walking upstream…
Booker T & the M.G.'s
photo: stax records · public domain ↗Booker T & the M.G.'s
The Stax Records house band, formed in Memphis in 1962 around organist Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Duck Dunn (Lewie Steinberg originally), and drummer Al Jackson Jr. Playing on hundreds of Stax sides by day and cutting their own instrumentals — "Green Onions," "Time Is Tight" — by night, they turned a spare, groove-first blend of blues, gospel, and jazz into the sound of Southern soul, and did it as one of the first racially integrated bands to headline in the segregated South.
the sound in question
1962
Green OnionsBooker T & the M.G.'s
walk the tributaries ↓
Ray Charles1950s–60s · R&B / Soul / Jazz
Booker T. Jones has said the specific sound he was chasing on organ came from riding in his father's car and hearing Ray Charles's Hammond on "One Mint Julep": a spare, vamping, almost conversational tone rather than a church-organ wall of sound. That's the DNA of every M.G.'s groove built around a simple, repeating organ riff.
listen: upstream & heresource: Booker T. Jones interview — on Ray Charles's "One Mint Julep" and Jimmy Smith as organ influences ↗
1961
One Mint JulepRay Charles
1962
Green OnionsBooker T & the M.G.'s
listen forPut "One Mint Julep" next to "Green Onions": both ride a short, circling organ figure that never resolves — it just sits in the pocket and lets the rhythm section do the talking.
Jimmy Smith1950s–60s · Jazz / Soul jazz / Hard bop
Jones has called Jimmy Smith "a big influence" and credited Smith's Blue Note records — especially the extended, blues-soaked organ workouts on The Sermon! — with showing him what a jazz organ combo could sound like well before Stax existed. The M.G.'s later extended-groove instrumentals borrow that same patient, blues-drenched improvising.
listen: upstream & heresource: Booker T. Jones interview — on Ray Charles's "One Mint Julep" and Jimmy Smith as organ influences ↗
1958
The SermonJimmy Smith
1967
Hip Hug-HerBooker T & the M.G.'s
listen forThe Sermon's slow-building, one-chord blues vamp is the blueprint for the way "Hip Hug-Her" stretches a single riff across a whole side — Jones's organ fills lean in and pull back exactly the way Smith's does.
The "5" Royales1950s · Rhythm and blues / Gospel / Doo-wop
Steve Cropper has said that sneaking into a Memphis club to see the "5" Royales as a teenager "changed my whole life": he lengthened his guitar strap to copy Lowman Pauling's stance, and took from Pauling the idea that a guitar part should punch in short, horn-like stabs behind the singer rather than solo over everything.
listen: upstream & heresource: Premier Guitar — Steve Cropper on seeing the "5" Royales and Lowman Pauling ↗
1957
ThinkThe "5" Royales
1969
Time Is TightBooker T & the M.G.'s
listen forPauling's clipped, call-and-response guitar jabs on "Think" are the direct ancestor of Cropper's guitar hook on "Time Is Tight" — short, percussive figures that answer the band instead of running over it.