In an era which brought us some of the best singers and musicians ever, Marvin (Gaye), Stevie (Wonder), Curtis (Mayfield) as well as James (Brown) and Sly, Al Green stood as an equal with these musical geniuses.

I haven’t bought an Al Green record in aeons, my perception rightly or wrongly being that he was a faded star doing the rounds. Sure he can still reach the high notes and the right notes but back to his best? Come on.

?uestlove, drummer for the band The Roots has seemingly found a new life as the producer du jour, now that his band only occasionally reaches the golden heights of earlier years. His production duties with the new era of Black music geniuses, Common, Erkyah Badu and above all D’Angelo heralds a solid and often spectacular body of work. If there is a common denominator it is a trademark, analogue dull thump of a drum. I cannot think of a better way of describing the sound but it is prevalent in work by all the aforementioned musicians. And this is no bad thing as this deliberate, warm, low key analogue sound perfectly frames the music - where lyrics, song structure and good musicianship rise above the new ‘music culture’ of instant (free) downloads, celebrity over being an artist and branding over a long-term career. And all this perfectly illustrates the new album by Al Green.

Album opener and title track ‘Lay It Down’ sets a gritty, low to the floor - dare I say it - ‘rootsical’ sound (pun intended). Second track ‘Just For Me’ takes this a tad further with bright, sparky horns and those delicious high notes of Mr Al Green. The album slowly unfolds over eleven (relatively) short tracks following a theme of fuzzy keyboards (by ace player James Poyser), gently plucked guitar, touching bass and background vocal harmonies. This is an old fashioned soul album, in the mould of all the greats, and it is no worse for that. The common thread of sweet, Seventies soul which runs through the album could be mistaken for sameness but repeated plays bring unexpected delights - a deep, aquarius organ riff in “Stay With Me” or some beautiful strings orchestrated by Larry Gold in ‘All I Need’. Simply this album is stunning and the best straight forward, back to the bone soul album, well, since Amy (Back to Black’s The Dap Kings also feature here). Brilliant.