When soul/R&B singer Al Green first began honing his vocal chops in the mid-Sixties, the word "soul" had a very different connotation than it does nowadays. Today, Webster's dictionary has added a new definition for soul: "The deep spiritual and emotional quality of black American culture and heritage," or "strong expression of this quality in a musical performance." That's something, huh? To have helped to create and nurture a cultural phenomenon so powerful that stodgy ol' Webster's dictionary breaks down and redefines the meaning of a word. One listen to Green's music is all most people need to understand how and why the man and his contemporaries managed to—and there's simply no other way to put it—change the world.

Green grew up between the deep South and Michigan, all the while exercising his mighty pipes in various churches along the way. His parents, strict Baptists and no-nonsense folks, weren't exactly thrilled with Al's choice of vocation, but supported him as best they could. By the mid '60s, he'd been a part of several successful cover bands, but still hadn't found his true voice or his own musical niche. That all changed in 1968 when he met Memphis musician/producer Willie Mitchell at a live show in Texas.

Beginning in 1971, Green, Mitchell and the Royal Studios team began issuing a string of now-classic albums on Hi Records, all chock full of singles that rocketed to the top of the charts and remain soul standards to this day. Tracks like "Tired Of Being Alone," "Let's Stay Together" and "Call Me" defined the term "soul." Sung over a vintage 1950's RCA ribbon microphone (dubbed No. 9 by Mitchell), the tunes resonated with a beauty as yet unmatched in the soul category. By the time 1976's Have A Good Time came out, Green was an international superstar/sex symbol, and music would never be the same.

But like most tales about superstardom and the music business, Green's has a dark side, as well. Though he'd become a born-again Christian in 1973, he continued to tour and record secular music and to live the lifestyle of a "no-good, woman-chasing champagne-drinking good-time-having Saturday-night blues-singing man." That lifestyle caught up to him in 1974, when, as he was bathing in the privacy of his own home, an angry ex-girlfriend broke in, dumped a pot of boiling grits on his back, and killed herself with his gun. While recovering, he began studying the Bible in earnest, and by 1976 he'd bought the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in Memphis and become an ordained minister.

He released a couple more secular efforts, though none topped those early albums, and when he fell offstage and seriously injured himself during a 1979 appearance in Cincinnati, he took it as a sign from God and retired from the worldly music business. Since then, he's pursued a career as a gospel singer and hometown pastor, cultivating a large flock of fellow believers. He's won countless Grammy Awards for his Christian albums, become a poster child for clean living, and raised a slew of children and grandchildren in the ensuing decades. In the back of his mind, however, he always wondered if he'd done the right thing in rejecting all the great music he'd helped to create over the years.

Recently, with the blessing of his congregation and—most importantly, he says—his mother, he set about reconnecting with the now-75-year-old Willie Mitchell and whipping up a fresh batch of hot soul nuggets at Royal Studios. Working once again with original band members Teenie and Leroy Hodges, along with his longtime drummer Steve Potts, Green laid down the 12 cuts that make up his latest, the 2003 Blue Note album I Can't Stop.

From the urgent, driving beat and smooth, horn-laden grooves of the title track to the edgy, guitar-augmented roadhouse feel of "Play To Win" and the lonely, string-dripping cry of "Rainin' In My Heart," I Can't Stop is not only the closest Green has come to those glory days of the early '70s since his initial "retirement," but it's also arguably the best soul album to come down the pike in over 25 years. Mitchell, though now in his mid-70s and battling diabetes, is still the greatest living soul producer around, and along with the band who created all those great licks and fills in the first place, has molded an album that today's computer-aided, production-heavy board jockeys should be paying mighty close attention to.

Pulse spoke with Green recently from his home in Memphis, where he was frantically—albeit cheerfully—trying to balance his upcoming Sunday sermon with tour plans, Mitchell's recent hospitalization and the sixteen new tracks he's written since I Can't Stop was recorded. Still as bright, upbeat and full of positive vibes as ever, the 58-year-old Green was fairly bubbling over with energy and excitement as he discussed his reunion with Mitchell, the new songs and the state of music today:

Pulse: Hey, I really like this new album, Reverend. Great stuff!

Al Green: Oh, OK. Well, we've got another one comin' out for you, too. I've been doin' some writin'. I've got 16 of 'em done already, and I've just been waitin' on Willie to get out of the hospital. After I'm done talking to you, I've gotta go sing 'em!

Pulse: How is Willie doing?

Green: He's doin' a lot better now. He had his sugar diabetes thing. And you know Willie—he wanna take a little nip of vodka and take his medicine. (Laughs) I was telling him, no, that don't work. The alcohol is gonna void out the medicine. So they took him to the hospital, and they told him, hey man, you gonna have to cut the alcohol if you gonna take your medicine. So he's doin' much better now.

Pulse: Are you enjoying working back at Royal again?

Green: Oh, man, that's like bein' back at home. Yeah, all those people—Willie Mitchell and the Hodges brothers ...

Pulse: How'd you like singing through that old No. 9 mic again?

Green: Oh, I think that's good too. The mic [has] been around for I don't know how long. Willie, he had them check it up, so it's stuffed with everything new. I've sung so many songs through that mic—"Let's Stay Together," "I'm Still In Love With You," "Tired Of Being Alone," all these songs I sang on that cotton-pickin' mic! So Willie, he's superstitious, he just won't use no other mic on the album but ol' No. 9! That's his trip, so I let him trip.

Pulse: How did your congregation at church feel about you cutting a new secular album and touring—were they behind your decision?

Green: Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! I let my mom hear it first, and she goes, "Mmm-hmm." I says, “OK, well, Mama, how do you like the music?” And she says, "Mmm-hmm." And I'm just getting ready to go downstairs and she says, "Al," and I say, “What?” And she says, "It's REALLY nice." So once I get her approval, I think we got it, you know?

Pulse: How about the young people in your church? Do you connect with them well?

Green: Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! They know where it's at, man. They're not missin' a beat.

Pulse: What do you think of the music they call R&B nowadays? It's not really the same kind of R&B you guys were making back in the '70s ...

Green: (Pauses) Well ... I listen to everybody. I listen to Mary J. (Blige) albums, I listen to Tevin Campbell, I listen to Macy Gray, Nelly. I listen to a lot of 'em. You know, I feel the music that was done in the era in which we did it—that's gonna be a trademark special kind of music. And it says a certain thing. How hard is it to pull on my heart strings when the man is taking my whole heart, you know? There you go. See, 'cause this music goes back to The Temptations, The Four Tops, Junior Walker, I mean some of that music—Aretha Franklin! It's hard to replace Aretha Franklin!

Pulse: It'd be hard to replace Al Green, too!

Green: (Laughs) That's my thing! So, yeah. Otis Redding, some of those people are the basis of what soul music is all about, and when you start saying, I'm gonna top that ... You know, I think what the record industry is saying now is, "I'm from Missouri—show me!" Yeah, because the music sounds great that people are doin', but it don't have—some of it, not all of it, but some of it—don't have the hard-core, grits-and-eggs, toast, somethin' that sticks to your ribs type [of a feel].

Pulse: What about rap?

Green: I think if you've got a positive message ... I think that a lot of rap guys are cleaning up a lot from the days of Tupac and Biggie Smalls ... cleanin' up from drugs and violence. You don't have to be about all that. Right? You can write cool love songs that everybody will like, on the college campus or whatever, and still have a super career without [thinking] you have to be in a gang type thing in order to have it.

Pulse: What is the songwriting process like for you nowadays?

Green: I like to get together with Willie. Willie does the music, but he don't know how it goes! So he plays like (starts singing), "Bah-bing, bing, bing, bing, bing ..." And he don't know how it goes! So I sit down, I say, “Wait a minute.” I just go (starts singing again), "One-two-three-four ... bing bing, bah-bah, bing bing, bah... I'm so in love with you ..." We need each other because he can't write the words, and I can't write the music. When we get us two together with the Hodges brothers, we kind of have a field day!

Pulse: Did you have any particular moments in the studio with Willie this time around you can talk about?

Green: Well, there's always moments in the studio with Willie to talk about! What can't you talk about!? He's all over everything! But we let him have his way, because he knows what he's talking about, and he knows more about it. When he takes the album out to L.A. and comes back with it mastered and you hear it, you say, "Oh! Oh, OK!" That's the way you know he knows what he's doing.

Pulse: Who's in your touring band this time around?

Green: Oh, it's all the same guys who've been playing these songs for years. The Hodges brothers ... the original back-up singers, the New Royal Horns. Oh yeah! Oh, yeah! That's because we want the guys who really know the music, the people who were there when the music was cut. We didn't want some guys who just learned the music yesterday, no. These are the people who cut the music! Oh, yeah! That's gonna make it sound like it's supposed to sound.

Pulse: OK, I've got one more for you, Al.

Green: Go!

Pulse: What are Al Green's three favorite love songs?

Green: Hmm ... it'd have to be "Simply Beautiful," "Let's Stay Together" and "I'm Still In Love With You." But I like "Tired Of Being Alone," too.

Pulse: That's great! I was thinking, how cool would it be if Al Green's three favorite love songs were his own! I don't think there's anybody out there who could find three better love songs than that!

Green: Oh, boy! (Laughing) Yeah! You gotta get them juices flowin', babe!

Al Green plays the Guthrie Theater on Mon., Mar. 29. 7:30 p.m. $75. All Ages. With Debbie Duncan. 725 Vineland Place, Mpls. 612-377-2224.