YEAR
1992
INDUCTED BY
Jim Stewart
CATEGORY
Performers
The groovy forefathers of Southern soul.
With their interracial lineup and experience playing with such icons as Otis Redding, the Staple Singers and Aretha Franklin, Book T and the M.G.’s have made history in more ways than one.
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Steve Greenberg
Booker T. & the MG’s grew out of a pair of boyhood friendships in Memphis. Guitarist Steve Cropper (born October 21,1942) and bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn (born November 24, 1941) attended Messick High School and played together in an all-white R&B band called the Royal Spades.
On the other side of town, drummer Al Jackson, Jr, (born November 27, 1934) and bassist Lewis Steinberg (born September 13, 1933) were regulars in the all-black band at the Plantation Inn.
In I960, Stax Records and its affiliated record shop had just opened on East McLemore Avenue. Steve Cropper was a clerk in the record shop and an assistant studio engineer. One of Steve’s regular customers was sixteen-year-old Booker T. Jones (born December 11, 1944), already an accomplished keyboard and horn player.