Background and career
Booker Taliaferro Jones Jr. (born November 12, 1944) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known as the frontman of the band Booker T. & the M.G.'s. He has also worked as a session musician with many well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, earning him a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement. With the death of guitarist Steve Cropper on December 3, 2025, Jones is the last surviving original member of Booker T. & the M.G.’s.
Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 12, 1944. He was named after his father, Booker T. Jones Sr., who was named in honor of Booker T. Washington, the educator. Jones Sr. was a science teacher at Memphis High School, providing the family with a relatively stable, lower middle-class lifestyle.
Jones was musically a child prodigy, playing the oboe, saxophone, trombone, double bass, and piano at school and organ at church. Jones attended Booker T. Washington High School, the alma mater of Rufus Thomas, and collaborated with future stars like Isaac Hayes's writing partner David Porter, saxophonist Andrew Love of the Memphis Horns, soul singer/songwriter William Bell, and Earth, Wind & Fire's singer/songwriter Maurice White.
Jones's entry into professional music came at the age of 16, when he played baritone saxophone on Satellite (soon to be Stax) Records' first hit, "Cause I Love You", by Carla and Rufus Thomas. Willie Mitchell hired Jones for his band, in which Jones started on sax and later moved to bass. It was here that he met Al Jackson Jr., whom he brought to Stax. Simultaneously, Jones formed a combo with Maurice White and David Porter, in which he played guitar. While hanging around the Satellite Record Shop run by Estelle Axton, co-owner of Satellite Records with her brother Jim Stewart, Jones met record clerk Steve Cropper, who would become one of the MGs when the group formed in 1962. Besides Jones on organ and Cropper on guitar, Booker T. and the MGs featured Lewie Steinberg on bass guitar (eventually replaced by Donald "Duck" Dunn), and Al Jackson Jr. on drums. While still in high school, Jones co-wrote the group's classic instrumental "Green Onions", which was a massive hit in 1962. Bob Altshuler wrote the sleeve notes on the first Booker T. & the M.G.'s album Green Onions released by Stax Records in 1962:
[His] musical talents became apparent at a very early age. By the time he entered high school, Booker was already a semi-professional, and quickly recognized as the most talented musician in his school. He was appointed director of the school band for four years, and in addition, organized the school dance orchestra which played for proms throughout the Mid-South. In the classroom, he concentrated on the studies of music theory and harmony. ... Booker's multiple activities earned him a coveted honour, that of being listed in the students' "Who's Who of American High Schools." Booker's first instrument was the string bass, but he soon switched to the organ. Booker came to the attention of record executive Jim Stewart in Memphis, and while still in high school he worked as a staff musician for Stax Records, appearing as sideman on many recording dates for that label. It became obvious that one day Booker would be ready to record under his own name and several months later Booker's first recording session was set. Over the next few years, Jones divided his time between studying classical music composition, composing and transposition at Indiana University, playing with the MGs on the weekends back in Memphis, serving as a session musician with other Stax acts, and writing songs that became widely regarded as classics. He wrote, with Eddie Floyd, "I've Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)", Otis Redding's "I Love You More Than Words Can Say", and, with William Bell, bluesman Albert King's "Born Under a Bad Sign" (later popularized by the British rock group Cream).
In 1970, Jones moved to California and stopped playing sessions for Stax after becoming frustrated with Stax's treatment of the MGs as employees rather than musicians. Even though Jones was given the title of Vice President at Stax before leaving, as he put it, "There were titles given (to us) but we didn't actually make the decisions." While still under contract to Stax, he appeared on Stephen Stills's eponymous album (1970). The 1971 album Melting Pot would be the last Booker T. & the M.G.'s album issued on Stax. He produced Bill Withers's 1971 debut album Just as I Am (on which Jones played guitar as well as keyboards), Rita Coolidge's album Love Me Again (1978) and Willie Nelson's album Stardust (1978). Jones has also added his keyboard playing to artists ranging from the R&B/pop/blues of Ray Charles to the folk rock/country rock of Neil Young.
