Green's day

And the synthesis works surprisingly well. Recorded during sessions in New York City with a variety of producers who include Arthur Baker, Narada Michael Walden, former Fine Young Cannibals David Steele and Andy Cox, and urban-beat mixmaster DeVante, the tracks can hit just about any audience. On the title cut and "Could This Be the Love," Walden and DeVante wrap Green in a contemporary soul sound. "Love Is a Beautiful Thing" and "What Does It Take" recall Green's Nixon-era dashboard-speaker blowers "Can't Get Next To You," "Let's Stay Together," and "Sha La La." There's even a Temptations cover ("Don't Look Back") -- which seems ironic when you recall that "Can't Get Next to You" (the song that launched Green in '71) was also a Tempts hit.

"Yes, a couple of those things on there are pretty good," Green notes with a laugh over the phone from Memphis. He's preparing for the tour that brings him to Boston and Springfield this week, where he'll be performing his secular hits with a little testifyin' thrown in. "Maybe I'm just old-fashioned," he continues, "but music today just seems to have taken on a more physical tone than it had when the Temptations were singing. Back then [in the '60s and '70s], we were singing messages like `Call me, come back home.' We did songs that said, `I love you, but I'm not the only one pulling the strings.' It wasn't about calling names and rappin' about how strong you are. It was about working things out and things going on in our lives. `Let's Stay Together' was like that. I wrote that after the turbulence of 1968 to say that we should all stay together when times are good or bad, happy or sad. It's just like the song says."

A string of gospel albums Green waxed in the '80s may have netted him eight Grammys, but the awards hardly interest him. "It's about more than that. This December, I'll have been in the ministry 20 years. So you can see what interests me. And it wasn't something that I made up my mind about. If I had to make up my mind, I'd probably still" -- and he laughs menacingly -- "be umm, you know, doing and living that lifestyle."

"That lifestyle" began after Green's surprise success with Hi -- beginning in the early '70s -- where he wrote a string of hits with producer Willie Mitchell and drummer Al Jackson (of Booker T. & the MG's) and continued until Green left for his ministry in 1979. "We never knew we were going to be making hits. No no no no. We were just doin' something. None of those songs we put together was ever done because we thought we had winners. We were the least of all of the great people who were recording there at the time. We were really," he says laughing, "nobody."

Well, not really. But the question remains, why do a secular album and then tour after all these years? Green says it's all part of his ever-expanding ministry.

"When I come up there to Boston, I'm gonna sing `Put a Little Love in Your Heart.' And `Can't Get Next to You' and `Tired of Being Alone,' and all of those. We'll be doing some gospel, too. And as you listen, you'll begin to see how that all comes together, both the religious and the other songs, in a 360-degree circle of wisdom. The lesson, my friend, is that it's about love for each other in these times of drive-by shootings and such. Love is always something you should do."