Memphis-born multi-instrumentalist Booker T. Jones is one of R&B/soul music’s greatest minimalists.
For proof, listen to the 1962 hit instrumental by Booker T. & the M.G.’s, “Green Onions,” written while Jones was still in high school. (You may have heard it increasing the hipness quotient of the 1979 film Quadrophenia, based on the Who’s rock opera.) Jones’s radiantly purring Hammond organ is a miracle of propulsion and economy, leading the way for Al Jackson Jr.’s scything drums, Steve Cropper’s stinging guitar punctuation, and Lewie Steinberg’s slaloming bass line. (The more famous Donald “Duck” Dunn replaced Steinberg in 1965.)
“Green Onions” is one of 29 singles cut by the group and collected on Booker T. and the MG’s: The Complete Stax Singles Vol. 1 (1962–1967), issued last year by Real Gone Music. The track epitomizes the streamlined groove sorcery and momentous melodic understatement that Jones and company turned into a science.
