There's no going back for the legendary organist who has ditched his r'n'b roots to deliver a new sound that may come as a surprise to fans of his work with The MGs, writes
JIM CARROLL
ABOUT FOUR YEARS AGO, Booker T Jones went back to school. The organist who provided that unmistakable funky backbone on a host of seminal soul releases always had a hunger for learning. As a whipper-snapper straight out of high school, he combined four years studying for a music degree at the University of Indiana with weekend session work at the Stax label back in Memphis alongside The MGs.
This time around, Booker T felt he was out of touch with studio techniques. Sure, he had his bundle of Stax gold discs and work with Willie Nelson and Bill Withers to his credit, recordings which have stood the test of time. But that was the past. About to embark on his first recording project in 15 years, Jones felt he was a bit of old-school fool when he came face to face with modern studio kit.
"I really did feel like I was completely old- school in terms of recordings and what I knew what to do in a studio," he insists. "I enrolled in San Francisco State University in a basic music software course. I did five or six courses in all, right up to the most advanced level.
"I'm really glad I did so. I learned about the way recording is done today and picked up some skills I didn't have before. I think it opened me up creatively and made me more confident."
That hands-on knowledge of loops and Pro-Tools wasn't the only new thing Booker T took with him into the studio. One listen to the loud, boisterous racket of Potato Holeand you may be wondering what the hell is the story with the guitars.
A look at the sleeve and you'll see Neil Young and hairy Southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers in the credits. It sure doesn't sound like something which would have been minted at the Stax building on McLemore Avenue back in Memphis.
Booker T chuckles. He sounds as if he's loving how he's trumped expectations and preconceptions once again. "It's what I wanted to do for ages, an in-your-face Southern blues and rock record. I didn't really know who the Drive-By Truckers were, but my manager sent me some of their records. The music was a little different but once we hooked up and started playing and I saw the possibilities, it was great.
"I was trying to imitate Neil Young's style with just one guitar when I wrote the songs because I didn't know I'd have access to three guitars. That gave me access to so many different parts and it's why some of the songs are so complex. It was such a blast. I remember walking out into the alley behind the studio to call my wife because I was so excited by what we were doing and how the tracks were turning out."
Those tracks include slippery, greasy covers of OutKast's Hey Yaand Tom Waits' Get Behind the Mule. That last song sent Booker T back to his youth. "The idea to do that song came from Andy Kaulkin at Anti. We listened to a lot of Tom Waits' songs and we kept going back to that one.
"I liked the theme and the funkiness of it. It made me think back to my early days on my uncle's farm in Mississippi when I'd walk out into the field and see my uncle behind the mule and plough. He'd do that every day, get behind the mule and plough in a straight line. That's what he'd do to earn a living, plough fields behind a mule, so that's why the song spoke to me."
ANYONE WITH A HANKERINGfor the sound of those old Booker T records can get their kicks by, well, digging out those old records. He himself is not going back to that sound.
"I sure was not going back to the old r'n'b rhythms that I played in the past this time in the studio", he firmly insists. "Times have changed, the social structure has changed and I feel music really has to reflect the social structures of the day. I didn't get pushed by anyone to go in this direction. My label and management looked to me for direction and they went with me. The MGs were a one-of-a-kind band, we were originators, but that's the past, as far as I am concerned."
But what a past it was. When he wasn't playing every instrument he could lay his hand on in his high school music room in the early 1960s, young Booker T would cycle up to a record store on McLemore Avenue and listen to as many records as the patient store clerk Steve Cropper would allow.
His pal David Porter, who would later become a great Stax producer and writer, wangled a pass to get him out of school one day to play on his first Stax session with Rufus and Carla Thomas. By the time he was 16, his organ traces were all over a seminal recording of William Bell's Don't Miss Your Water.
Then came The MGs, with store clerk Cropper on guitar, drummer Al Jackson and bassist Lewis Steinberg (later replaced by Donald "Duck" Dunn). Their first release was Green Onionsand the hits - and riffs - just kept on coming.
"I didn't have an inkling how the music we were making was being received beyond Memphis", recalls Booker T. "I didn't know it was all that important at the time. But socially, things were beginning to change in 1962. There was a cultural revolution in the 1960s and we were part of that, though we didn't know it. Our music evolved from r'n'b blues to r'n'b rock in 1969 and 1970 and then to r'n'b jazz."
During the 1960s, there were times when life in an interracial band like The MGs was tough. "The racial issues and prejudices made it very difficult for us as a band, especially when we were touring", says Booker T. "We'd have to eat in different restaurants and check into different hotels. But playing the music was very natural and we never thought about race when we were onstage."
BOOKER T EVENTUALLY GREWfrustrated with the Stax way of doing things, quit Memphis and headed west to California where he produced records with Willie Nelson and Bill Withers. "They were great experiences, great periods of learning for me. When I worked with Bill, that was the first record I produced after I walked away from Stax. I did it in California and used some of the Stax players and so, yes, it had some of that raw, soulful Stax sound. We were able to get to essence of what Bill was about. It still plays well today.
"With Willie Nelson, I was able to step out of the r'n'b genre for the first time and play some country music, which I love. I've been a fan of country music all my life but obviously never got a chance to play it at Stax. Willie, too, got to step out and be a maverick by doing some of the jazz he'd loved for so long."
Since then, he's done a little bit of this and a little bit of that. He went back on the road with The MGs a few times, most notably when Neil Young asked them to be his backing band in the 1990s which led to an album, That's the Way It Should Be,in 1994. They've also turned up as the house band on more than a few occasions, usually at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame hops.
But Booker T acknowledges that it has taken until now and Potato Holefor him to really feel the time is right for his own solo stand. "Over the last 10 or 15 years, I did a little bit of producing and playing live with my solo band but I was really languishing because I just didn't have the direction. I didn't have my business together, I didn't have the resources like a good manager or a good label to guide me.
"Now, I have a team who understand my vision and what I want to do and that I want to work on my own ideas. I've always worked under someone else's inspiration and it was frustrating. Now, I'm the originator of the ideas and I have the people around me to bring them to fruition. And that, I have to say, feels good."
Booker T plays Dublin's Vicar Street on Monday and the Róisín Dubh as part of Galway Arts Festival on Tuesday. Potato Holeis out now on the Anti record label