Booker T Jones

Wed 29th Jun, 2011 in Features

40 years after leaving Memphis and Stax records, Booker T Jones has released one of the year’s finest records, The Road to Memphis, a nostalgic tribute to the city that has given the world so many wonderful musicians and more than its fair share of musical revolutions.

On the album Booker is backed by the legendary Roots crew and joined by guests including Lou Reed, Sharon Jones, The National’s Matt Berninger, Jim James from My Morning Jacket and Detroit guitar hero Dennis Coffey. And while that’s certainly an impressive guest list it only represents a fraction of the many amazing musicians who have called on Booker’s talents.

Booker has worked behind his Hammond B3 organ or at the production desk with Ray Charles, Wille Nelson, Bill Withers, Carlos Santana, John Fogerty, Bob Dylan, Rancid, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. And of course, with Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Al Jackson, Jr as a member of Booker T and the MGs backing fellow Stax stars including Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Carla Thomas. And that’s just a glance at Booker’s famous fans – as Booker tells FL: “Just after I started the business became a business of promotion and so many people were dropped by the wayside and great songs and great records were never heard.”

With such a remarkable resume and so many stories to tell it’s fantastic news to hear that the 66 year old legend has begun “jotting down some memoirs.” While we wait for that book, and possibly a new Booker T and the MGs album, we have Road to Memphis and twenty minutes on the phone with a softly spoken Hall of Fame member and true soul legend.

There was a long gap between albums before you returned with Potato Hole in 2009, now Road To Memphis comes just two years later; what has changed to lead to you recording regularly again? Inspiration? Opportunity?
I think that if I was given the opportunity during the long period when I was languishing I could have made an album, but I wasn’t in sync with the music business for the longest time. It took a while to bet back on track as far as my recording expertise, my business arrangements, having access to record companies – that type of thing.

What was the turning point which brought you back to ‘the business’?
I was in LA about six or seven years ago and I walked into the studio to do a benefit recording with Wille Nelson and the engineer was Hans Zimmer, I’ll never forget. I walked into the studio and nothing looked familiar to me, the tape machines were different, there were computer screens everywhere. I had no idea what was going on in the control room. Of course I was at home in the studio, sitting at the piano and the organ but I realised that couldn’t produce anymore – the tech side of the business had left me behind.

So I came to San Francisco and enrolled in San Francisco State and took ProTools 101, my first digital course, and then I took five courses learning digital technology. And I became a producer again.

In the liner notes for Road From Memphis you also talk about that need to be educated as a musician – using the money from playing at Stax to fund your college tuition. Why did you feel the need to get a academic musical education in addition what you were learning by playing at Stax?
As an eleventh and twelfth grader at school and playing gigs around Memphis and going to Stax and getting a part time job there as a keyboard player I knew that I couldn’t really execute or perform what I was hearing in my mind. I knew I needed to get training. I couldn’t write it down. The training I got at Indiana in music theory and composition and arranging gave me confidence and I think I started to relax and write better music as a result and believe in myself more. To this day I believe that that set the groundwork for what I’m doing today.

At university you were obviously studying a classical tradition of music – your notes mention composers such as Wagner and Debussy – did that feed directly into your work at Stax?
It did, it did, but the thing was that the training gave me the facility to write down lines that were basically blues or jazz or RnB. I was studying classical but the process is the same.

According to the stories Green Onions was written as a studio jam, is that the way you always write?
That’s a myth. I always went into the studio with an idea in mind. Some jamming took place but most of the ideas I’d already had before I walked through the door. I sit in my studio and close my eyes and wait for inspiration if I don’t have something I’m trying to remember from say a few hours or a few days before. The process works both ways for me.