So on this date in 1944 Mr Booker T Jones was born! For those of you too young to remember Booker T & The MGs here’s a little background on Booker…
Booker T. Jones (born November 12, 1944) is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known as the frontman of the band Booker T. & the M.G.’s. He has also worked in the studios with many well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, earning him a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. Full Biography
Now this is usually the part where I say Booker T. YES! it’s time for some “Green Onions” But if you want to watch that you can go to Booker T’s birthday post from last year! Here.Oops! In checking last years post I see that the post mentions that on this date both Booker T and Neil Young were born, but what I wrote about were riots on the Sunset Strip’ So if you want to read about them go Here.There’s a link in the post to go to watch “Green Onions” but the video has been removed so don’t click the link. Instead you can go here and watch Booker T perform “Green Onions” – “Live at Daryl’s House!
Now where was I oh, yeah – Tonight let’s listen to something a little more current. This afternoon in honor of Booker’s birthday listened to his 2011 release The Road from Memphis. Here’s some background on that album from Wikipedia….
In 2011, Jones released The Road from Memphis. The backing band included Questlove (drums), “Captain” Kirk Douglas (guitar) and Owen Biddle (bass) from The Roots as well as former Motown guitarist Dennis Coffey and percussionist Stewart Killen. The album features vocals by Yim Yames, Matt Berninger, Lou Reed,Sharon Jones and Booker T. himself, as well as lyrics contributed by his daughter/manager Liv Jones.
On February 12, 2012 The Road from Memphis won at the 54th Grammy Awards for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Booker holds a total of 4 Grammy Awards
As I listened today, while the whole album is terrific, the song that stood out from the rest at least today was “Harlem House”…. so let’s go “into the night” with a live performance of that song – as filmed by Unsteady Freddy at THE CITY WINERY in NYC on March 4 2013. .You can check out Freddy’s YouTube Channel here !
Anyway Happy 69th Birthday Booker T. Jones and thanks for all the music!