Booker T. & the MGs
Booker T. & the MGs began accidentally, but became, arguably, the most important group in the history of soul.

Local Boys
Organist Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, drummer Al Jackson, Jr., and bassist Lewie Steinberg were randomly scheduled to back Billy Lee Riley up at a Stax recording session in summer 1962. While jamming together to warm up, the group came up with the song “Green Onions.” It became a hit.

Defining the Stax Sound
By 1965, former Mar-Key member Donald “Duck” Dunn had taken over the bass from Steinberg, and the group went on to define the Stax sound, releasing records under Booker T. & the MGs, and backing up hits by Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Albert King, Wilson Pickett, and Sam & Dave.

The Big 6
The group, along with songwriters David Porter and Isaac Hayes, formed the “Big 6” producers pool who, in various combinations, artistically directed Stax recordings. Cropper later mused: “For me it was like going to church every day. You walked in those doors at Stax, you left everything out there behind you. I’d work eighteen hours a day and never even thought about being tired.”

Eventual Endings
The group began to split in 1969 after Jones left Stax. The next year Cropper followed. Dunn and Jackson remained and added guitarist Bobby Manuel and a variety of keyboardists as “The MG’s.” Just as Stax Records was dealing with the financial woes that would eventually lead to its closing, Al Jackson was the victim of a still unsolved murder at his Memphis home on October 1, 1975. Booker T. & the MG’s were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a group in 1992.