Booker T is happy to oblige
Memphis soul legend’s favourite tunes line up nicely with what fans want to hear
Booker T. Jones has always played well with others.
A do-everything musician who got his start as a teenager in bands centred around the Memphis soul scene of the early 1960s, Jones has kept collaborating in the years since. For his three most recent recordings, the Tennessee native worked with a guest list that mixed the newer (Gary Clark Jr., Drive By Truckers, the Roots) with the oldish (Neil Young, Sharon Jones, Sheila E.) — a balance he strives for in all facets of his professional life.
To achieve that, the Grammy Award lifetime achievement honoree keeps his studio and touring bands separate and in flux. “I’m trying to follow my muse and do what my muse thinks is best, and that’s not always easy,” Jones, 71, said recently from his home in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
“But that’s what I try to do. The old moves out and the young moves in — that’s the nature of nature. There’s so much talent among the young people in the music business now, you can’t ignore it. And you shouldn’t. But they can’t do anything until the old moves out.”
Jones will play Friday in Victoria for the first time since 2009, and his sold-out show will feature songs from across his career, up to and including his 2013 effort, Sound the Alarm. He will do so with his son, 25 year-old guitarist Ted Jones, along for the ride, in addition to his longtime sidemen, drummer Darian Gray and bassist Melvin Brannon Jr.
He likes to give upstarts a shot on the big stage, as veterans once did for him. Jones was 17 when he wrote and recorded Green Onions, one of the most instantly recognizable riffs ever written for the keyboard and organ, and has always felt the need to pay such good fortune forward.
When he was discovered, along with his Stax Records collaborators and bandmates in Booker T. and the M.G.s, they were unknowns just out of high school. Within a few short years, a lineup that included Jones, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, guitarist Steve Cropper, and drummer Al Jackson Jr. had put together a considerable run of hits via sessions with Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Albert King, and Wilson Pickett, in addition to many others.
The band eventually performed on the classics Walkin’ the Dog, Soul Man, Try a Little Tenderness, and Hold On, I’m Comin,’ among dozens of other signature songs in the ’60s.
Jones did his best to savour every moment. Today, he’s still in awe of what he and his bandmates accomplished. The best part is that those compositions live on through fans who continue to discover soul music.
“I find beauty in that every person is unique. There’s not going to be another Duck Dunn; the way he thumbed the bass, his combinations, it’s just not going to happen. But we have his contributions and other people can learn from that.”
Jones said there is no doubt he’ll play Green Onions in Victoria; he can’t remember a concert in which he hasn’t played the iconic instrumental. As for his interest level in playing the song five decades after its release, it is remarkably high, Jones admitted.
“It’s still a challenge. The original was such a unique moment in time, and I’m still trying to capture that feeling. I try to play it the way I did in 1962, and that’s not easy.”
Jones and his band will play songs Friday that he either co-wrote (such as the blues staple Born Under a Bad Sign) or was involved with as a sessions player (see: Bob Dylan). Fans always manage to leave satisfied, he said. “I do indulge myself on stage. Fortunately, my favourite stuff is stuff the audience likes. Green Onions is still one of my favourite songs, and the M.G.s are still one of my favourite groups.”
He will work with a stage set-up that includes a Hammond B-3 organ, two Leslie speakers, a Yamaha grand piano and an electric piano. He won’t however, play some of the instruments that remain closest to him and have been in his arsenal since the beginning.
Jones is often associated with the keyboard, but he delights in telling people that it was not his first instrument. That honour goes to a version of the guitar, which then led him to the piano, followed by a selection of reeds.
“One set off the other,” he said. “The first was the ukulele, and that led to the bass. The piano led to the Hammond organ, and then the oboe — my first reed instrument — led to the clarinet and the saxophone.”
In someone who came from a strict musical background — his grandmother was a piano teacher and his mother was a trained musician — such restlessness was “not encouraged,” according to Jones.
“The encouragement was the other direction,” he said with a laugh. “Bu it was my curiosity that I couldn’t contain.”