Let's Stay Together

Recorded at Royal Recording Studio in Memphis and released on 31 January 1972, it was Green's fourth studio album and the third produced by Willie Mitchell, who had taken over running Hi Records in 1970. Mitchell mixed it with Terry Manning. The musicians were the Hi Rhythm Section: Howard Grimes and Al Jackson Jr. on drums, Leroy Hodges on bass, Charles Hodges on organ and piano and Teenie Hodges on guitar. Wayne Jackson played trumpet, Andrew Love and Ed Logan tenor saxophone, James Mitchell baritone saxophone and Jack Hale Sr. trombone, with Charles Chalmers, Donna Rhodes and Sandra Rhodes on background vocals.

The title song, written by Green, Jackson and Mitchell, opens the first side. The second side holds Green's version of How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, written by Barry and Robin Gibb, whose Bee Gees recording had been their first American number one in 1971. Green's runs more than six minutes. Pitchfork's 2009 review said its vocal was so light and flexible it seemed to flutter in the breeze coming off the drums. The same review noted that Jesus turns up unexpectedly in the middle of So You're Leaving, a secular groove.

Reception

The album peaked at number eight on the pop albums chart and was the first of six consecutive Green albums to reach number one on the soul albums chart, where it stayed for ten weeks. Rolling Stone said his voice was something to marvel at. In 1999 Q wrote that it showed him as "the authentic voice of love's pain and purity." Pitchfork's 2009 review, written when Fat Possum reissued the album after licensing the Hi catalogue, said Green was not yet firing on all cylinders as a songwriter, but that even the lesser songs got spectacular performances. It also described him murmuring the title song to the person on the next pillow rather than declaiming it for the neighbors.

It is listed among Q's best soul albums, at number 335 in the Virgin All-Time top 1000, and at number 608 in the 1994 Guinness poll of the top 1000 albums. A 2003 reissue added two bonus tracks, Eli's Game and Listen to Me.