profession of faith you can believe in, and "Here I Am" an uptempo vehicle that sneaks up from in front of you. The interpretations of country weepers by Hank Williams and Willie Nelson are definitive. The vocals are tougher than on the two "classic" Green LPs that preceded it. And the rhythms are irresistible. Al Jackson's (and Henry Grimes's) thick third-beat 4/4 kicks in with all kinds of extra surprises, and as always it's only a frame for a music that moves as one sinuous body, with Green dodging and weaving at the head. A+
-Robert Christgau

A+


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