Al Green: Let's Stay Together

It was shortly after Tina Turner’s version of “Let’s Stay Together” peaked on the pop charts that I received a cassette copy of Al Green’s recordings from his publishing company. Publishers often provided radio stations copies of music to encourage the playing of their songs on the air and thus to generate royalties via ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC licenses.

In the pre-CD days, vinyl albums were often produced to meet such needs and later these were replaced by the ubiquitous compact disc versions of these recordings. This was the only time I remember ever receiving a cassette version – which would have been cheaper to produce than vinyl albums. I remember listening to this quite a bit especially as I was driving on my way to gigs with my band. The trips lasted well over an hour, so I got to know the music of Al Green very well.

“Let’s Stay Together,” however, needed no introduction as it was a huge 1972 hit as it charted at #1 on both the R&B chart and the Hot 100. Rolling Stone has ranked Green’s version at 60 in the top 500 songs of all time.

The single was released on Hi Records – one of the several soul labels located in Memphis. The song is currently used as the bed for a Lays Potato Chips ad – and hence makes it our TV Thursday hit.