The Reverend suffers for us. Like AL Green has always done. 2003 saw him back in music biz after an endless hiatus with I Can’t Stop. He even gilded Simple Beautiful on Dana Owens/Queen Latifah’s album last year, making this the one stand-out song.
And it’s good to see him back recording albums regularly.
Everything’s OK has everything we love about Al, i.e., soulful and funky grooves spiced with contributions by the Royal Horns and the New Memphis Strings that sounds like he has never stopped recording secular music since the 70s.
Produced and recorded by Al and Willie Mitchell at Royal Studios, Memphis TN, it’s hard to pick a stand-out song here. Take the beautiful ballad Real Love, which makes you remind why it’s called soul music and why Al is one the epitome of this music genre, the bluesy I Can Make Music with some solid harmonica playing by Bobby Rush or the uptempo funky Build Me Up.
Actually, this is a recommandable album, but since it will be released on a major label, there isn’t just the music to be considered when writing a review these days.
As you can see on the other reviews here, I don’t give points, but just to illustrate what I think about record labels trying to regulate the listener’s joy of music (and EMI/Blue Note is notorious for it), I’ll do it this one time: Everything’s OK would get 9 out of 10, but if the CD comes with copy protection it will get a mere 0 out of 10. So if Blue Note keeps going on releasing CDs with copy protection like they did with the latest releases by Cassandra Wilson or Dianne Reeves in Germany, don’t buy it. Copy protection kills music and is a violation of the buyer’s rights!

Tracklisting of Everything’s OK: 1. Everything’s OK/ 2. You Are So Beautiful/ 3. Build Me Up/ 4. Perfect To Me/ 5. Nobody But You/ 6. Real Love/ 7. I Can Make Music/ 8. Be My Baby/ 9. Magic Road/ 10. I Wanna Hold You/ 11. Another Day/ 12. All The Time | released 2005 by Blue Note Records

For more infos visit bluenote.com.

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