Tag: Green Onions

Max Picks …songs from 1962

1962

I hope you like instrumentals…because this one has three. Let’s start this off with one of the best instrumentals of all time. Booker T. and The MG’s would keep releasing their groove songs through the sixties. An incredible array of talent with Booker T Jones, Lewie Steinberg, Al Jackson Jr., and the great guitarist Steve Cropper. The song was written by Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Lewie Steinberg, and Al Jackson Jr. Lewie Steinberg would be replaced in 1965 by Donald “Duck” Dunn.

Because of the Ken Burns documentary on baseball…every time I hear this song…I can see Sandy Koufax’s left arm making magic in Dodger Stadium with pastel colors in the stands.

Bruce Channel‘s Hey Baby is a great song that was released this year. The harmonica part is catchy and will stick with you. Who was playing that riff on harmonica? No other than  Delbert McClinton. He would later give John Lennon some lessons on the instrument in Hamburg. It was written by Margaret Cobb and Bruce Channel. Here is a bit of trivia for ya… This was the first Hot 100 #1 song with an exclamation point in its title.

Dick Dale…what a guitarist he was. This song is up there with my favorites. Miserlou was released in 62 and still sounds great today. Pulp Fiction helped to make it popular in the 1990s with a new generation.

Otis Redding had a voice that was like no other. Sam Cooke had a smooth-as-silk voice but Otis could give you both. He could sing a ballad and then turn around and growl a song.

The legendary Joe Meek wrote and produced this song. This was an adventurous instrumental record for the time and ahead of its time. The song blasted off for the Tornados. An instrumental with space sound effects, this was inspired by the Telstar communications satellite, which was launched shortly before this song was written. Telstar no longer functions but still orbits the Earth.

An overdubbed Clavioline keyboard provoked spooked space effects, while a backward tape of a flushing toilet evoked all the majesty of a space-bound rocket.

Booker T and the MGs – Green Onions

Green Onions was a very influential instrumental record that was released in 1962. The band was waiting for rockabilly Sun Recording artist Billy Lee Riley at a session. They used the time for good use. Booker T. Jones said: “That happened as something of an accident. We used the time to record a blues which we called ‘Behave Yourself,’ and I played it on a Hammond M3 organ. Jim Stewart, the owner, was the engineer and he really liked it and wanted to put it out as a record. We all agreed on that and Jim told us that we needed something to record as a B-side since we couldn’t have a one-sided record. One of the tunes I had been playing on piano we tried on the Hammond organ so that the record would have organ on both sides and that turned out to be ‘Green Onions.’

Jim Stewart who was the president of Stax records liked the song but the band was not impressed with it at first. He asked Booker T what did he want to call the song. Booker T replied “Green Onions”… when Jim asked why Green Onions? Booker T said, “Because that is the nastiest thing I can think of and it’s something you throw away.”

The song peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100 and #7 in the UK in 1962. The song was the B side to “Behave Yourself.”

From Songfacts.

The group’s guitarist Steve Cropper brought a copy of this song to the Memphis radio station WLOK the day after they recorded it. The morning DJ, Rueben Washington, was a friend of Cropper’s, and put the song on his turntable to hear off-air. After listening to just part of the song, he cut off the record that was on air and started playing “Green Onions” for his listeners. Says Cropper: “He played it four or five times in a row. We were dancing around the control room and believe it or not, the phone lines lit up. I guess we had the whole town dancing that morning.”

The response to the song proved Cropper’s point that it should be the A-side of the single instead of “Behave Yourself,” and the singles were pressed with the sides flipped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjgjoSsOvi4

Green Onions

Instrumental