I Just Saw Booker T and the MG's and Boy, There Were Good

And Eddie Floyd came out and sang with them in a three-piece suit.

Boy, THEY were good. Schmuck.

early morning show?

Stax Revue

I wanted to see the DC show but when the date got changed I could not make it. I've read good reviews of Eddie Floyd's most recent cd---I think he recorded it with some folks who had worked with Barrence Whitfield. My Floyd Stax compilation disc is nice.

Booker T. & the MGs were good when I saw 'em do a brief set back when (90s?).

I was just reading this interview with Steve Cropper about Al Jackson because something on the Earl Palmer RIP thread reminded me of it.

Who was the drummer? Not Anton Fig, I hope.

Saw them when they were backing up Neil Young and I think they were Neil's best backing band ever.

Yet that record stunk.

At any rate, yeah -- it was the DC show, Steve Potts was the drummer, I think, and it was damned good. Two Dylan covers, "Hip-Hug-Her," and Eddie Floyd sounding way, way, WAY better than any 73 y/o man has any right to.

There was also just a great vibe to the whole thing -- I actually have no idea about their personal lives, but there seemed to be a refreshing lack of "I've been married twelve times and have pissed my whole life away" feel to the whole thing. Instead, just four guys, mostly in their late-sixties who (at least in Cropper's case) have def. earned enough money to retire but actually seem to enjoy playing and innovating a bit together. Imagine that.

Have you seen Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story?

I admit I have not. Have they all had horrible personal lives, twelve marriages and drug addictions?

No, not that I know of, although Al Jackson's death was pretty gruesome.

But that's not in the movie anyway. It is in the book though, Soulsville, USA.

Anyway I just mentioned it because when I watched it, I tried to figure out the chemistry between the three of the those guys, the three remaining guys. They seemed to get along well, but it wasn't like they were completing each other's sentences. Steve seems like he is a little irritable and would even seem to be needling Booker ever once in while, but Booker and Duck seemed like two of the nicest guys ever. So yeah, no rock star egos there. I read, and I guess I also saw in that documentary, Jerry Wexler talking about how amazed he was that they just showed up in the morning at McLemore Avenue, hung up their coats and went to work, like any other job.

Duck kept saying throughout the show that he had the best job in the world playing with those two guys. He must have repeated it two or three times. And he and Cropper were just hamming it up together like nobody's business. Who knows? Maybe this is the last go-round for these guys and they just want to enjoy it.

But it was great to watch -- I was particularly interested in the parts where they seemed to stretch a bit, where Cropper would do a complex riff and Booker T would play these huge shifting chords. I'm not sure if they ever made a "progressive" record that really pushed the boundaries, but if they did, I bet it was amazing.

That show you saw got a nice review in the Washington Post today

I thought the same thing as you about the stretching out, NTI, when I first saw them at the Loan Star Roadhouse many years ago. I have two words for you now: Melting Pot.

I'm on it.

i don't really like it when the MGs jam (based on that Stax/Volt Revue in Norway dvd) or melting pot, sorry :(

Melting Pot is one of those albums I can't put on very often because I end up playing it over and over and over.

So did you ever get around to Melting Pot, NTI?

Didya?

And who is Booker on tour with now? Any good?