1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 33. Booker T and the MGs – Green Onions (1962)

Holy Hammond Time! Booker T and the MGs regale us with some funky poppy instrumental numbers including the timeless Green Onions and a boatload of (mostly) covers. Including the track Mo’ Onions which is pretty much Green Onions with the riff played backwards.  

Apparently, these guys were the Stax Records house band and so most of the musicians are there on a lot of classic funk and soul records, and the line-up features Donald “Duck” Dunn as seen in The Blues Brothers films.  

Musically it really steps into the Sixties – one can easily imagine some go-go dancers ripping it up to Rinky Dink or the Ray Charles song I Got a Woman – both super funky. Then we get slower numbers like a cover of Acker Bilk’s Stranger On The Shore. Not to mention a version of Twist And Shout which I’d always thought was a Beatles original but presumably was during the era when they were mainly doing covers as well. 

Booker himself leads the majority of the tracks with funky groovy Hammond organ, but sometimes the other musicians dive in to lead from time to time. This is definitely more pop-like than earlier offerings, pretty good fun.

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