by Vera H-C Chan

What the saxophone did for Bill Clinton, might a ringtone do for Barack Obama?

At a time of declining job ratings, the man who once fueled rock-star fervor got another shot of cool for crooning the 1972 tune "Let's Stay Together." His Apollo Theater singing performance lasted only a few notes, but that was enough to perk up the Twitterverse and online curiosity. Yahoo! searches for the tune soared nearly 17,000%, elevated Rev. Green's profile by 1,008%, and spurred an online encore flurry ("obama at apollo theater," "obama at the apollo," "obama sings al green song," "president sings al green.")

Twitter groupies who longed for a ringtone version can now relive those six words over and over -- or at least use them to signify that Grandma is calling. Obama's official site now offers a free ringtone for iPhone and other smartphones.

And, yes, the Twitterverse is getting buzzed anew. Obama's cover of Al Green is a ringtone now. That's cool lol," delightly observed @simplynono. A Manchester gent tweeted a more tongue-in-cheek observation: "The 'Obama sings Al Green official ringtone' is up there with the CNN http://Will.I.Am hologram interview as defining political moments."

It's a nice bit of timing with his State of the Union address. In his 2011 address, Obama spoke of a Sputnik moment. Now he has his Apollo moment.

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