With the help of the Roots’ Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson and musical fans Anthony Hamilton, Corinne Bailey Rae and John Legend, Al Green has found his way-back machine. Lay it Down has the patient, sexy grooves that defined classic Green recordings, and his voice may betray his age onstage, but here, he glides to the sensual high notes and squeals like the lover man he was.

The songs, similarly, have the plain speech quality of his best. In songs such as “Just for Me,” “No One Like You” and “What More Do You Want From Me,” he makes the commonplace lyrical, elevating the routine of relationships by singing his parts them in these intimate musical dramas. If anything, Lay it Down may err on the side of recreating the past. The Dap-King Horns stand in for the punctuating horns on the Hi recordings, and their parts and sound could have been lifted off of those tracks. But it’s great to hear the Al Green you know and love make a CD today that sounds like the Al Green you know and love.