Rock and Pop: Preview - Booket T at Jazz Cafe, Friday May 28
Published: 20 May 2010
by DAN CARRIER
IT was called US Patent Number 1,956,350 – and it changed the sound of soul music forever.
That was the code given to Lauren Hammond when he turned up with a new design for a keyboard: and while it made its debut backing gospel choirs in the 1930s, the Hammond organ really found a worldwide niche for its sound when pianist Booker T Jones sat down at the ivories and began to play.
Booker T, who plays the Jazz Café on May 28, was the organist for the Stax label in-house band in the late 1950s and 1960s – his band backed performers such as Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. But it was the release of the instrumental R and B record Green Onions in 1962 that made them a best-selling act in their own right.
It was the start of a music odyssey that later saw them perform on such soul staples as Hold On, I’m Coming and Walking The Dog. Other tunes that have entered the lexicon of popular music include Soul Limbo – better known as the theme for the BBC’s test-match cricket programme.
And while they split and reformed, split and reformed and split again since the 1970s, their presence lives on. Booker still performs and is often joined by former members, and his music has influenced generations. In 1971, the band released Melting Pot, an album with some seriously long grooves, looped bass lines and fiddly, squelchy guitar riffs. It soon became a favoured sound of New York Dj’s rocking block parties and inspired 1970s funk. More recently, it has been sampled time and again by house music producers.
Booker’s popularity is constantly refreshed by new fans: he and his MGs appeared in the Blues Brothers film – the Blues Brothers band was basically Booker T and the MGs, including original members Matt Murphy, Donald Dunn and Steve Cropper – and are constantly referenced by modern, big-selling acts such as the Black Eye Peas.
Booker’s band are essentially the major players in the creation of the Memphis soul sound. Expect long funk jams, brilliant bass lines and the searing tones of US Patent 1,956,350, played by the maestro of the Hammond.
• Booker T plays at the Jazz Café on Friday, May 28.