Track Listing

1. Green Onions
2. Slim Jenkins' Place
3. Hip Hug Her
4. Soul Dressing
5. Summertime
6. Bootleg
7. Jelly Bread
8. Tic Tac Toe
9. Can't Be Still
10. Groovin'
11. Mo' Onions
12. Red Beans And Rice
13. Terrible Thing
14. My Sweet Potato
15. Be My Lady
16. Booker Loo

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3628 in Music
• Released on: 1992-06-22
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
One of the finest soul instrumental bands ever, Booker T. and The MGs were originally employed as the house band at Stax Records. Their widely imitated guitar/bass/drum/organ groove (a formula they essentially invented) propelled legendarytracks by the likes of Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Otis Redding. In addition to helping develop and pioneer the Memphis sound as a back-up band, the MG's also released original material to great commercial success. Those records have, over time, become classics in their own right.
This impeccable Atlantic compilation features all of the band's singles up to 1968 (the early Stax catalogue went to Atlantic, the later to Fantasy Records--see Fantasy's BEST OF collection for the MGs' later hits). Arguably, the band's finest material is here: the slinky, minor key jam of "Soul Dressing", the propulsive drive of "Can't Be Still" the loping funk of "Hip Hug-Her" and, of course, "Green Onions", possibly the most grooving song in history. Bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn anddrummer Al Jackson's in-the-pocket rhythm, Steve Cropper's stinging guitar lines and Booker T. Jones' swelling, funk organ combine to create a sound that still seems as fresh today as it did in the early '60s.

Customer Reviews

In the groove
Released during the LP age, weighing in at only forty minutes and missing the later hits, 'Time Is Tight' and 'Soul Limbo', this collection nevertheless works like a an original album in its own right. This is the early Booker T and the Mgs, the era that contains their finest performances. The later hits are OK, but wouldn't really fit in here. Their classic groove, 'Green Onions', kicks off the album and is followed by a couple of tracks with a similar style, but thereafter the band explore a diverse range of soul, r&b and latin rhythms, without straying too far from their basic strengths. While the organ provides the colour, the rest of the band form the tightest rhythm section of the 1960s. These instrumentals will move any part of you that can move (with a couple of honourable exceptions), with only their magnificent, brooding cover of 'Summertime' to slow things down.

One of the great house bands
You will probably know several of these (if you like cricket for instance) but there is much to recommend from this collection of instrumentals from the STAX house band. As well as playing on virtually all that labels greatest hits, they found time to record some hugely entertaining stuff. So you get "Time is Tight", "Soul Limbo" and "Green Onions" rubbing shoulders with lesser known, but still excellent tracks like "Bootleg", "Soul Dressing" and "Hip Hug Her".

Each member of the band can claim fame in their own right, Booker T, Steve Cropper, Al Jackson and "Duck" Dunn set the standard for Soul instrumentals and were probably rivalled only by the Funk brothers at Motown, and the bands James Brown put together for their influence.

For those interested in Soul, well worth your attention and you might find something you haven't heard before too.

The Band Who Define The Word 'Tight'
This is great compilation from the best Soul 'instrumentalists...ever! My only criticism is that the 'Red Beans & Rice' version on here, is a live one from the European Stax Tour in 1967. This is a real shame, as the studio version is a real cracker. It is available on a Cd called 'Great R&B Instrumentals' by various bands, on the 'Ace' label. Apart from that its superb. This is the band that, along with the Mar-Keys, were present on almost every Stax classic.