Take Me to the River - Hardcover

Green, Al; Seay, Davin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380976226 ISBN 13: 9780380976225

Publisher: HarperEntertainment, 2000

Synopsis

Alone among the greatest vocalists and song-writers in American music.  Al Green has fused these opposing concepts into an intense and original sound that transcends the divide between the sacred and the profane.  With an extraordinary appeal that has continued unabated since the mid-seventies, this quintessential soul and man remains one of the most enduring, electrifying, and enigmatic artists of our era-a man who has walked the tightrope between the devil's music and God's calling and lived to tell the tale.

Now Al Green's tale is told for the first time in Take Me to the River, his inspiring, unsparing, and ultimately transforming autobiography.  From a sharecropper's shack in Jacknash, Arkansas, to the absolute pinnacle of show business success, it chronicles the career of this gifted singer in rich and never-before-revealed detail.  From his early days on the gospel and R&B circuits and his fateful encounter with legendary producer Willie Mitchell to a harrowing account of the attempted murder and suicide scandal that made headlines worldwide, this is the whole story, straight from the man who knows best. But Take Me to the River is more than a standard-issue rags-to-riches saga.  The epic spiritual struggle for the heart and soul of Al Green is brought to life with all the urgency and immediacy of his music.  A story of repentance, redemption, and renewal, the life of Al Green is a moving account of one man's journey to personal, creative, and spiritual wholeness.

About this title

About the Author

AL Green one of the most popular recording artists of all time, with six number one hits to his is credit. He is also pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis, Tennessee.

From Publishers Weekly

Labeled by many as the Last Great Soul Man, Green writes modestly and with great spirit about his career. The bulk of the narrative, written with Seay, concentrates on Green's early life, from his boyhood as a sharecropper's son in Jacknash, Ark., to his family's move to the ghetto in Grand Rapids, Mich., to his desperate pursuit of a singing career. While Green quickly established himself as a neighborhood tough and ladies' man, he never let his reputation as a "badass dude" keep him from singing in the school and church choirs. Choosing between the secular and the sacred proved a constant struggle for Green. In the end, he writes, "I never did develop a preference for one church over the other. To me, shouting at the top of your lungs while hammering on a tambourine or whispering your prayers as the organ softly played were just two different ways of saying the same thing: We're all down here, Lord, doing the best we can." At 29, Green was already an international superstar when he again questioned his path. Ultimately, he opted to "leave behind the glitter and the glamour of the world to seek out a poor and plain existence," buying a church of his own on the outskirts of Memphis and earning a degree as an ordained minister. Not that Green spurned music altogether; he went on to release several gospel records, along with hit singles with the likes of Annie Lennox and country signer Lyle Lovett, and he appeared in a Broadway show. Rather, Green writes, he simply "stopped running after music to give me the meaning and purpose of my life." In the end, Green's is an inspirational story that tells how an "average high school graduate, sometime singer in a hometown soul band, part-time jazz crooner, former car-wash employee and jack of trades" made good. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperEntertainment
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0380976226
• ISBN 13: 9780380976225
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352