Consumer Guide Album

Al Green: Don't Look Back [BMG, 1995]
This hard-to-find, slightly long-winded return to Mammon isn't what it should be, might be, or in theory will be, once MCA finalizes a promised revamp with its Hall of Fame inductee (hey guys, there's an angle--and there it goes, receding into the distance). Since eight of 13 titles feature the word "love" (OK, once it's "lovin'," and in parentheses), the pruning will presumably start somewhere in there, although as with so much great minor Green not one of those performances lacks vocal frisson. Executive mastermind Arthur Baker finds a use for Curtis Stigers on the title tune and cedes Al a nice Charles & Eddie song, but the primary hands-on guys are Fine Young Cannibals David Steele and Andy Cox. On their "One Love," which strikes my impractical ear as the sure shot MCA craves, Green negotiates a thoroughly modern electrobeat so effortlessly you gotta believe he can live the rest of his life without God or Hi Rhythm. A−