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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2007 > November > 09 > Entry
Review: Booker T. and the M.G.s with Eddie Floyd and William Bell
The crowd Thursday night at the Palmer Events Center seemed to be evenly split. Half of the room was out to support Clifford Antone’s Help Clifford Help Kids charity by bidding on items such as a $3,000 gift certificate to Ralph Lauren, which fetched a whopping $12,000. The other half of the room seemed to be there to see the legendary Stax rhythm section Booker T. and the M.G.s perform some classic soul.
When Motown was the slick, jazz-inspired sound of the inner-city in the ’60s, Stax was its counterpoint as the gritty, blues-based sound of the rural South. As Stax’s house band backing up Otis Redding, Sam and Dave and Wilson Pickett just to name a few, Booker T. and his “Memphis Groove” were the epicenter of this sound.
The band, comprised of keyboard player Booker T. Jones, guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn and drummer Steve Potts, emerged from the wings at Palmer Auditorium with little fanfare and jumped right into their set while most of the room was still fighting the concession lines. The band warmed up the crowd with the bouncy, Calypso-inspired “Soul Limbo” and turned “Summertime” into a slow blues before rolling into a funky version of “Hang ‘em High.”
It was the funky organ riff of “Green Onions,” that really drew the crowd in. Jones and company turned their signature song into a clinic on locking down a groove and keeping it in the pocket.
Stax artist William Bell joined the band on stage for “Private Number” and his 1961 hit “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” which turned into a passionate sing-a-long. The girl next to me was singing so out of tune that by the chorus she was actually hitting a nice harmony.
It was the Albert King classic “Born Under A Bad Sign,” which Bell co-wrote with Jones, that produced the biggest surprise of the evening when Jimmy Vaughan emerged to trade some greasy blues licks with Cropper. Vaughan unplugged afterward, not to return, unfortunately.
Eddie Floyd also joined the band and brought down the house with “Knock On Wood.” At 72, Floyd proved he can still move like he did back in 1966 when he pulled one lucky woman from the crowd on stage for a little bump and grind during the instrumental break. They should have raffled that off.
By the end of the evening, the philanthropic faithful and soul music junkies alike had coalesced into one funky congregation of clapping and swaying bodies singing along with Bell and Floyd to Otis Redding’s “Dock Of The Bay.” A small, but enthusiastic crowd stayed huddled around for the band’s short encore unwilling, to let loose of the band responsible for some of the most indelible soul music ever recorded.
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