Booker T & the MG's:More Than Just Green Onions
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In the mid to late 70's, in it's pop hey day, disco, ran roughshod over R&B and Funk, basically shuffling both genres out of the pop culture mix. Disco was cheap to make, a producers medium, and it was popular. Quickly gone were all the fussy artists and their expensive bands..the biz had found the solution.
Some folks didn't go for it though..the anti-disco backlash quickly drove the genre back to the underground..where it flourished. One holdover from the disco era was the primacy of the DJ..as record promoter, remixer, and tastemaker. As club music splintered off into many combinations throughout the 80's the DJ's remained.
One section of the DJ world played "classics"..not necessarily disco, but whatever the DJ thought would move the crowd. For the most part they didn't do beat matching or long transitions between songs or very much mixing at all. It was all about the songs, the whole songs.There was no rush, folks had come to dance, and they were ready to go til sun came up. These Loft parties had a real communal feel..no velvet ropes..everyone was welcome.
One of the tunes that made the cut in the Loft scene in New York was from the last Booker T & The MG's record, Melting Pot. A long percussion filled track, Melting Pot was a far cry from Green Onions and the short instrumentals of the MG's early Stax years. This track has jazz,funk, and tribal elements that would become the building blocks of various versions of house music that would emerge as the 80's melted into the 90's. That DJ's singled it out is also a testament to their open minds and the "all about the music" spirit that drove post-disco clubland. The 80's were real progressive in that regard, breaking down boundaries, as the music business kept throwing them up.
The whole Melting Pot album is worth your time, but the title cut, very futuristic for 1970, may be the most influential in the MG's impressive catalog.
Booker T & The MG's-Melting Pot
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Comments (14)
Some buddies of mine used that as their theme song and background music for their college radio show. What a classic cut.
Something I certainly should have in my collection.
Did I miss that Outkast "Hey Ya" wasn't an original for the past 6 or 7 years? Can't believe it!
Hey Ya is an original (i'm pretty sure w/no samples either) but Booker t covered it on his latest.
"Booker T & the MG's:More Than Just Green Onions"
You got that right.
I didn't go too far out on a limb there did I? 12 posts on them all time..4 on Green Onions.
layin down a nice little groove.
Oh so sweet...
I can definitely hear some stuff the Beastie Boys sampled from this (esp. on Check Your Head)
Thanks folks..I feel like it's a real expansion on the original sound..at this point they were practicaly out the door at Stax, so they just did exactly as they pleased. I just checked the original review that Robert Palmer wrote in Rolling Stone..he really duggit.
Oh man, the organ on this is a total revelation! Nice post, Cody.
Kp, it sounds really good in the midst of one of those top flight sound systems that were de rigeur for the Loft parties..
And here, for the purposes of comparison, are Jamaica's own Underground Vegetables, very much a "roots" group, with their take on it, recorded at Studio One in the early Seventies -
oooh, i like that..the organ and sax split the duties..thanks Mr.B. Kinda subdued..but well done indeed.
Hello, house music! I was taken back to the Nineties in a retrofuturistic sorta way. So groovy, and not quite the Booker T sound I know. Plus, the writeup is dope.
Grazie,poeb. As an old-schooler I always felt a sense of pride when my Stax folks moved a modern times dancefloor.
Updated with full LP and additional tracks at Funk or Die..