Soon after the creation of the company, Satellite Records signed a local group called the Mar-Keys, that had grown out of a local high school group called The Royal Spades. They recorded an instrumental “Last Night” in 1961, that is very much a forerunner of “Green Onions”. It sold over one million copies, earning a gold disc and reaching number three on the Billboard Pop chart, number three on the Billboard R&B chart, and number one on the Cashbox R&B Singles chart. The principal musicians involved were Steve Cropper on second keyboard, Jerry Lee “Smoochy” Smith on main keyboard, Packy Axton on tenor sax and Wayne Jackson on trumpet. Chips Moman produced the track and decided not to include guitar in the arrangement.
The Mar-Keys soon became the house band at Stax, with other session musicians joining the group as necessary. The all-white original line-up thus soon developed into a multi-racial session band. In addition to the musicians mentioned above, the band now featured David “Duck” Dunn or Lewie Steinberg on bass, Marvell Thomas, Booker T Jones or Isaac Hayes on keyboards, Howard Grimes, Terry Johnson or Al Jackson Jr. on drums, and Floyd Newman, Don Nix, Gilbert Caple and Andrew Love on horns.
A new group featuring four of these musicians then emerged, who went on to release some instrumental tracks in their own right. They took their name from the keyboard player and soon became well-known as Booker T & the MGs. The original members of the group in 1962 were Booker T. Jones (organ, piano), Steve Cropper (guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass), and Al Jackson Jr. (drums).
Booker T Jones was 17 and Steve Cropper 20 when the band came together in 1962. Two years later, Steinberg was replaced by Donald “Duck” Dunn, who played with the group until his death in 2012. All four continued to be part of the session band at Stax, playing in support of most of the Stax artists and also sometimes playing as part of the Mar-Keys too.
Booker T & the MGs 1967
Photo: Stax Trade Ad. (Wikimedia Commons)
One day in 1962 the four musicians (including Steinberg, as Dunn had not yet replaced him) were in the studio backing the former Sun Records star Billy Lee Riley. During a break they put together an instrumental piece, which Jim Stewart thought was worth recording. “Green Onions” was released on the subsidiary label Volt and picked up by a local radio station. The track soon went to number one on the US Billboard R&B Singles Chart and number three on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart, selling over one million copies and certified with a gold disc.
“Green Onions” was Stax Records’ first single to achieve the number one position on the US R&B Billboard listing. The group recorded twelve instrumental albums between 1962 and 1971, including one with the Mar-Keys receiving a joint credit. During the same period, around thirty-five singles were released on the Stax label. Twelve of these entered the top fifty of the US R&B chart, and three charted on the UK Pop chart.
1966 saw the release of a track called “Soul Limbo”, which sold around four hundred thousand copies. The final recording was completed at John Fry’s Ardent Studios, with Terry Manning at the control desk for the final mix. Manning was happy to experiment with the Stax sound and decided to add a marimba, in order to create a more “Caribbean” vibe, with an overdubbed cowbell. Isaac Hayes added a piano line to complete the arrangement. Thirty years after its original release, the single was awarded a gold disc for total sales of one million. Terry Manning added marimba to quite a few recordings after that!
The most successful of the later singles was “Time Is Tight” in 1969, which reached number six on the American R&B chart and number four in the UK. Like “Green Onions” (in 1967) and “Soul Limbo” (in 1996), “Time Is Tight” went on to achieve gold certification, in 1967. According to the RIAA, these gold discs made Booker T & the MGs the most successful session band in America.
The group went on to define the company’s sound for the rest of the decade. Since they were the main studio backing band at Stax, virtually every single and album released featured their musical backing, with added input through arranging, co-writing and production.
“Walking the Dog”, “Hold On, I’m Comin'”, “Soul Man”, “Who’s Making Love”, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)”, and “Try a Little Tenderness” are just a few of the classic Memphis Soul tracks that the group played on. Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, and Albert King are some of the artists they played for.
In 1967 the group took over the position of the Top Instrumental group in Billboard’s end of year poll from Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass.
In 1971, first Booker T. Jones and then Steve Cropper decided to move away from Memphis, to explore other possibilities. Al Bell was now in effective charge at Stax, and things were changing in ways that Jones and Cropper weren’t happy with. Dunn and Jackson stayed, still participating in recording sessions and getting involved in production.
Four years on, they came together again, intending to reform as Booker T. Jones & the Memphis Group. Unfortunately, just nine days after the plan was agreed, Al Jackson Jr. was murdered in his house. The reunion was not to be.
The Lorraine Motel, Memphis
Photo: Bill Spicer (with permission)
At a time when racial segregation was a feature of life in the deep south of the USA, it is interesting to note that the group was made up of two Black and two White musicians. As in other studios in the southern States, music enabled these musicians to overcome such difficulties in the studio. Robert Gordon has explained in an on-line interview with Nelson “Little D” Ross (The Bitter Southerner) how Booker T & the MGs were able to overcome the racial issues outside the studio, by using the Lorraine Motel: “The MGs could make international hits together, but they couldn’t go to a burger stand to be served together. But at the Lorraine they could. At the Lorraine, they could swim in the pool together unbothered.” Unsurprisingly, the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King at the motel in 1968 had a huge impact on the integrated team at Stax. It felt very close to home.
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee in 2008, the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2019.
Booker T & the MGs added some new dimensions to the R&B music that they had grown up listening to. Jones was a master of the Hammond B-3 organ, the sound of which attracted a lot of attention when “Green Onions” first appeared. It became a trademark for many of the group’s best tunes, a distinctive element of the Memphis signature sound. Steve Cropper also added new features. At the start of his career at Stax, he often played a baritone guitar and doubled the bass line. (NAMM Interview, July 9th, 2015). He played a backbeat, with a down stroke. Most important of all, he learned to play as a studio musician, in front of a sensitive microphone. His guitar playing is not loud and extrovert. It is about creating a feeling and an atmosphere. Many Stax recordings demonstrate how important this element was to the Memphis sound.
