Love and happiness: In the pews of Al Green's church in Memphis

With the soul legend himself, aged 77, singing and preaching and sounding magnificent

The Rev Al Green, circa 1972, from the cover of his Greatest Hits album

In an unfamiliar city it is rarely a good sign when your burly African-American taxi driver says: “I wouldn’t be driving you in this neighbourhood if it was dark.”

We are in Memphis, the most violent city in America. There were 397 homicides here last year in a population two-thirds t…