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Booker T. & The MG's

The Memphis house band of Stax Records, who backed Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett and had a hit of their own with Green Onions in 1962.

Origin
Memphis, Tennessee, United States
Years active
1962-1971, 1973-1977, 1986-2012
Genres
Southern soul, Memphis soul, R&B, instrumental
Labels
Stax, Volt, Asylum
Also known as
Booker T. & the M.G.'s, The MG's

Memphis, 1962

Booker T. & the M.G.'s formed in Memphis in 1962 as the house band at Stax Records. The first line-up was Booker T. Jones on organ and piano, Steve Cropper on guitar, Lewie Steinberg on bass and Al Jackson Jr. on drums. Two members were white and two were Black, which made the group one of the first racially integrated rock bands. Stax publicity long said the initials stood for Memphis Group, but Jones has said the name came from the MG sports car of Chips Moman, who worked at the label, which was parked outside the studio.

In 1962 Jones, then 17, Cropper, 20, Steinberg and Jackson were in the studio to back the singer Billy Lee Riley. During downtime they started playing around with a bluesy organ riff, and Jim Stewart, the label's president, recorded it from the control booth. That track was Behave Yourself. Cropper then remembered a riff Jones had thought up weeks earlier, and they had a second track, Green Onions. It was meant as the B-side, but after a Memphis radio station played it, Stax released it as the A-side. It reached number 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and number 3 on the pop chart, and sold over a million copies. The debut LP, Green Onions, followed later in 1962.

The Stax house band

Through the 1960s the members spent most of their time as the core of the Stax studio band, playing on hundreds of records for Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, Albert King and others. Their credits include Sam & Dave's Soul Man. Describing the Stax sound to NPR's Fresh Air in 2007, he called it "a simple, earthy sound" that the band consciously kept simple and full of feeling. Steinberg left after the 1965 album Soul Dressing, and Donald "Duck" Dunn became the full-time bassist.

The band's own hits dried up for a while, then returned in 1967 with Hip Hug-Her, the first single on which Jones played a Hammond B-3 organ. Its album, Hip Hug-Her, also held their cover of the Rascals' Groovin'. In the spring of 1967 they toured Europe with the Stax/Volt Revue, and in June they played Monterey Pop, then backed Otis Redding. They were invited to Woodstock in 1969 but declined, because Jackson was worried about the helicopter that would take them there.

Producing themselves

Doin' Our Thing in April 1968 was the first album the band produced themselves. Soul Limbo followed the same year, the first Stax LP issued after the label ended its ties with Atlantic. Its title track, with a marimba solo by Terry Manning, became a hit and is still known in Britain as the theme to the BBC's cricket coverage. In 1969 Time Is Tight, from the soundtrack to the film Up Tight, reached number 6 on the pop chart, their second biggest hit.

In 1970 they recorded McLemore Avenue, instrumental versions of songs from the Beatles' Abbey Road, named for the street where the Stax studio stood. The last Stax album was Melting Pot in 1971. Jones had moved to California because he disliked the changes under the label's new chairman Al Bell, and part of the album was cut in New York. Cropper soon left to open his own studio in Memphis.

After Stax

Jackson and Dunn kept the name alive in 1973 with other players, billed as the MG's. Jones, Cropper, Jackson and Dunn met in late September 1975 and agreed a plan to work together again. Al Jackson Jr. died on 1 October 1975. With the drummer Willie Hall, the remaining three made Universal Language for Asylum in 1977, which met with neither commercial nor critical success. Cropper and Dunn joined the Blues Brothers band that year.

In 1986 they were asked to be the house band for Atlantic Records' 40th anniversary, and decided to play some dates together. In 1992 the group entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and then served as house band for Bob Dylan's 30th anniversary concert. In 1994 they made That's the Way It Should Be, their first album in 17 years. Rolling Stone ranked them number 93 among the 100 greatest artists in 2004, and they received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. Dunn died on 13 May 2012, and Cropper died on 3 December 2025. Jones is the last surviving original member. Rolling Stone, which ranked Cropper number 45 among the greatest guitarists, called him "the secret ingredient in some of the greatest rock and soul songs".

Members

Records

Songs

Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, Neil Young

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Interviews

Sources

  1. Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Wikipedia
  2. Green Onions (song), Wikipedia
  3. National Recording Registry descriptions and essays, Library of Congress
  4. Green Onions, essay by Scott B. Bomar, Library of Congress
  5. Booker T. Jones: A Life in Music, Fresh Air Archive (NPR)
  6. Steve Cropper, Booker T. & the M.G.'s and Stax Records Guitarist, Dead at 84, Rolling Stone
  7. Booker T. and the M.G.'s, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame