Booker T. Jones, best known as keyboardist for Booker T. and the MG's, the house band for Stax Records in the '60s that defined the sound of Memphis soul, will perform with his quartet at the Tower Theatre on Saturday. (Piper Ferguson/Submitted photo) 


What: Booker T. Jones
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Where: Tower Theatre, 835 NW Wall St., Bend 

Cost: $79, $73.50, $67.50, $56.50 or $49.50 plus theater preservation fee
Contact: towertheatre.org, redlightpro.com or 541-317-0700 


As leader of Booker T. and The M.G.’s, the house band for Stax Records throughout most of the ’60s, Booker T. Jones defined the Memphis soul sound. 

He’s still best known for his rhythmic Hammond organ playing on records by Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Albert King, Bill Withers, Carla Thomas and countless others — not to mention instrumental M.G.’s cuts such as the immediately recognizable “Green Onions.” 


But that’s only scratching the surface of what Jones can and has done with his playing over the course of his nearly six-decade career. Collaborators over the years include Bob Dylan, with whom he toured in 1992 alongside M.G.’s bandmates Steve Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn; Willie Nelson, whose 1978 album “Stardust” was produced by Jones; and Stephen Stills. More recently, Jones worked with Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers on his 2009 comeback solo album “Potato Hole” and hip-hop band The Roots on its follow-up, 2011’s “The Road from Memphis.” 

Jones is currently working on a follow up to 2013’s “Sound the Alarm,” which featured guests such as Gary Clark Jr. and British singer/rapper Estelle. At this point, even he isn’t sure what direction the new music will take, as he revealed to GO! Magazine during a recent chat ahead of his performance at the Tower Theatre on Saturday. 

“I’ve always worked on music in a lot of fronts, and it’s just an effort to try to contain myself, to be honest with you,” he said from his home in Carson City, Nevada. “I’ve always loved classical music, and I just did some concerts with Charles Lloyd — I’ve always loved jazz; Charles is a great player from Memphis. I’m working with my son (Ted Jones); we’re working on new original material. Plus, I’ve always loved dance music. It’s a challenge to try to corral my ideas, but I’m working on it.” 

A new album may be a while coming, though. In addition to a tour schedule that “goes pretty much year-round,” Jones will release a memoir exploring his life and music sometime later this year or early next. 

“I’ve always loved words — my dad loved words,” he said. “I started writing some essays probably 10 years ago, and I still have them, and I finally sent them to an agent.” 

Jones is best known for his work on the Hammond B-3 organ, getting his first taste of the instrument from his piano teacher Elmertha Cole. But Jones, a child prodigy, took up many instruments as a kid, and latched onto clarinet and saxophone early. 

“My next-door neighbor, his father was a band teacher from Florida and he practiced oboe, and that was an intoxicating sound,” Jones said. “My school had one, so I taught myself to play it. … And that led to clarinet, and my dad bought me a clarinet. For years, I played the clarinet and the saxophones, alto. My first job was playing baritone saxophone at Stax Records — Satellite as it was called then. I became known as a sax player in Memphis, because that’s how I got that job, and that was a good-paying job paying $15 every day after school in 1958.” 

At recent shows, Jones has focused on all aspects of his career, from M.G.’s songs to material he helped write and produce. He has been playing more guitar and singing onstage alongside his guitarist son Ted Jones in his quartet, and revealed he wrote most of the songs he’s known for on the instrument. 

“I did consider (guitar) my main instrument until we recorded ‘Green Onions,’ and I was playing keyboards on that — I was playing Hammond organ. So that became a big hit, and I became known as a keyboard player, so then I just kept playing keyboards,” he said. “But most of the songs that I wrote that are in my catalog I started on guitar, and I still start most vocal songs with guitar. ” 

“Green Onions,” recorded when Jones was 17 in 1962 during downtime at another session, kicked off the M.G.’s first run, which lasted until Jones left Stax Records in 1971. The instrumental song has been used in films such as “American Graffiti,” and led to further hits “Time is Tight” and “Hip Hug-Her.” 

“It was a riff that I had been playing in theory class on piano trying to figure out the one-three-four chords, and just kind of a fun little blues riff,” Jones said. “… We had previously recorded what turned out to be ‘Behave Yourself,’ which was a real Memphis blues. … Everybody in the room thought that that was a record, that it should be released. That was an organ song, organ lead. At some point after the excitement, people realized, well, you can’t put out a one-sided record; you have to have something for the B-side. That’s when ‘Green Onions’ came out.” 

The burgeoning civil rights movement also had a major effect on the music the M.G.’s made. Along with pioneering soul, the group was one of the first bands to feature black and white musicians together. 

“One of the guiding forces of the music that we were doing then was the socio-political scene at the time. That was sort of a guideline for us,” Jones said. “We were based around the Lorraine Motel (in Memphis, Tennessee). That’s where we had our meetings, and white and black, and that’s where Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd wrote their songs maybe about three or four rooms down from where Dr. (Martin Luther) King (Jr.) was shot. So a lot of that intention came from that environment of the struggle.”

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