Al Green Let's Stay Together: The Song He Didn't Want to Cut
Al Green Let's Stay Together is one of the most covered soul records ever made.
Its own singer spent two days trying to talk his way out of recording it.
He thought his falsetto sounded thin and unfinished.
Producer Willie Mitchell heard a number one hit instead.
Mitchell was right.
The single reached the top of the pop chart in February 1972.
It held there for one week, then ruled Billboard's soul chart for nine.
Fifty years later it still turns up in wedding sets, film scores, and one presidential singalong.
Al Green at the microphone in a 1973 Hi Records trade advertisement.
Image credit: Hi Records, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
How Al Green Let's Stay Together Took Shape in the Studio
The music came before the words.
Drummer Al Jackson Jr. and Willie Mitchell built the groove first.
Jackson kept a day job across town, playing with Booker T. and the M.G.'s at Stax.
He and Mitchell handed Green a rough instrumental track and asked for a lyric.
Green picked up a notepad and left the room.
He came back about fifteen minutes later with the whole song.
The words are plain and short, one promise turned over three different ways.
The Vocal Green Kept Trying to Fix
Green did not trust what he was hearing back.
He wanted to open up and fill the room with sound.
Mitchell kept telling him to pull back and just say the line.
Green has said he ran take after take, certain his voice sounded too thin.
Mitchell later told NPR it took more than a hundred hours to get the vocal down.
The soft, close delivery that came out of that standoff became Green's signature.
The Winos on the Studio Floor
Mitchell wanted the room to feel lived in, not clinical.
He rounded up a few dozen men from the neighborhood and bought them wine.
They drank and listened while Green sang.
Mitchell remembered them stretched out on the studio floor as the record was cut.
Drawn to that hushed, after-midnight feel?
The Mood Song Matcher lines up other records in the same mood.
Royal Studios and the Hi Records Sound
Al Green Let's Stay Together was cut at Royal Studios in South Memphis.
The building opened in 1915 as a neighborhood movie theater.
Hi Records turned it into a studio in the 1950s.
Willie Mitchell ran the room and the label both.
He kept the same core players on almost every session.
That is why his Al Green records all sound cut from one cloth.
One Producer, One Band
Mitchell's house band was the Hi Rhythm Section.
They played on nearly all of it:
- Teenie Hodges on guitar
- Leroy Hodges on bass
- Charles Hodges on organ
- Howard Grimes and Al Jackson Jr. on drums
Mitchell wrote the string and horn parts himself.
The mix stays warm and unhurried, with the beat set slightly behind.
It is the opposite of the sharp, punchy attack coming out of Stax a mile away.
A Template for Everything After
The approach on this record set up the next three years.
The same formula carried a run of hits:
- "I'm Still in Love with You" (1972)
- "Call Me (Come Back Home)" (1973)
- "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)" (1973)
Same studio, same band, same producer, same soft falsetto.
Green's wider decade is covered in the Al Green profile on this site.
One Week on Pop, Nine Weeks on Soul
The Al Green Let's Stay Together single reached record stores in November 1971.
It climbed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of February 12, 1972.
It knocked Don McLean's "American Pie" off the top spot.
Nilsson's "Without You" replaced it seven days later.
On Billboard's soul singles chart the song was far more durable.
It held number one there for nine weeks in a row.
Why "Nine Weeks at Number One" Gets Misquoted
That nine-week figure belongs to the soul chart, not the pop chart.
This site's own year-end database repeats the common slip in its note on the song.
The note says nine weeks at number one on the Hot 100, which is not correct.
The mix-up trails Al Green Let's Stay Together almost everywhere it is written about.
Billboard's weekly Hot 100 data shows a single week on top.
The same database also lists the song at number 11.
That is its rank on the 1972 year-end Hot 100, a full-year tally rather than a weekly peak.
A one-week number one always lands lower on a year-end list.
| Chart | Peak | Time at number one |
|---|---|---|
| Hot 100, weekly | #1 | 1 week (week of February 12, 1972) |
| Hot Soul Singles, weekly | #1 | 9 weeks |
| Hot 100, 1972 year-end | #11 | not applicable |
Want to hear the record that started all of it?
Play Let's Stay Together on Listen Now.
The Song's Second Life
The Al Green Let's Stay Together story does not end in 1972, and its long tail runs through Music of the 70s.
The record has been certified for a million copies sold in the United States.
It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
In 2010 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry.
Rolling Stone placed it at number 60 on its 2004 list of the greatest songs.
Tina Turner Restarts a Career With It
Tina Turner cut her own version in 1983.
Martyn Ware of the British band Heaven 17 produced it.
It reached number 26 on the Hot 100 and number 6 in Britain.
It was her first chart single in years.
The success cleared the way for her 1984 album Private Dancer.
From the Apollo to the Charts Again
President Barack Obama sang the opening line at a January 2012 fundraiser at the Apollo Theater.
Al Green was sitting in the audience.
The clip spread fast, and Green's original jumped back onto the download chart.
Few 1970s singles have kept working that long.
For more genre-crossing hits from the decade, the Random 70s Song Generator keeps turning them up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote Al Green Let's Stay Together?
Al Green wrote the lyric to "Let's Stay Together" in about fifteen minutes.
The music came from drummer Al Jackson Jr. and producer Willie Mitchell, who built the groove first and then asked Green for words.
All three men share the songwriting credit.
Green recorded the song at Royal Studios in Memphis in 1971.
How many weeks was Let's Stay Together number one?
"Let's Stay Together" spent one week at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, for the week of February 12, 1972.
It was much stronger on Billboard's soul singles chart, where it held the top spot for nine straight weeks.
The nine-week figure is often attached to the pop chart by mistake.
Why did Al Green not want to record Let's Stay Together?
Al Green thought his falsetto sounded thin and unfinished on the track.
He argued with Willie Mitchell for two days before agreeing to cut it, then ran take after take trying to fix the vocal.
Mitchell kept pushing him to sing softer and closer to the microphone.
That restrained delivery became Green's trademark.
Where was Al Green Let's Stay Together recorded?
"Let's Stay Together" was recorded at Royal Studios in South Memphis, the home of Hi Records.
The building opened as a movie theater in 1915 and became a studio in the 1950s.
Producer Willie Mitchell ran both the studio and the label, and he used the same house band on most Al Green sessions.
Did Tina Turner cover Let's Stay Together?
Tina Turner released her version of "Let's Stay Together" in 1983, produced by Martyn Ware of Heaven 17.
It reached number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 6 in Britain.
It was her first hit single in years, and it set up her 1984 comeback album Private Dancer.
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