Al Green Birthplace — Forrest City, Arkansas

Albert Leornes Greene was born on April 13, 1946, in Forrest City, Arkansas — a small St. Francis County town in the Delta flatlands of eastern Arkansas, between Memphis and Little Rock. He grew up singing gospel in the family's group, the Greene Brothers, and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, as a teenager when his family relocated north. He was playing the chitlin circuit and developing the smooth, gospel-saturated vocal style that would make him one of the most sensually compelling singers in the history of popular music.

Green's partnership with Memphis producer Willie Mitchell at Hi Records from 1969 onward produced a string of albums — "Let's Stay Together," "I'm Still in Love with You," "Call Me," "Livin' for You" — that are among the most perfectly realised recordings in soul music. Mitchell's production approach — a warm, unhurried rhythm section built around Howard Grimes's drumming and the Memphis Horns — created a setting of extraordinary sensuality that matched and enhanced Green's voice. The Hi rhythm section's contribution to the sound was as essential as Green's vocals.

Forrest City and Arkansas acknowledge Green as a native son, though his identity is more closely associated with Memphis, where he has lived for decades and where the Full Gospel Tabernacle he founded and pastors continues to operate. The journey from the Arkansas Delta to the Full Gospel Tabernacle — through soul music's commercial heights and a personal crisis that redirected his life toward ministry — is one of American music's more remarkable biographical arcs.