The Attack on Al Green and the Tragedy of Mary Woodson

Mary Woodson/Al Green

On this day in 1974, famed soul and gospel singer Al Green was attacked by Mary Woodson, a woman who he had been in an on-again-off-again relationship with for a year. Woodson threw a boiling pot of grits on Green's back while he was undressing to take a bath in his Memphis, Tennesee, home. Mary Woodson then shot and killed herself with a gun belonging to Green.

By the time of the attack, Al Green was at the height of his fame having sung such hits as "Tired Of Being Alone" (1971), "Let's Stay Together" (1971) and "I'm Still In Love With You" (1972). In 1973, after becoming a born-again Christian, Green began performing charity concerts at hospitals and prisons. It was at one of these concerts, held in the New York State Correctional Facility, that he first met Mary Woodson, who told Green that she was there to visit a friend. In reality, she had left behind her husband and their children in New Jersey to specifically meet Green.

Under the impression that Mary Woodson was single and available for a romantic relationship, Al Green invited her to fly out with him to San Francisco while he was there performing. After San Francisco, he returned home to Memphis and soon received a call from Mary saying that she was in town and she would like it if could get together. Green agreed and they went from spending days together to spending weeks together.

On the evening of October 18, 1974, Green was in the studio when he received a call from the Memphis police. They had arrested Mary Woodson for smoking pot and she had mentioned that she was a friend of Green's. He picked her up from the jail and took her back to the studio, where he thought singing to her would make Mary feel better. However, they were soon joined, unexpectedly, by Carlotta Williams, an airline stewardess who Green had met while traveling. Green thought it would be best to take the women back to his house and turn in for the night.

After arriving at Green's house, Williams asked to be shown to one of the guest rooms because she had an early flight the next morning. After Green made sure that she was settled in, he went looking for Mary Woodson and found her in the kitchen stirring something in a pot. She asked him if he had ever thought of the two of them eventually getting married. Green was taken aback by the question and told her it would be better if they continued this conversation in the morning. He then went upstairs to get undressed in preparation to take a bath. It was then that Mary Woodson entered the bathroom and threw a pot of boiling grits on his back. Carlotta Williams heard his screams and got him into the shower so she could blast him with cold water. Moments later, Green and Williams heard gunshots. Despite being covered in second- and third-degree burns, Green got out of the shower and went looking for Woodson. He found her body in one of the bedrooms.

It wasn't until after Mary Woodson's suicide that Al Green learned that she had a husband and four children back in New Jersey. In fact, not too long before the attack, her husband had come down to Memphis in an attempt to get Mary to come back home. Police had also discovered that she had a history of psychiatric problems. She had left behind two suicide notes. One read, "I love you, Al. I'm not mad, just unhappy because I can't be with you."

Al Green would end up having several skin grafts as a result of the attack and spent eight months in the hospital. While he claims that his religious conversion happened in 1973 and had nothing to do with Mary Woodson's actions, his biographer, Davin Seay, says, "I think the Woodson incident kind of crystallized his need to move on, to sort of shut down one part of his life and open up another." In 1976, Green became an ordained minister and purchased the Full Gospel Tabernacle where he still preaches. In September of this year, he released his first new recording in a decade, a cover of Freddie Fender's "Before the Next Teardrop Falls."

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