There was something about Mary | The Guardian

Al Green was one of the greatest pop singers of all time, but 23 years ago he gave it all up to become a preacher. Now, for the first time, he writes about the incident that helped change his life - being horrifically attacked by a girlfriend in his own home, how God came to him as he slept

Anybody can tell you that all the great soul singers learned their best licks in the choir loft, that the church is the mother of R&B and the grandmother of rock'n'roll. But no one can tell you the pain of having the choice between lifting up your voice for God and taking a bow for your third encore. That's something you have to experience for yourself. Like Sam Cooke. Like Marvin Gaye. Like Al Green.

Of course, Sam and Marvin have gone on to their reward. Al Green is still here, preaching at the Full Gospel Tabernacle. That's my little church off a side street in Memphis, not too far from Graceland - where, year after year, millions come to pay homage at the shrine of another great singer who had to make his choice between serving God or pleasing all those folks who thought he was God. Make no mistake about it - if you're faced with that decision, you better think carefully.

It wasn't too long after my encounter with the Holy Spirit in 1973 that I started doing charity work, if only because it seemed like I should be doing something besides making myself rich. I'd sing in hospitals and jails whenever I could grab a free day, and the response of the audience in those places was always so gratifying. Especially in women's jails.

It was at one of these prison concerts, for the inmates at the New York State Correctional Facility, that I first met Mary Woodson. She was the kind of woman that when you first saw her, you'd take a look, then a second, and then a third, and then, after a while, your eyes would just become accustomed to turning her way. Mary had a classy way of carrying herself: statuesque and graceful and proud. She was there visiting a friend, she told me, although she never did say what her friend had done to land in prison. But Mary had all kinds of secrets.

I casually asked Mary where she was heading after the concert, but Mary didn't fall under my spell quite so easily. She begged off my invitation to come back with me to the hotel. It was late, she said, she had to get up early. It was probably best that she just get home and into bed. So I offered her a ride in my limo into the city, and on the trip back we just talked. I wasn't pushing anything. She was pretty and I like having pretty women around me.

As I spent more and more time out on the road, I had begun to accumulate a certain type of girlfriend from one town to the next. It wasn't a romantic or even a physical thing, just a way to satisfy the fascination I've always had for beautiful women. I'd come into town and give them a call, and they were always available to drop by and spend a little time.

But Mary had other things on her mind. Just to impress her after that first night, I invited her to fly out to San Francisco with me for another concert. Now, nothing had gone on between us yet, but I figured with all that free transportation coming and going, when we finally did get down to business, it was going to be something special. In the meantime, I liked being around her. She was a real woman, not like all the giggling girls who flocked around me on the road, and everything about her was new and exciting. But there was something else that I'd never experienced before - her moody times and the way she stared off into the distance like she was listening to someone else from very far away. To me, that just added to the mystery.

After San Francisco, I went back home to Memphis. It wasn't more than a few days when I got the call. She was in town. Could we get together? By this time I was used to women turning up on my doorstep. But Mary played it cool, and it was the way she held herself back that made me want to reach around her calm and collected manner to touch the cold flame that burned at her core. It was an infatuation that blinded me to all the warning signs. When I finally got around to asking her about her past, we had gone so far along the path of our own destruction, I don't think she had any choice but to lie.

No, she'd never been married, she told me. And, of course, she didn't have any kids. The truth was, Mary had left behind a whole family in New Jersey to come and be with me. But I would only find that out later. All I knew then, as the days we spent together turned to weeks, was that I wanted her around, right next to me. It wasn't just her beauty and bearing that drew me to her. She had a way of looking me straight in the eye and telling me things about myself that sent shivers down my spine.

The first time it happened was on a beautiful spring day in the park, where we'd gone for a picnic. "You know something?" she said with a sparkle in her eye. "You're going to be a magnificent star one day." I just laughed. As far as most people were concerned, I was already a star. "No," she said. "That's not what I mean. You're going to stand in front of great congregations. And you're going to preach wonderful sermons that will turn the hearts of many."

"Me? Preach?" I laughed again. "All the preaching I do is a little Love and Happiness." I joked about it, but I was starting to get a little nervous. She stared like she was looking right through me, then gave me a dreamy smile and turned away. When she looked back, tears were welling up in her eyes. "When you do that," she said, "when you preach in your church, will you save a seat up front for me?"

Then things started to go wrong for Mary. Although I didn't know it at the time, her husband had come down from New Jersey to bring her back. She'd flat-out refused, but he wasn't going to let her go and made it clear that she belonged to him and to her children. Sooner or later, her time was going to run out.

The night it finally did, I was in the studio. At six that evening they put a call through. It was the Memphis sheriff. "We arrested a young woman down at the Peabody hotel for smoking pot," he said. "She says she's a friend of yours." I knew it was Mary. Not that she was a big drug user - it's just when you have that feeling that something's going to go wrong, and you have it for long enough, you always seem to know all the details before they happen.

When Mary was escorted out of the holding cell, I could see straight away that the humiliation of being arrested had taken its toll. She was pale and trembling and she hardly said a word to me, not even looking in my direction. I wanted to make her feel better. "Come back to the studio with me," I said. "I'll write you a song." She looked at me for the first time, up through her long lashes like a little girl, and it made me want to put my arms around her and protect her.

When we arrived at the studio, I was nervous and upset, so I ended up just riffing on Sha-La-La, hoping the refrain would calm her down. And it did - or at least it seemed to. But the mood I'd worked so hard to create was shattered a moment later when the door opened and a good-looking woman rushed in and gave me a big hug. It was Carlotta Williams, an airline stewardess I'd met on my travels. Having a party wasn't exactly at the top of my list. I was too concerned about Mary's fragile state of mind, but Carlotta seemed so happy to see me that I couldn't just turn her away.

It was getting late and the day's hectic events had started to catch up with me. I closed down the session and suggested that Mary and Carlotta come back to the house, where we could relax. I made sure they understood I had lots of spare bedrooms where they could spend the night - the last thing on my mind was some kind of kinky encounter. The three of us piled into the Rolls I had bought a few months before and, somehow, Carlotta ended up sitting in the front with me, while Mary was in the back. All the way home, I kept glancing at her through the rearview mirror, disturbed by the strange expression she had on her face, as if she had made up her mind about something, once and for all. Once she caught me looking at her and fixed me with a cold, appraising stare that set my nerves on edge. I turned away quickly, keeping my attention on the winding road leading through the thick forest back to the house.

Everything was quiet when we finally arrived and, as I pulled up to the house, one of my bodyguards let us in. After we got through the front door, the rest of the security staff shut everything up and double-checked the grounds. It was the "lock down" routine they went through every time I stayed there, and most nights it made me feel good to know that I was safe. But that night was different. It was as if being in the house itself was risky. Carlotta must have sensed that something wasn't right, because she asked to be shown to her room right away, saying that she had an early flight the next morning.

I showed her upstairs to a guest bedroom down the hall from my suite. After I made sure she was comfortable, I went back downstairs, still worried about Mary. I walked into the living room, but she wasn't there. I called her name and heard a soft answer from the kitchen. Mary was standing at the stove when I came in, absent-mindedly stirring a big pot of water with a wooden spoon. She turned when she heard my footsteps and smiled, a wistful, sad smile. "Al, honey, have you ever thought of getting married?" she asked. "Married?" I repeated dumbly. "Maybe we should talk about this in the morning, baby."

She turned back to stirring the pot without a word. A long moment passed until, just to break the tension, I asked: "What are you cooking?" I was worried and a little frightened, trying desperately to break through, make contact, and bring her back into the real world.

She didn't answer my question, didn't even acknowledge that I was there for what seemed like the longest time. Then suddenly she was in my arms, kissing my neck and hanging on like it was our last night on earth. "You know, Al," she whispered in my ear, "I would never do anything to hurt you." The words sent another chill up my spine. "Hurt me?" I repeated, searching her eyes and trying to understand what was going on in their deep brown depths. But it was all distance and darkness and I guess she must have seen the confusion on my face then, because she kissed me again and told me everything was fine. I left her there, still stirring that simmering pot of water, and went upstairs to take a shower.

Peeling off my clothes down to my underwear, I went into the bathroom. As I stood in front of the mirror, brushing my teeth, I suddenly heard a sound behind me, outside the door, in the bedroom. I turned around, but couldn't see anything, so I went on brushing. Bending down to rinse, I heard another sound. This time it was the door to the bathroom, opening slowly. I looked up just in time to see Mary's reflection in the mirror. She had the steaming pot in both hands.

In the next second, my world exploded into a thousand splatters of pure agony. Mary had added grits to the water, making a thick, boiling hot paste. With all her strength, she hurled it at me, splashing the bathroom walls and scorching my naked back. The pain was so intense that I wasn't sure what was happening for a moment before I started screaming.

What happened next was a red-washed blur as I squirmed and thrashed in searing anguish, trying somehow to get away from her and from the horrible burning on my back. I staggered into the bedroom and out into the hall, where Carlotta had just opened the door. "What in the world..." she started to say, but I pushed right past her and ran into her bathroom. Everything was spinning, revolving around the unbearable pain running all down my back like raking fingers. I slumped over on the floor and rested my head for a moment against the cool porcelain of the bathtub rim.

Carlotta burst in. "Al!" she screamed. "What's wrong?" It was then that she saw the egg-sized blisters rising on my burned flesh. She staggered backward and I thought she was going to pass out, but instead she grabbed my arm and pulled me up. "Come on," she urged. "Get into the tub." I climbed in and she turned on the shower, full blast and freezing cold. I don't know what was worse: the pain of my back or that icy torrent. I screamed again, bent over, and started to black out when I suddenly heard, over the thundering spray of the shower, the sound of a loud bang.

I looked at Carlotta and she looked at me. It was as if we both knew that something terrible was unfolding around us, and all we could do was stand in horrible, helpless witness. Then another bang, and the sickening, unmistakable sound of something heavy hitting the floor. I heard my own disembodied voice again, and to this day I don't know whether I spoke the words or just caught them echoing in my head: "The woman has killed herself!" I jumped out of the shower as Carlotta tried to hold me back. "Where are you going?" she shouted.

"Didn't you hear those shots?" I screamed back and ran out of the bathroom and down the hall, my back throbbing and the blisters beginning to ooze and bleed. As I got to my bedroom, I began to slow down, suddenly realising that I had no idea what might be waiting for me beyond that door. I peered inside, and through the open door I could still see the grits dripping down the bathroom walls. But there was no sign of Mary, so I went into the next bedroom: still no one. I made my way down the hall slowly and carefully until I got to the last bedroom. There, on the floor, was the lifeless shape of Mary.

Carlotta came up behind me and I could hear her whisper: "Oh, my God." But in that split second, all I saw was the gun in Mary's hand. I could hear my security guards pounding down the hall behind me as I summoned all my courage and knelt down by Mary's side. There was no sign of blood. I put my fingers to her neck, feeling for a pulse. Nothing. I grabbed her wrist. It was limp. Then it was as if the earth opened up and swallowed me in darkness. Mary was dead.

When the darkness parted, I was in hospital, in a whole new kind of nightmare. The pain of those third-degree burns on my back made every moment torture, but what was worse was the constant interrogation by the police. One set of cops would come in and ask me to tell them what happened down to the smallest detail. I'd try to put my recollections together as best I could, even though it seemed so unreal, as if it had happened to someone else entirely. Then they'd leave and a whole other set would arrive and start the process all over again.

I could tell by the looks they traded that they were trying to decide whether I was telling the truth. There were lots of questions about the two shots that had been fired and I didn't really have an answer, although I've since heard it said that suicides sometimes shoot off a round to see if the gun works before turning it on themselves. Your guess is as good as mine, and while I never did find out exactly what the police thought was going on that night, I was only too happy to oblige when they asked me to take a lie-detector test. I wanted more than anything to be left alone to try to pick up the pieces of my life.

Well, I passed the polygraph test and everything I said was backed up by Carlotta and the bodyguards. Eventually, the voices of the police faded and were replaced by the clatter of steel surgical instruments as they cut away the dead skin from my back and began the slow, arduous process of skin grafts. I would spend the next eight months in convalescence, and, like most calamities, there was a bit of blessing in disguise. I was finally left alone: to rest, to knit back together the tatters of my life, to try to find the answers to questions that so many people would ask me in the years to come.

Why had Mary killed herself? Why had she tried to destroy me? To this day, I can't say I really know. There were whole parts of her life she never let me into. While I'm never going to be able to fully explain the events of that terrible night to everyone's satisfaction, I know first-hand that the famous thin line between love and hate is real - and, for some people, what they can't have they have got to destroy.

Of course, those answers were never good enough for some. For years afterward, rumours and whispered gossip swirled around me and, while I guess I can understand the interest in scandals and celebrity, I can't say it didn't hurt to hear the lies that people told. Some said I'd murdered Mary. Others, that the bodyguards had shot her dead. Still others, that I had driven her to her desperate act by my neglect and abuse. It was also spread around that my religious "conversion" had come from almost getting scalded to death that night and being caught up in so disgraceful a mess that I had to do something to redeem my image.

Of course, no one paid the slightest attention to the fact that I'd been born again almost a year before and had been preaching from the stage ever since. But that's the way things go when you're a public figure: that spotlight feels great until it starts cooking you like a bug under a magnifying glass.

Two years later, in 1976, Green bought the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in Memphis. He preaches there to this day.

Born again in Disneyland

At their best, the songs I wrote and the music I sang were the expressions of what I was feeling at the moment they arrived. And in 1972, I was in what you might call an expectant mood. After a trip to the top that pretty much took my breath away, and more than I could imagine of the kind of success that was supposed to matter, I was already beginning to ask a question that has come to haunt more than one rich, famous and fabulously happy celebrity: is this all there is? Although I hadn't put it to myself in those words, the uneasy feeling that followed me around like a hungry dog was getting harder to ignore. Jesus was waiting for the right time to make his move.

That time finally came in the summer of 1973, in the middle of a non-stop tour to promote Call Me. At that point, I was booked up with solid shows; as a result, my life was suddenly no longer felt like my own. Everywhere I turned there were people dependent on me. I wasn't just a singer, a songwriter or even a star. I was an enterprise.

We came to the crossroads in the summer, in a hotel room with the Matterhorn rising up outside the window. I wasn't in Switzerland: it was Disneyland and the spotlights that lit the fake snow on the ride shone into my room with a pale and ghostly light. I couldn't have been asleep more than an hour or two when I was suddenly awakened by the sound of shouting. I sat bolt upright in bed, frightened that some crazy fan had broken into the room. The shouting continued and, as I listened, I realised that the voice wasn't threatening so much as excited and happy, as if someone had just walked into a surprise party.

Then I realised the voice was my own. I was praising God, rejoicing in the great and glorious gift of salvation. Although I knew that if I kept up that hollering for much longer I was sure to get arrested - or worse - there was nothing in either earthly or spiritual realms that could have shut my mouth.

Suddenly I heard a voice, calm and clear, coming from inside me, but rattling the walls like an earthquake all the same. "Are you ashamed of me?" The words pierced me like a knife. I ran into the bathroom. The part of my mind that was still tethered to the world was starting to panic. If I didn't shut myself up soon there was sure to be an embarrassing scene, and then what would I tell the police?

I couldn't think of anything to do but grab an armful of towels and bury my face in them. I remember biting the cotton nap, trying to muffle myself when I suddenly heard that voice again, asking one more time: "Are you ashamed of me?"

"Lord, no!" I shouted into the towels and threw them off myself. "No!" I screamed again as I heard a pounding from the door connecting Laura's room to my own. [Soul-singer Laura Lee was Green's lover and close companion.]

"Al," she said. "What's happened to you? Should I call a doctor?" I grabbed her and half-dragged her with me into the hallway. A little way down the corridor another door opened and I could see Haywood Anderson, my chief of security, rush into the hall ready to take on whoever was assaulting his boss. But no one could have overcome my attacker that night.

It took me the rest of the morning to come back to myself, weeping and praying and holding on to my friends and family like a lost child found safe again. We all sang songs, I remember, the old gospel gems I'd grown up with, and one by one those around me offered up their thanksgivings for so great a salvation of so great a sinner.

And when dawn finally broke over the Disneyland Matterhorn, the freeway began to fill up with morning traffic and, all along the boulevard, the shops and stores and little souvenir stands that sold Mickey watches and hats with Goofy ears began to open up, and I passed into a deep and untroubled sleep.

My head was cradled in Laura's arms. My daddy held my hand. And my saviour dwelt within.

• Taken from Al Green's forthcoming autobiography, Take Me to the River, published by Payback Press priced £14.99 (hardback). Visit canongate.net for more information.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaJ6inrGixb6rnK%2Bhlax8tMDOq7BoaFxog3GBi2xvamlnanlxfI2hq6ak