Booker T. Jones in The Sugar Club on January 11th 2015
“Do you know any prayers, Sinead?” That’s generally not the type of heckle you expect to hear at a Booker T. Jones gig. The Memphis multi-instrumentalist is best known as Stax session player par excellence and frontman of Booker T. & The M.G.s, whose ubiquitous Green Onions instrumental must rank as one of the most widely known R&B tracks committed to wax. We’re not too sure of Jones’ ecumenical status, but tonight he shares the Sugar Club stage with not only his shit-hot band and his son (“Go on, the young fella!”), but with a decidedly priestly special guest singing Bob Dylan and Prince songs.
It’s as busy a venue as we’ve seen it, with bodies lining both stairs on either side of the seated amphitheatre and a dancefloor already filled for the main event. Jones’ entrance is as low key as his soft-spoken demeanour as he sits at the Hammond organ and punches out the chords of Harlem House. His stellar band are already in full flow as Hang ‘Em High follows, and Vernon ‘Ice’ Black doles out the first of many lengthy guitar solos.
It’s a family affair as Jones brings out his son Ted for Green Onions, the younger Jones himself no slouch on guitar as he answers Black’s smouldering solo with one of his own. Songs are punctuated by Jones’ tales of their origins, and of his own. Bill Withers and Jimi Hendrix are mentioned, and the crowd murmur soft accompaniment to Ain’t No Sunshine while Jimi brings out the best in everyone onstage for Hey Joe.
“More Booker!” goes the request from Black to the soundman in answer to the crowd request for volume in the vocal; Melting Pot begins as quietly as the man himself but becomes gradually more charged. Black goes into overdrive on an ever-escalating solo, stepping back then to let Melvin Brannon take an equally extended bass solo. Black punches a fist into his palm and the crowd take the cue, clapping time before the most blistering cut of the night once more quietens to a close.
“I’m a septuagenarian, can anyone else here say that?” calls Jones. “Septuagenarian!” goes the crowd response. We don’t think that’s what he meant. A collaborator is waiting in the wings, and Sinead O’Connor appears for renditions of I Believe In You and her own Nothing Compares To You. The band seem slightly under-rehearsed for these, it seems, but O’Connor guides them with a smile, pogoing to signify a gear change in the former and gently cooing “It’s the instrumental” in reply to the band’s unsure glances during the latter. “So, you know this young lady?” asks Booker as the crowd give a warm response to the appearance, one that’s slightly shabby but undeniably fun.
It’s on the instrumentals that the band shines, from Darian Gray’s fatback drums on the soul slab of Everything Is Everything to the final muscular Time Is Tight. It doesn’t always come off, though, with some plodding sojourns into walking blues, Booker’s momentum-stopping between song anecdotes, and Gray’s rap interludes over Take Me To The River and an otherwise taut Hip Hug-Her. Still, a few missteps are admissible when the band is cooking like this one can. In his seventies he may be, but Booker T. can still get the mods to break a sweat.