Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)

Album: Al Green Explores Your Mind (1974)
Charted: 20 7
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Songfacts®:

  • This was the last of eight gold singles for Green.
  • This song was allegedly written about Mary Woodson, a girlfriend of Green's who predicted he would become a minister and build his own church. It was released a week after she burst into his bathroom while he bathed, poured boiling hot grits over him, then shot herself to death with his gun in a jealous rage. True to Woodson's premonition, two years later Green was ordained the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church where there's a name plate in her memory, fulfilling a promise Green once made to save her a seat in the front row if he ever did become a pastor.

    The incident with Woodson proved to be a turning point in the singer's life, though Green claimed being born again the previous year, however.
  • This song was featured in the 2003 drama Radio, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., and the 2006 romantic comedy The Holiday, starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet.
  • Green performed this song live on Soul Train (one of his many appearances on the show) in 1974.

Comments: 2

  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn this day in 1975 {April 5th} Al Green performed "Sha-La-La" on the Saturday-afternoon syndicated television program, 'Soul Train'...
    Five months earlier on November 17th, 1974 "Sha-La-La" peaked at #2* {for 2 weeks} on Billboard's Hot R&B Singles chart and it spent eighteen weeks on the chart...
    Between 1967 and 2008 the Arkansas native had thirty-six records on the Hot R&B Singles chart, sixteen made the Top 10 with six reaching #1...
    His six #1 records were, "Let's Stay Together" {for 9 weeks 1972}, "I'm Still In Love With You" {for 2 weeks in 1972}, "You Ought To Be With Me" {for 1 week in 1972}, "Livin' For You" {for 1 week in 1973}, "L-O-V-E (Love)" {for 2 weeks in 1975} and "Full of Fire" {for 1 week in 1975}...
    The Reverend Albert Leornes Greene will celebrate his 73rd birthday in eight days on April 13th, 2019...
    R.I.P Don Cornelius {1936 - 2012}...
    * The two weeks that "Sha-La-La" was at #2 it was "Woman To Woman" by Shirley Brown and "I Feel A Song (In My Heart)" by Gladys Knight and the Pips that kept it out of the top spot...
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn December 15th 1974 "Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)" by Al Green peaked at #7 (for 1 week) on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; it had entered the chart on September 22nd and spent 19 weeks on the Top 100...
    It reached #2 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart...
    Was track one from his 'Al Green Explores Your Mind' album, and on March 22nd it peaked at #1 (for 1 week) on Billboard's Soul Albums chart (it was his fifth consecutive #1 album on the Soul chart, and it reached #15 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart).
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