Booker T. & The M.G.'s

Booker T. & The M.G.’s were history-makers on multiple levels. As the house band at Stax Records in the ’60s, they backed soul giants on R&B milestones. But they crafted milestones of their own as a self-contained unit, one of the few all-instrumental bands to score multiple Top 10 hits. They were also a rare racially integrated group in the Jim Crow-era South. Booker T. Jones was a precocious multi-instrumentalist who started playing Stax sessions when the label was still called Satellite. By 1962 he had his dream team: guitarist Steve Cropper, drummer Al Jackson Jr., and bassist Lewie Steinberg (replaced by Donald “Duck” Dunn in 1965). With a fierce, funky sound led by Jones’ thick, gospel-informed organ lines and Cropper’s terse, biting riffs, they backed Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, and many others. On their own, they unleashed R&B evergreens like “Time Is Tight” and “Green Onions.” Their ’60s classics helped create a soul template that influenced generations of rockers and R&B artists alike.