1977 · Behind the Songs
A self-produced single from the year soul’s quietest star went his own way.
“Belle” (1977) opens The Belle Album, Al Green’s twelfth studio record, released December 6, 1977 on Hi Records. It was the first album he made without Willie Mitchell, the producer and label chief who had shaped his classic early-1970s sound, and without the Hi Rhythm Section whose steady pulse had defined it. Green produced the record himself — and, for the first time on his own records, played lead guitar.
The song runs 4:50 and is credited to Green with Fred Jordan and Reuben Fairfax Jr. It sits at a hinge point in his catalogue: one of his last secular recordings. Green had converted to Christianity and been ordained as a pastor, and the records that followed would be gospel. Critics noticed the shift — Robert Christgau called the album the most idiosyncratic LP in the top 200, and The Wire later placed it among “100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening),” praising its down-home power and Green’s own guitar work.
Heard today, “Belle” carries a looser, funkier stride than the Royal Studios ballads, a nod to the dancefloor year of 1977 without abandoning the conversational intimacy that made Green’s voice famous. It was not a major chart hit, which is partly why it rewards rediscovery: this is Green testing what his music sounds like when he answers to no one but himself.
The album’s reputation has only grown — Spin ranked it among the greatest records of all time in 1989. “Belle” is the doorway: four minutes and fifty seconds of an artist rearranging his own furniture, guitar in hand.