Al Green - Lay It Down
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CD Details
Artist: Al GreenBrand: GREEN,AL
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2008-05-27
Model: 00094634844925
Music Label: Blue Note Records
Product features:
- GREEN AL LAY IT DOWN
- Lay It Down (feat. Anthony Hamilton)
- Just For Me
- You've Got the Love I Need (feat. Anthony Hamilton)
- No One Like You
- What More Do You Want From Me
- Take Your Time (feat. Corinne Bailey Rae)
- Too Much
- Stay With Me (By the Sea) (feat. John Legend)
- All I Need
- I'm Wild About You
- Standing In the Rain
Music reviews of Lay It Down
Music Review: Green, along with great musicians, lay down some classic soul
Rating: 5 Stars
I guess I'm not all that surprised that not everybody loved 2003's "I Can't Stop", even though I loved it. Stylistically, "I Can't Stop"'s bluesier sometimes funkier approach along with some tracks with a surprising amount of lyrical bite (sometimes angry, other times very emotionally tearful), was not strictly classic Al Green. However, Green teaming up with Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson of the Roots along with other talented musicians and singers finally does recreate that seventies magic of sound and loving lyrics perfectly with "Lay It Down".
The album stands up with his classic seventies soul hits in sound and theme. Nearly every track is romantic and sung sweetly by Green along with some quest vocalists. Corinne Bailey Rae's accompying Green on "Take Your Time" is nice but her voice is only pleasant and not very soulful. Frankly, I would rather one of the female background vocalists, Jaguar Wright or Mercedes Martinez, would have been the female vocal and Rae would have only contributed as a songwriter. It's the only very minor issue with the album, though. Anthony Hamilton is more present in the backgrounds of the title track but is not distracting in the duet "You've Got What I Need". What is most surprising about the album that unlike "I Can't Stop", it has no tracks that really stick out because the album is really tight. It does not go off on wild style tangents or sharp turns in songwriting. There are no huge surprises, but only a smooth soulful, blissful journey that is a reminder of a past when real musicians and real singers....laid it down. Green's songwriting is great but you'll notice in the liner notes that nearly every track has most of the musicacians aiding in the songwriting process, too. This album seems to be written by Thompson along with the other musicians on the album because the music is that important that every instrument is and should be acknowledged by its performer. Thompson as a drummer is a very talented performer (as his history has shown) and James Poyser on keys helps in recreating the classic great sound along with the guitar works of Chalmers "Spanky" Alford, but it is the bass by Adam Blackstone that really catches my ear on the soft, soulfilled tracks. If there is one standout track, it is the slightly funkier "I'm Wild About You" since the volume and tempo goes slightly up from the softer tracks. The album ends with another slight twist; "Standing In the Rain" is Green's short, self penned funky stomper with bursting horns and lyrics about being a hard working man. I can't point out many tracks as exceptional, yet that is actually a good thing. This is what an album really should be in that it can be listened to from beginning to end and experienced as a whole. I don't doubt that well known record lover Thompson wanted that to be the case of not having "singles" (which is sensible since, sadly, even diverse satelite radio really doesn't have a solid format that would play Al's new tracks) but in making an album that is very even and excellent throughout. If you love Al Green, you'll find no weak spots. The art form of the full album is not dead after all!
Description of Lay It Down
Lay It Down with 11 tracks by Al Green. Friends laying it down with Al Green are Anthony Hamilton on the opening album title track and on 'You've Got the Love I Need'. Corinne Bailey Rae sings with Al on 'Take Your Time' and John Legend joins in on 'Stay With Me (By The Sea)'.Few performers have ever been so inimitable as the Reverend Al Green, so it's no surprise that the starry young collaborators who join him on the superb Lay It Down simply let the man sing in the way he knows best, and make their own contributions fit around his. Despite the presence of such luminaries as John Legend, Anthony Hamilton and Corinne Bailey Rae and the support of co-producers James Poyser and the Roots' Ahmir '?uestlove' Thompson, this is very much Green's show. But although the smart production attempts to update his classic sound, Lay It Down recognizes and preserves its enduring strengths. ?uestlove's brilliant drumming perfectly recaptures the languid snap the late Al Jackson Jr. brought to Green's legendary seventies hits, Larry Gold's string arrangements are measured and minimal while crack guitarist Chalmers 'Spanky' Alford, on one of his last sessions, demonstrates precisely how to balance rhythm and detail (The album is dedicated to his memory). Songs like the elegant title track, where Green out-emotes the decades-younger Hamilton, "Take Your Time", a lovely deep soul duet with Bailey Rae, and the quietly propulsive closer "Standing In The Rain" are naggingly timeless, though there really isn?t a weak track on this excellent record. Lay It Down is a gift from one generation to the man that inspired them.--Steve Jelbert
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