Booker T. & the M.G.'s  

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Booker T. & the M.G.'s are an American instrumental R&B/funk band that was influential in shaping the sound of Southern soul and Memphis soul, known for such compositions as "Melting Pot" (1971).

The original members of the group were Booker T. Jones (organ, piano), Steve Cropper (guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass), and Al Jackson Jr. (drums). In the 1960s, as members of the house band of Stax Records, they played on hundreds of recordings by artists including Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and Albert King. They also released instrumental records under their own name, including the 1962 hit single "Green Onions". As originators of the unique Stax sound, the group was one of the most prolific, respected, and imitated of its era. By the mid-1960s, bands on both sides of the Atlantic were trying to sound like Booker T. & the M.G.'s.

In 1965, Steinberg was replaced by Donald "Duck" Dunn, who played with the group until his death in 2012. Al Jackson Jr. was murdered in 1975, after which Dunn, Cropper and Jones reunited on numerous occasions using various drummers, including Willie Hall, Anton Fig, Steve Jordan and Steve Potts.

Having two white members (Cropper and Dunn) and two black members (Jones and Jackson Jr.), Booker T. & the M.G.'s was one of the first racially integrated rock groups, at a time when soul music and the Memphis music scene in particular were generally considered the preserve of black culture.

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Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Booker T. & the M.G.'s" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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