Personnel: Al Green (vocals); Tennie Hodges (guitar); Andrew Love, Ed Logan (tenor saxophone); James Mitchell (baritone saxophone); Wayne Jackson (trumpet); Jack Hale (trombone); Charles Hodges (piano, organ); Archie Turner, Michael Allen, James Brown (piano); Leroy Hodges (bass); Howard Grimes (drums, congas, bongos); Al Jackson (drums); The Memphis Strings.
Recorded at Royal Recording Studios, Memphis, Tennessee. Includes liner notes by Bill Dahl.
Digitally remastered by Phil Brown (Digiprep).
Recorded at the peak of his secular career, 1973's LIVIN' FOR YOU was Al Green's sixth album for Memphis' Hi Records. Green had moved to Hi in the late 1960s, and the label's excellent house band featured three Hodges brothers, Teenie, Leroy and Charles--on guitar, organ and bass, respectively. With this potent band and veteran producer Willie Mitchell on board, LIVIN' FOR YOU shows off a well-disciplined hit machine. Mitchell is often credited with mellowing Green's vocal delivery during this period, and with a few exceptions, LIVIN' FOR YOU is one of Green's more easy-going recordings.
In 1973 the up tempo title track hit #1 on the R&B charts, while the spirited hit "Let's Get Married" landed at #3 on the R&B charts the next year--around the same time LIVIN' FOR YOU went gold. Besides the two better-known Green songs, there is a stirring version of "My God is Real," which harks back to his days as a singer of spirituals--a genre he would return to in the next decade.