Al Green - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 3-1978

Here's another "PBS Soundstage" concert that I recently discovered. Except a lot more of these in the near future. I've found over 60, and I'm still discovering more. This one is a concert by soul singer Al Green in 1978.

Al Green had lots of critical and commercial success for most of the 1970s. But that changed near the end of the decade. For one thing, the disco boom left most soul stars reeling commercially. But also, Green gradually lost interest in soul music as he turned more of his attention to Christianity. He opened his own church in 1976 and started preaching. From 1980 through most of the 1990s, he only released gospel albums. He did have one last hurrah with his 1977 album, "The Belle Album." It didn't sell that well, but it was critically acclaimed.

So early 1978 is a good time for a concert, since he was still promoting "The Belle Album." He did four songs from that album (tracks 6, 7, 9, and 10). Otherwise, he did his best known hits. I'm not into preachy religious music, so I'm glad to say there's only one song here, "All 'N' All," overtly focusing on religion.

Even though this is unreleased, the sound quality is excellent. However, the Soundstage show sometimes liked to insert interview segments between songs, and this was one of those times. I took out the interviews. "Love and Happiness" has "[Edit]" in its title because some of the interview overlapped with the start of the song. I removed that using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 L-O-V-E (Al Green)
02 Tired of Being Alone (Al Green)
03 Let's Stay Together (Al Green)
04 You Ought to Be with Me (Al Green)
05 How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Al Green)
06 Belle (Al Green)
07 I Feel Good (Al Green)
08 talk (Al Green)
09 Dream (Al Green)
10 All 'N' All (Al Green)
11 Love and Happiness [Edit] (Al Green) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cKaNZJxd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Hi7K7buqwUAYJPN/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on the "Soul Train" TV show in 1977.

Various Artists - Apollo Hall of Fame, Apollo Theatre, New York City, 7-15-1993

The Apollo Theatre is a concert venue in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem with a legendary history. With Harlem being a predominantly black neighborhood and a center of black cultural trends, it's best known for featuring black musicians, especially in the soul genre. In 1993, the people running the venue decided to start a yearly hall of fame ceremony. For their first one, they had a two hour show broadcast on national TV honoring the first few inductees. Apparently, this hall of fame tradition has continued, but I've only found good recordings from the 1993 one.

I haven't been able to find the full show, so I only know bits and pieces. But it seems that year's inductees included Ray Charles, James Brown, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald.

Here's an article about it, from Variety Magazine at the time:

Apollo Theatre Hall of Fame - Variety

Ray Charles showed up and played, but James Brown did not. Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald had passed away by that time. But many other famous musicians performed. Some were in tribute to the inductees. For instance, Diana Ross sang two of Billie Holiday's songs. But other performers just seemed to be celebrating the legacy of the Apollo Theatre in general. 

When it comes to bootleg recordings, this concert is best known for the last few songs, led by blues guitarist B. B. King. First, he did a duet with guitarist Eric Clapton on the song "Rock Me Baby." Then he brought on guitarists Jeff Beck, Albert Collins, and Buddy Guy as well. The five of them all played solos on the same song, "Sweet Little Angel." After that, they were joined by everyone else from earlier in the show for the finale "Let the Good Times Roll." That probably was the only time those five guitar legends all played on stage together.

But the rest of the show has a lot going for it. Many soul legends from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s played. Some of them were getting up there in age and this would be their last time on a national TV, a kind of last hurrah.

This album is 54 minutes long. The TV special was two hours long. Even if you figure in time for commercials, there are songs I've missed. I found about half of this from a high quality bootleg, and the other half from YouTube videos. But, in my opinion, the sound quality is about the same from the two sources.

By the way, note that the shows two hosts were the actors Danny Glover and Bill Cosby. Since then, Cosby has been hit by sex scandal and has been imprisoned. It's strange for me to hear him host this show in light of what's happened to him. I've tried to minimize his comments between songs, but I kept the bare minimum in for things to be understood.

01 talk (Smokey Robinson)
02 This Little Light of Mine (Smokey Robinson & the Dixie Hummingbirds)
03 talk (Smokey Robinson)
04 Little Girl of Mine (Smokey Robinson & the Cleftones)
05 talk (Smokey Robinson)
06 Good Times (Bryan Adams & Smokey Robinson)
07 talk (Chuck Jackson)
08 Any Day Now (Chuck Jackson)
09 talk (Ben E. King)
10 Save the Last Dance (Ben E. King)
11 talk (Al Green)
12 Let's Stay Together (Al Green)
13 talk (Teddy Pendergrass)
14 Close the Door (Teddy Pendergrass)
15 Stand by Me (Ben E. King, Chuck Jackson, Al Green & Teddy Pendergrass)
16 Still Crazy After All These Years (Ray Charles)
17 talk (Diana Ross)
18 God Bless the Child (Diana Ross)
19 Fine and Mellow (Diana Ross)
20 talk (B. B. King)
21 Rock Me Baby (B. B. King & Eric Clapton)
22 talk (B. B. King)
23 Sweet Little Angel (B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Albert Collins & Buddy Guy)
24 talk (B. B. King)
25 Let the Good Times Roll (B. B. King & Everyone)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701193/VA-ApolloHallFmeAplloThetreNYC__7-15-1993_atse.zip.html

For the cover, I found a photo of all five guitarists that played together near the end of the show. From left to right, it's Jeff Beck, Albert Collins, B. B. King, Eric Clapton, and Buddy Guy. It looks like the photo was taken backstage before or after the show. It's rather blurry, so if you know of a better version, or a better one, please let me know.

Al Green - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 9-10-1974

It's very strange to me how little of Al Green's live material has been released. He's had a career about as long as James Brown's. There are at least 32 official James Brown live albums. Whereas there is only one official Al Green live album, and that one is marred by the fact that it was recorded at the height of the disco era. So there's nothing from him in his 1970s prime. Yet he performed very exciting concerts, often going well beyond just slavishly reproducing the studio versions.

I've tried to fix this by posting a 1973 concert he did for a TV show. You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/07/al-green-soul-wnet-studios-new-york.html

And now, I'm posting this one. Although it's only from one year later, Green had so many hits during that time that the song list is very different, with only three songs featured on both.

The bulk of this album comes from an appearance he made on "The Midnight Special," a popular US musical TV show in the 1970s. But I've augmented that with two songs he did for the "Soul Train" TV show in 1975. Those are at the end. 

When I first posted this album in 2020, it had various problems, like songs getting cut off well before they ended. In 2025, I found a much better source, and completely redid the album from scratch. His episode was a special one, in that nearly the entire hour and a half long show was reserved just for his music. The only exception was two songs by Joe Cocker, which actually were tapes from 1969. I've removed those. Also, there were a couple of long monologues, like an interview, except without anyone asking questions. Those obviously were recorded separately from the concert, due to the lack of any crowd response. So I cut those out. But I've put them together and included it as the bonus track called "monologue," for anyone who is interested.  

Between this concert and the other Al Green one I've posted, just about all of his big 1970s hits are included. A year or two after this, he began getting much more religious with his music. A few years after that, he left the music industry altogether for a while to be a preacher. He's generally done a mix of religious and secular music ever since. So if you're not into his religious material, these two 1970s concerts are the only live recordings I know with good sound quality.

This album is an hour and one minute long.

UPDATE: On October 23, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. As mentioned above, I did a complete overhaul, which resulted in a bunch of extra songs, and improved sound quality for everything. Along the way, I got rid of a couple of "Soul Train" tracks. I'll see if I can attach them to some other Al Green album in the future. He also hosted a 1973 Midnight Special episode, so I might post that one, eventually. 

01 Sweet Sixteen (Al Green)
02 Tired of Being Alone (Al Green)
03 talk (Al Green)
04 Sha La La [Make Me Happy] (Al Green)
05 Here I Am [Come and Take Me] (Al Green)
06 talk (Al Green)
07 Funny How Time Slips Away (Al Green)
08 How Can You Mend a Broken Heart - For the Good Times (Al Green)
09 Let's Get Married (Al Green)
10 I'm Still in Love with You (Al Green)
11 Let's Stay Together (Al Green)
12 Love and Happiness (Al Green)
13 L-O-V-E [Love] (Al Green)
14 Take Me to the River (Al Green)

monologue (Al Green)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HrweWtKZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HNnBEblcyS4KXd5/file

At first, I thought this concert took place on October 4, 1974. But then I found a photo of him from September 10, 1974, said to be in Los Angeles (with Burbank a suburb of that), where he was wearing the exact same outfit. Furthermore, the background even appears to be the same. (You can find the whole show on YouTube.) So I figure the concert was recorded on September 10th and then broadcast later, as was the typical procedure in those days.

Note that when I updated this album in 2025, I also updated the cover image. It's the same image, but I used an AI feature in Photoshop to fill in his visible shoulder and upper arm.  

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://pixeldrain.com/u/7LrB3c3L

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/yE2kB0LNw5rKNrt/file

When I first posted this album in 2019, I made a cover that was very low-res, due to a poor source. In March 2025, I went back to the video of this concert and took a new screenshot. Then I used the Krea AI program to improve the image somewhat.

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.