Happy Birthday to Booker T. Jones of Booker T. & the MG's who celebrates his 68th birthday today (November 12th)!!! Booker T. joined the Stax Records staff as a saxophone player in 1960, but soon began playing organ in the Stax house band along with guitarist Steve Cropper, drummer Al Jackson, Jr. and bassist Lewis Steinberg. The band began recording instrumental singles on their own as the Mar-Keys and later as Booker T. & the MG's. Steinberg was later replaced by Donald "Duck" Dunn.

Thanks to classic songs like "Green Onions," "Mo' Onions," "My Sweet Potato," and "Hip-Hug Her" -- as well as his distinctive playing on tracks by Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, and a score of other Stax artists -- Booker T. has earned his place in musical history.

In 1971, Booker T. left the group, signaling its demise. He went on to record as a solo artist, and he also produced Willie Nelson's 1978 multi-platinum album, Stardust. In 1992, after being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, the band (minus drummer Jackson, who was killed in 1975) were called upon to be the house band at the Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden in New York. During the show, they backed up (among others) Neil Young, who hired them to be his backing band for his summer 1993 tour.

Soon after, the band recorded The Way It Should Be, its first new album in seventeen years. In 2003 Booker T. & the MGs were among the artists that appeared during the four-day grand-opening celebration of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, Tennessee.

Booker T. Jones will next perform on January 19th in Bloomington, Indiana's Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.

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