Melting Pot

Booker T. and MGs

album cover

Groovy Instrumentals from a Cradle of Soul

During its tenure as the rhythm section for Otis Redding and virtually everyone else who sang for Memphis-based Stax Records, the team of keyboardist Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, and drummer Al Jackson Jr. set an impossibly high standard for backbeat music. Cue up virtually any Stax side and check out the sublime force sizzling away unobtrusively in the background. They make it easy for the singers to hit that sweet spot.

The task of supporting singers gave the musicians serious cohesion, and because singers are notoriously unpredictable, Jones and his crew enjoyed plenty of studio downtime for unstructured playing. The rhythm section's biggest hit, "Green Onions," happened during a spontaneous jam while they waited for singer Billy Lee Riley, who never showed.

A top ten hit in 1962, "Green Onions" is a loping boogie in the John Lee Hooker tradition that's been endlessly repurposed by dance-music DJs and hip-hop mavens. Alas, "Green Onions" was also endlessly repurposed by Booker T. and the MGs: The group's next album featured a carbon copy called "Mo Onions," and even years later, on this last great studio effort, the group returned to the same terrain—see the aptly titled "Kinda Easy Like," which adds tightly harmonized wordless vocals (à la a '40s girl group) from the Pepper Sisters.

Melting Pot was recorded in New York instead of the group's home studio in Memphis. The spotlight's on steady surging grooves—the title track rides an effortless, butter-churning polyrhythm for eight minutes, and includes a sneaky solo from the magnificent Cropper, whose succinct, searing lines virtually define the crossroads of blues and rock. Booker T. and the MGs were among the most potent of the hard-grooving instrumental-soul bands of the '60s, and arguably had more impact than outfits led by saxophonists King Curtis and Junior Walker. The group disbanded shortly after this album's release, and was at work on a comeback album in 1975 when Jackson, the drummer, was murdered in a robbery attempt. The crime has never been solved.

Genre: R&B
Released: 1971, Stax
Key Tracks: "Melting Pot," "Back Home," "Fuquawi," "Kinda Easy Like"
Catalog Choice: Green Onions; Hip Hug-Her
Next Stop: Jr. Walker and the All Stars: Shotgun
After That: King Curtis: Live
Book Pages: 105–106