Al Green’s ‘Little Fantasy’

Here’s one I never saw coming: I was sitting with the Rev. Al Green in his office in Memphis, just behind his Full Gospel Tabernacle Church, where he preaches most Sundays. The church is just around the bend from Elvis Presley Boulevard, and I wondered, aloud, if Green, who became a sex symbol himself in the Seventies, felt any connection to Elvis.

“I loved Elvis,” he declared. “When I was 14 years old, I had all his stuff; just a whole Elvis collection of five or six records. That was one of my teenage crushes. I loved the music, I loved ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ the shake, rattle and roll, hip-swinging, hair-down-in-your face—that was one of my little fantasies, and this guy filled it really well.”

A teenage crush. A little fantasy. Who’d a thunk it?

As for musical connections: Green recorded Chuck Berry’s “Memphis,” and so did Elvis. And, in the early ‘70s, they both recorded one of Kris Kristofferson’s most beautiful compositions: “For the Good Times.”

So, who was your teen crush; your “little fantasy”? Don’t be shy. (Unless it was Danny Bonaduce…)

Ben Fong-Torres Interview with Reverend Al Green