Booker T. & the MG's: Melting Pot [STAX]

Why you'll love it

This Craft Recordings reissue has all-analogue mastering by Jeff Powell at Take Out Vinyl and was pressed on 180g vinyl at Memphis Record Pressing. The edited title track reached No. 45 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 21 on the R&B chart.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• All-analogue mastering by Jeff Powell
• Stereo mix

About the album

The house band that powered half the Stax catalogue had drifted apart by 1970: Booker T. Jones had moved to California and Steve Cropper was busy with his own studio. So they met in New York between gigs, away from Memphis, and decided to stretch out. The result was their first album built on long, loose jams.

The title track rides an eight-minute groove that hip hop producers have mined for decades, Big Daddy Kane on "Another Victory" among them, and "Chicken Pox" turned up under Showbiz and A.G.'s "Silence of the Lambs." "Kinda Easy Like" is another long, unhurried simmer, while "Back Home" and "Fuquawi" keep it tight. Al Jackson Jr.'s drumming holds the whole thing together, and Cropper gets more room for melody than usual.

Rolling Stone called it the best Booker T. album in some time and "the Memphis Gas of the Year." They recorded it in New York and still couldn't keep the Memphis out of it.

Also at Kops: more Booker T. & the MG's on vinyl · browse Classic Soul

Tracklist

Listen

On Stax / Craft Recordings (cat# CR00200), a reissue of the 1971 album.