Released in 1972, Al Green’s fifth album, I’m Still In Love With You, arrived as the singer was in the middle of a remarkable run that would include such must-have soul classics as Let’s Stay Together and Call Me. This was his commercial peak, and listening to Green now, the first thing that stands out about his early-1970s effort is his restraint: Few singers convey so much with so little. The second is the way he takes the template of the Soul Man—powerful, expressive, assertive—and turns him into something gentle, almost effeminate. Even Green’s peer, Marvin Gaye, had an air of dominance that persisted as his music mellowed out. But while Gaye is the bold, self-assured guy who turned “Let’s Get It On” into a pop come-on, Green is the open-ended guy who asks, “What about the way you love me?”—and then follows it with three minutes of whimpers and coos most men wouldn’t be caught dead making in private, let alone on a platinum-selling album (as he does on “Simply Beautiful”). Green doesn’t come after you—but in his unguarded vulnerability, he makes you come to him. The real coup of I’m Still In Love With You, though, is the way Green manages to sexualize himself without ever sounding risqué, or even adult. Like Prince 10 years later, Green’s qualities are more stereotypically boy than man: tender, simple, curious but willing to explore—a partner whose ego never gets in the way of their intuition. His affinity for country music—which manifests here with a gorgeous cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times”—didn’t just pull up the miscegenated roots of Southern culture for America to see. They also helped Green connect with white audiences, who cast him as a polite young person making his way through a no-good business. Meanwhile, the revelation of “Love and Happiness”—the first single from I’m Still In Love With You, and one of Green’s biggest hits—isn’t just that he can brood, but that his sweetness was a choice all along. So when Green sings something as straightforwardly utopian as “What a Wonderful Thing Love Is,” don’t mistake him for naive—in Green’s world, sweetness is strength.