Time Is Tight

October 1, 2019
The legendary Stax artist and composer looks back on a long, fruitful life in music. "The truth is I was never in it for the money. I loved the people and the music." So writes Jones, the keyboard wizard who helmed Booker T. & The MG's, so named for a car one of their producers owned, a group that touched off a revolution in Southern soul music that cleared a path for Otis Redding, Irma Thomas, and dozens of other players. Remarkably, given the time and place, Jones' band was interracial, with guitarist Steve Cropper and, later, bassist Duck Dunn adding to the mix. The author writes about growing up in a segregated South where it was entirely unexpected that he should know the likes of Dvorak and "Clair de Lune," music that, along with church gospel, worked its way into compositions such as "Green Onions"--which, as it happens, was born as "Funky Onions" but was renamed for fear that the word would scare off listeners in that benighted time. Jones reflects deeply on matters of race and the many injustices he had to endure. He's at the top of his form, clearly enjoying the task, when he writes about music, however. One of the book's many highlights is his mystified childhood realization that while "C was the natural key for the earth, humans, and the universe at large," other chords had their say, too: B flat for the clarinet, a discovery that "wreaked havoc in my young, developing mind--to find out the C was not really a C, but a B flat in clarinet world." Fortunately, he overcame his shock to write tunes that shaped the zeitgeist of 1960s pop, such as "Hip Hug-Her" ("the sound...makes it seem like Duck is going to break the string on every note, he pulls it so hard"), and of course "Green Onions," which countless kids use to learn keyboards. A thoughtful autobiography that takes in not just the tunes, but the times that produced them--a delight for fans.

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October 21, 2019
Legendary Memphis musician Jones—leader of Stax Records house band Booker T and the MGs—doesn’t skip a beat in his soulful memoir. Born in Memphis, Tenn., in 1944, Jones discovered music early, starting on clarinet as a fourth grader playing in the junior high school band before moving on to piano and organ, playing so well that, by age 12, he was playing church tea parties, where he once accompanied gospel great Mahalia Jackson. A consummate storyteller, Jones tells of his early days at Stax and of producing his first, and still best-known, song, “Green Onions.” Throughout his career, he worked with Rita Coolidge, Bob Dylan, and Otis Redding (“Otis was made for singing heartbreaking songs, and I was made for writing unrelentingly unconventional verse and bridge changes”), among others. Jones affectionately interweaves stories about his children as well as his mother, whose 1977 death made Jones realize that “life is a song sung between the verses... and to grasp it you let it slip through your fingers.” He concludes triumphantly in 2012, when, as music director for the PBS special In Performance at the White House, President Obama told him he’d like to enter the room to “Green Onions” instead of “Hail to the Chief.” Jones’s fluid and melodious prose sings with powerful emotion.

November 15, 2019
Time?the notion of it, the accumulation of it?figures prominently in Jones' compelling memoir. This Grammy Award-winning musician, composer, and producer presents his eventful and peripatetic life not in a conventional way but rather in thematic passages that not only capture the passage of time but also the way his mind works. Jones was a member of the house band at Stax Records in Memphis when he recorded the instrumental Green Onions, which became a worldwide hit in 1962, and he went on to form the band Booker T. and the M.G.s. As entertaining as his tales from the musical front are, it is his social commentary that forms the heart of the book, whether he's recounting confrontations with racism in the Jim Crow South or living on a horse farm in Malibu. Jones has performed and collaborated with some of the biggest names in the business?Quincy Jones, Otis Redding, Emmylou Harris, Bill Withers, Rita Coolidge, and Willie Nelson, to name a view. He has also written movie scores, and for all that dazzling success, this is a gentle, low-key recollection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2019

Born into segregated Memphis with the sound of music in his ears, Jones became leader of the celebrated Stax Records house band, then founded the even more celebrated Booker T. and the MGs, who sold millions of records, claiming a spot on Rolling Stone's list of top 500 songs of all time. No wonder Jones has a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. With a 35,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 7, 2019

Though this memoir from Jones (b. 1944) offers few revelations, it's nonetheless an engaging, insider's view of an influential force in American music. To refer to the R&B/funk band Booker T. and the M.G.'s as the Stax Records house band is an accurate description that also misses the point; the band's role in shaping Memphis soul, and thereby everything that emerged from and came after it, is immeasurable. Anyone who has listened to Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, or countless other artis0ts of the 1960s has heard Jones's organ or piano. Indeed, the book is at its best when Jones is talking music. Whether citing childhood influences from a family who encouraged his musical endeavors or describing the recording of the iconic "Green Onions," Jones has clearly honed his considerable innate talent over the years. The anecdotes, which take on everything from touring to juggling recording sessions and college to dealing with racism, become a framework for a text structured more around theme than chronology. This works better than one might expect; still, the effect is more akin to hearing stories over coffee than reading a straightforward memoir.

VERDICT An enjoyable and insightful read. For fans of Booker T. and the M.G.'s, the Stax era, and soul music.--Genevieve Williams, Pacific Lutheran Univ. Lib., Tacoma

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.