Editing Booker T. & the M.G.'s (section)

==Early years: 1962–1964==
{{listen
  | filename = Green Onions.ogg
  | title = '''"Green Onions"''', from the album ''Green Onions''
  | description = The first track from the band's debut album. The tempo, tone and technique of "Green Onions" make it one of the most recognized soul instrumentals.
  | pos = right
|}}
Booker T. & the M.G.'s formed as the house band of [[Stax Records]], providing backing music for numerous singers, including [[Wilson Pickett]] and [[Otis Redding]].<ref name=pc51/> In summer 1962, 17-year-old keyboardist Booker T. Jones, 20-year-old guitarist Steve Cropper, and two seasoned players, bassist Lewie Steinberg and drummer Al Jackson Jr. (the latter making his debut with the company) were in the [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]] studio to back the former [[Sun Records]] star [[Billy Lee Riley]]. During downtime, the four started playing around with a bluesy organ riff. [[Jim Stewart (music)|Jim Stewart]], the president of Stax Records, was in the control booth. He liked what he heard, and he recorded it. Cropper remembered a riff that Jones had come up with weeks earlier, and before long they had a second track.<ref name="Larkin">{{cite book|title=[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music|The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music]]|editor=Colin Larkin|editor-link=Colin Larkin (writer)|publisher=[[Virgin Books]]|date=1997|edition=Concise|isbn=1-85227-745-9|pages=164/5}}</ref>

Stewart wanted to release the single with the first track, "Behave Yourself", as the A-side and the second track as the B-side. Cropper and radio [[disc jockey]]s thought otherwise; soon, [[Stax Records|Stax]] released Booker T. & the M.G.'s' "Green Onions"<ref name=pc51>{{Gilliland|https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19832/m1/ |Show 51 – The Soul Reformation: Phase three, soul music at the summit. [Part 7&#93; : UNT Digital Library}}</ref> backed with "Behave Yourself". In an interview with [[BBC Radio 2]]'s [[Johnnie Walker (DJ)|Johnnie Walker]] in 2008, Cropper recalled the song's immediate popularity after Reuben Washington, a disc jockey at Memphis radio station [[WLOK]], played it four times in a row, prompting calls from listeners asking if it had been released.

The single went to number 1 on the US ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]'' [[Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs|R&B]] [[record chart|chart]] and number 3 on the [[Billboard Hot 100|pop chart]]. It sold over one million copies and was certified a [[music recording sales certification|gold disc]].<ref name="The Book of Golden Discs">{{cite book|first=Joseph|last=Murrells|year=1978|title=The Book of Golden Discs|edition=2nd|publisher=Barrie and Jenkins|location=London|page=[https://archive.org/details/bookofgoldendisc00murr/page/143 143]|isbn=0-214-20512-6|url-access=registration|url= https://archive.org/details/bookofgoldendisc00murr/page/143}}</ref> It has been used in numerous movies and [[film trailer|trailers]], including a pivotal scene in the motion picture ''[[American Graffiti]]''.

Later in 1962, the band released an all-instrumental album, ''[[Green Onions (album)|Green Onions]]''. Aside from the title track, a "sequel" ("Mo' Onions") and "Behave Yourself", the album consisted of instrumental covers of popular hits.

Booker T. & the M.G.'s continued to issue instrumental singles and albums throughout the 1960s. The group was a successful recording combo in its own right, but most of the work by the musicians in the band during this period was as the core of the ''de facto'' house band at Stax Records.<ref name="Larkin"/> Members of Booker T. & the M.G.'s (often, but not always, performing as a unit, and usually supported by a horn section) performed as the studio backing band for [[Otis Redding]], [[Sam & Dave]], [[Albert King]], [[Johnnie Taylor]], [[Eddie Floyd]], [[the Staple Singers]], [[Wilson Pickett]], [[Delaney & Bonnie]] and many others in the 1960s.<ref name="Larkin"/>

They played on hundreds of records, including classics like "[[Walking the Dog]]", "[[Hold On, I'm Comin' (song)|Hold On, I'm Comin']]" (on which the multi-instrumentalist Jones played [[tuba]] over Donald "Duck" Dunn's bass line{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}), "[[Soul Man (song)|Soul Man]]", "[[Who's Making Love]]", "[[I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)]]", and "[[Try a Little Tenderness]]", among others.<ref name="Larkin"/> Along with their counterparts in [[Detroit]], [[Motown]]'s [[the Funk Brothers|Funk Brothers]], as a backing band to numerous hits, they are considered to have originated much of the sound of [[soul music]]—particularly, in the case of the M.G.'s, Southern soul—in which "the groove" is paramount.

In the mid-1960s, Jones was often away from Memphis while studying music full-time at [[Indiana University]].<ref name="Larkin"/> [[Stax Records|Stax]] writer and producer [[Isaac Hayes]] usually stepped in when Jones was unavailable for session work, and on several sessions Jones and Hayes played together with one on organ, the other on piano. However, Hayes was never a regular member of the M.G.'s, and Jones played on all the records credited to Booker T. & the M.G.'s, with one exception: the 1965 hit "'''Boot-Leg'''", a studio jam with Hayes playing keyboards in Jones's place. According to Cropper, it had been recorded with the intention of releasing it under the name of [[the Mar-Keys]] (the name, which predated the creation of the MG's, had sometimes been used on singles by the Stax house band). However, as recordings credited to Booker T. & the M.G.'s were meeting with greater commercial success than those credited to the Mar-Keys, the decision was made to credit "Boot-Leg" to Booker T. & the M.G.'s, although Jones did not participate in the recording.

Individual session credits notwithstanding, the Stax house band—Cropper, Jackson, Jones, and Steinberg, along with bassist Dunn (Cropper's bandmate in the Mar-Keys); keyboardist [[Isaac Hayes]]; and various [[wind instrument|horn]] players, most frequently [[Floyd Newman]], [[Wayne Jackson (musician)|Wayne Jackson]] and [[Andrew Love (musician)|Andrew Love]] (the latter two later formed the [[Memphis Horns]])—set a standard for soul music. Whereas the sign outside [[Detroit]]'s [[pop music|pop]]-oriented [[Motown Records]] read "[[Hitsville U.S.A.]]", the marquee outside of the converted movie theater where Stax was based proclaimed "Soulsville U.S.A."