Al Green @ Beale Street Music Festival

Al Green

Sam's Town Stage • 9:50 p.m.

Arguably Memphis music's greatest living artist, Al Green belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of soul vocalists along with Aretha Franklin and Sam Cooke, his repertoire of flutters, sighs, grunts, repetitions, and other effects transcending mere words even when in the service of a great lyric. Green recorded a string of classic albums in the 1970s — Call Me, I'm Still in Love With You, The Belle Album — before abandoning pop music for the pulpit of his Memphis-based Full Gospel Tabernacle Church. In recent years, however, he's made a return to secular sounds with a strong series of comeback albums, the best of which is 2008's Lay It Down.