Track Listing

1. Green Onions
2. Rinky Dink
3. I Got a Woman
4. Mo' Onions
5. Twist and Shout
6. Behave Yourself
7. Stranger on the Shore
8. Lonely Avenue
9. One Who Really Loves You
10. You Can't Sit Down
11. Woman, a Lover, a Friend
12. Comin' Home Baby

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38459 in Music
• Released on: 1991-06-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Customer Reviews

Birth of a Dynasty
This is what happens when a group of guys have an unexpected monster smash hit. In 1962, while in the studio jamming, a seventeen year old prodigy named Booker T. Jones, a twenty-one year old guitarist named Steve Cropper, and a couple of veterans of the Memphis music scene came up with something that Stax Records president Jim Stewart deemed good enough for release. Needing a B-side, Cropper suggested working up something Jones had been playing around with some time earlier. What was supposed to be a B-side excited Cropper, and local DJs quickly began to flip the "Behave Yourself" single to the other side, and "Green Onions" began to create quite a stir. Quickly, the sides were reversed, and "Green Onions", with it's groovin' riff, Booker T.'s funky organ lines, and cutting edge guitar bursts courtesy of Cropper became Stax's biggest hit at the time, reaching number three on the national Pop charts and topping the R&B charts. The group, now billing themselves as Booker T. & the MGs (Memphis Group), released this solid, if unspectacular instrumental album later that year.

As could be expected, they weren't really able to recreate the hit single's magic, and besides that title track, the rest of the album comes across today as sounding pretty dated. This album should not be bought to familiarize listeners with Booker T. & the MGs. Cropper, Jones, drummer Al Jackson, Jr., and later Donald "Duck" Dunn (who would replace original bassist Lewie Steinberg) are widely considered to be the tightest, most soulful, and versatile band of all time. They would go on to be the house band at Stax, playing behind Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Albert King, Eddie Floyd, Johnnie Taylor, Rufus and Carla Thomas, and more. They provided the blueprint for Soul music, and set a standard of excellence that nobody since has come close to meeting. On their own, they released over a dozen brilliant singles, and several terrific albums.

However, other than the timeless title track, there is nothing on the album that is a "must hear". And "Green Onions" can be found on MGs compilations, box sets, and countless soundtracks. Make no mistake about it though, the album, for what it is, is quite good. This isn't a garage band rushing to sell an album cause they had a hit. Lewie Steinberg was very accomplished, and Al Jackson, though just a few years older than Steve Cropper, had been playing in his father's Jazz/Swing band since he was five years old! And as well as Cropper's groundbreaking work on the title cut, the young white guitarist showed himself to be equally adept at both Blues and Jazz. His playing is both simple and sophisticated, with the underlying element being taste. And Booker T. Jones played like no seventeen year old kid. This being said, there is no real reason to recommend this album, unless you are already familiar with the MGs' greatness, and you want to hear everything they recorded.

Don't buy this for "Green Onions"!
"Green Onions" is a great song--a song that sounds thrilling no matter how many times you've heard it. Unfortunately, the "Green Onions" album isn't nearly as exciting and gets kind of tiring after a listen or two. This was the MG's first album and was recorded after the 45 of "Green Onions" hit the top of the charts. The inventiveness and fire evident on the "Green Onions" single is just about impossible to find on the other tracks of this album, though. If you were thinking of getting this so you could hear "Green Onions"--well, don't do it. Pick up "The Very Best of" on Rhino. It has "Green Onions" and about 17 other songs that are just as thrilling. Then, if you want to have more MG's material, pick up "Hip Hug-Her" or "Soul Limbo" or the "Time is Tight" Box set. This album is one that only completists will want.

It's Not As Bad As You Think...But...
You KNOW the three original compositions are, in Dave Marsh's words, "what happens when the best backing group ever decides it's time to step up front and be noticed." (You probably also know how badly underrated is "Mo' Onions" - particularly Steve Cropper's ever-so-understated guitar break; the greatest soul rhythm guitarist of them all before Teenie Hodges came of age could flat play the blues without breaking a sweat or letting the string-bending joyboys intimidate him...the man's middle name was "Taste".) You also know that most of the rest is the kind of filler you used to hear (and cringe upon) at the local skating rink. But if you've got even half the sense of humour as the guys who cut it, this album isn't all that bad. In fact, they actually make "Lonely Avenue" (the classic Ray Charles cut from Pomus-Shuman) work. As album makers, Booker T. and the M.G.s in due course began living up to their classic singles and then some, and would someone PLEASE remind the nimrod from the critic's review at the head of the page that with the horns they were the MAR-KEYS, and not the BAR-KAYS (which was an entirely different band, both before and after they bought it with Otis Redding in that plane crash...)