If by chance your group sacrificed enough for one another to the satisfaction of your pledge captain, the group was initiated in a formal ceremony, became members of the fraternity, and were honored at a big party. In practice, however, most pledges, by the end of hell week, were so tired and disillusioned they couldn’t have cared less.
When the pledge process was complete, I took leave of Teter Quadrangle and moved into my new home on East Seventeenth Avenue. It was the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity house, where my new roommates paid me as much deference as my parents had in Memphis. There was a grand piano in the living room, and they indulged my constant playing. They tolerated and even encouraged me to play all hours of the night.
I spent an equal, inordinate amount of time in the music library underneath the music building. It was open twenty-four hours a day, so I didn’t have to put academia on complete hold, but I didn’t get much sleep most days.
In addition to the music education at Indiana University, I used to sneak away with friends on the weekends and go up to Indianapolis to see the bands play in the clubs, and that was a different kind of music education. That’s where we could catch the Isley Brothers. Yeah! The Isley Brothers! They had a sideman on guitar named Jimi Hendrix.
Jimi melded in seamlessly, both musically and visually. I think they got their dress code from him. He seemed the most relaxed of the group.
I made new friends at Indiana, but I missed my old buddies in Memphis. Every time I came back, there was a new face in the studio. Brilliant new people were coming onto the Stax scene, making our sound even better.
MEMPHIS—1964—8
Had I known I was in the presence of the man who made all the great records I idolized as a kid, including Ray Charles and others, I would have been in awe of him. But as it turned out, he was just another one of the guys, some motherf—er from New York that Jerry Wexler sent to meddle. In my experience, there was no more modest or hardworking engineer than Tom Dowd. In addition, Tommy was a musician. He gave you no choice but to like him, with his affable personality. We started to look forward to sessions with Tom Dowd.
When Tommy walked in and saw our setup, he must have thought we were cave dwellers or something. I had no idea what he was talking about. But he showed up with a high-intensity lamp and a bunch of technical electronics and sat on the floor with his glasses falling down on his nose. We left him there that first night. I don’t know if he went to his hotel and slept. I found out he had built a basic fader console from scratch overnight and was anxious to use it to record some music.
I assumed Tommy made millions because he was a vice president at Atlantic in New York and hung out with Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler. But his demeanor was that of a painter or a plumber. He just wanted to help fix things. And if something wasn’t broken, he just smiled and walked away.
Tommy did his share of walking away (to the control room), and he did his share of pacing in the studio, talking about the music. His unassuming way made sure his ideas got heard—he acted like he didn’t know what he was talking about. He was also adept at dealing with the egos in the room, which were unspeakable.
Tommy’s nonchalance allowed him to sit at the organ and doodle or go to the drums and fiddle around. He had studied conducting and orchestration, but he didn’t let on that he could read music. Tommy wasn’t pretending modesty; he was modest to a fault. The results were extraordinary. Like a magic trick. “Look, Mom, what we did today at the studio.” People like Tom are born gifted with a creative urge so strong their work appears effortless, and they achieve the ultimate. Others, looking for fame and money, put out more and achieve less success. Tom’s career dwarfed all of Stax’s and Atlantic’s other producers, mine included.
STAX CONTROL ROOM—1964—5
On one of my trips back to Stax, Steve Cropper approached me in the foyer.
“Hey, Booker, come on back to the control room—I want you to hear something.”
Al Jackson slipped into the room after Steve.
Steve put a tape on the machine. “Listen to this!” he said proudly.
It was the attention-getting, opening solo guitar chords to “Boot-Leg.”
A powerful-sounding bass, an inventive, danceable beat, great bass line. I smiled big. Just before the rhythm, I heard the organ. Playing the melody. Not an organ stop I had used much, but great sounding! Curious. Then, catchy horns playing the second verse. The Mar-Keys, I thought. That wasn’t me playing organ; it was Isaac Hayes.
“It’s the new record by Booker T. & the MGs,” Cropper said.
It was one of those moments in life. Something you knew came out front after hiding. Once again, I went silent. I loved the song. It was great. But it revealed to me a truth I had been denying.
How can you be the leader of a band, one that’s named after you, that records without your knowledge? What’s the message? What does it say to you?
The seed was planted. They didn’t need me. Maybe, just maybe, I didn’t need them. “Boot-Leg” was already recorded and released under the name Booker T. & the MGs without my prior knowledge or consent.
Rather than disagree or fight, I have often turned my back on conflict. It was my coping mechanism to avoid facing unpleasant realities. I’ve lost many battles because I never fought them. Duck Dunn was the bass player on “Boot-Leg.” There was no denying Duck’s playing was more urgent, more demanding, if just as sensitive as Lewie’s. And Lewie persisted in being difficult outside the studio. In the studio, both Lewie and Duck followed the notes of my left hand with equal aplomb. On the other hand, the choice of changing bass players had been made in my absence, without consulting me. At best, I could continue, lick my wounds, keep my mouth shut, finish school, and see what my future held. At worst, if I raised objections, I might bring about an early truncation of the life of Booker T. & the MGs.
This event marked the first crack in an interracial group that seemed so tight from the outside looking in. It was a chip on the smooth glass when I first heard Al Jackson say, “Jones, I’ma knock that motherf—er out,” referring to Steve. In fact, Al’s frustration with Steve became something of an ongoing threat. I provided an ear, but I kept quiet. Like it or not, we had been brought closer together by our touring and success, despite our differences in upbringing and outlook.
Jim Stewart, Al Bell, and other Stax principles kept exhibiting the premise that Booker T. & the MGs were prized artists, but the group was more valued as the company’s workhorse house band. Any other front would have been counterintuitive.
Not a single moment was ever taken out from the work schedule for the MGs to rehearse a show. We winged it onstage. Even substitutes were not rehearsed.
There was no manager or permanent booking agent. All those chores fell to me, and I was bound to the wishes of the other band members; accepting the highest offer for the closest gig was the norm. Booker T. & the MGs were virtual orphans on the road, without guidance or preparation. That point was driven home the time Al lost all his belongings in New Jersey.
NEW JERSEY—1967—10
The MGs were crammed into a rented station wagon, and I was driving south on I-95 from New York to Baltimore, my first time on a really big, busy interstate freeway. At the rental car company, we vainly tried to fit everything into the interior, but a couple of suitcases had to be placed on top and tied down. The rental agents were less than sympathetic to our requests for tie-down rope and less than eager to help us find a solution. Bring less stuff. Someone’s belt was used in place of rope.
In New Jersey, I-95 was territory over which semis exerted unquestioned authority.
Aggressive truckers drove the semis fast. In our overloaded little station wagon, I rarely pulled in front of one of those behemoths.
One time I did pull ahead, and through the back window, I noticed an object fall from the roof of the wagon. From the driver’s side rearview mirror, I saw a striped wooden suitcase rolling over and over behind us. Righting itself finally, it came to a stop and
stood squarely in the middle of the highway. Then, back in the rearview mirror, I saw a semi change lanes. I pulled over to the right before the approaching truck set its sights on the suitcase, maintaining speed. The big truck never veered.
Bam! Wood scraps, cologne, and underwear flew all over the highway!
Inside the car, there was explosive laughter, including mine. No one had been able to take their eyes off the spectacle. The truck glided past us with a happy vengeance. The plucky driver smiling slightly.
At the hotel in Baltimore, I loaned Al underwear and toothpaste. He was upset with me for days over the heartiness of my laughter.
If there were plane reservations to be made, the job fell to me. If we needed a hotel, I booked it. I collected and distributed the road pay four ways and paid taxes on the whole amount. I interacted with the booking agents and filled out the union contracts. After gigs, when there was money to be collected, I went upstairs, or downstairs, and haggled with the promoter. None of the MGs ever told me to do these things; it was just assumed that I would. I did the interviews and rented the cars. I earned my one-fourth share. I wasn’t “little young motherf—er” anymore, but I was the kid.
DETROIT—1964—9
We never had a road manager, and I usually handled settlements. But one night in Detroit, the promoter handed a large wad of cash to Duck and walked away.
We made it to the airport in Detroit and gave the skycap a tip for checking our luggage and amps. I heard Duck say, “Shit!”
Duck forgot he had the large wad of cash in his pocket and quickly stuffed it in the back of Charlie Freeman’s guitar amp. Now he was watching that amp go down the ramp with the rest of the checked baggage.
You should have seen the faces of the skycaps at baggage claim when they saw Duck pulling that big wad of cash out of Charlie’s amp at the Memphis airport!
There were very few times on MGs road trips when we didn’t end up driving a rented station wagon in an unfamiliar city. We took turns driving. After misunderstanding for the umpteenth time whether the navigator was indicating a left or right turn, the MGs worked together and came up with “bear right, tiger left” as a way to solve the problem of which way to turn. Before this solution, we often found ourselves lost somewhere in America’s back country. On a long driving trip to Houston, this came in very handy.
HOUSTON, TX—1964—5
I had seen fights in clubs and at dances, but this time I was really worried. It was the first time I had ever played this far from home. We had driven all the way to Houston, Texas. Steve, Duck, and Al seemed OK with it, but I was unsteady. Beer, blood, cowboy sweat, and chicken-fried steak combine for a distinctive stench unique to saloons in the Lone Star State. Sound check went OK, but when we came back to play the show, there was chicken wire separating the stage from the audience. Chicken wire. I was nervous. Were we in the wrong place? Who would protect us if something went wrong?
The night passed without incident. There was a small crowd, but they listened to the interracial group with mild enthusiasm. I was relieved.
Next time we played in Houston, we flew. We took a young Memphis singer named Carl Simms, even more of a neophyte than me. We played the gig and jetted back to Memphis.
At the airport Carl asked Duck for a ride to the bus station.
“Why do you want to go to the bus station?” Duck asked Carl.
“I’m going back to Houston. I met a girl there,” Carl replied.
“We just left Houston. Why didn’t you just stay there?”
“Because I had a round-trip ticket, and I thought I had to use it.”
STAX—1964—10
Charlie Freeman combed his hair just like Steve Cropper’s. Nobody ever asked me if Charlie was Steve Cropper when he played with the MGs. It was Charlie who taught Steve how to play the guitar. Neither the surviving members of the Mar-Keys nor Jim Stewart would deny that Charlie taught Steve to play. He helped out whenever and wherever he could.
Charlie Freeman had the best sense of humor of anyone at Stax. Even over Don Nix or Duck Dunn. Charlie was always on the phone with his wife, laughing, telling her he was f—ing another woman. (He wasn’t.)
BLOOMINGTON, IN—1965—3
The Marching Hundred came first. Over classes, over holidays, over trips to Memphis for sessions, over health, over college studies, over relationships, and over marriage. All the married members of the band, and there were a few, knew each other, because we commiserated. Our Saturday mornings and our weekends weren’t spent like other parents, pushing our toddlers on swings at the park. We were on buses headed to Iowa, Illinois, and Northern Indiana.
One of my white friends in the trombone section was a parent too. We lived in the campus trailer park. He had a truck and got by doing odd jobs during the week. At least I could drive to Memphis, do a couple of sessions, and pick up thirty bucks, enough for a month’s rent and expenses.
Married housing life in the trailer park was different than on campus or in town. The park was a small, close community, with an insular social life made up of young couples struggling with extra demands—small children, sleep deprivation, and the vagaries of being grown-up. The trailers were hideous army-green rejects with tiny entry steps and fogged-up windows. Identical, and excruciatingly small, the units were perfectly aligned in rows along two short streets. Our best friends, Lorenzo and Liz Ashley, arrived on campus two weeks early like us, and we were the only ones in the park. We got together regularly in their trailer (ours was too junky). Lorenzo was a football star, and we laughed, drank, and partied harder than I ever had at the frat house. We always ordered out pizza and beer, and sometimes, life was really good.
With all this juggling, some balls hit the floor. The stress and conflict of taking care of my family and yielding to my independent, creative young nature became too much too often. Instead of paying attention to my relationship with Gigi, I went to the studio and wrote a song about not paying attention to your relationship with my writing partner.
Gigi hadn’t signed up for dirty diapers, laundry, and isolation with a little one in a small trailer. She checked the box for partying, drinking, and sleeping in late at the dorm. She was overwhelmed. The place was a mess. There was a constant heap of clothes and other items blocking the path to the bed and blanketing the floor. She grappled with postpartum issues, going from exhilarating happiness to deep lows. Her only example of homemaking had been a steelworker father who cooked on weekends. Her schoolteacher mother took the dirties to the cleaners every week. Alone, she struggled with making a home for us and enjoying her new baby while I was on the marching field, in class, studying, or on the road to Memphis.
Chapter 10
B-A-B-Y
LOS ANGELES—2018—8
It was a beautiful, sunny, bright LA afternoon. There is something so special about showing off your progeny to elder family members, and because of this, it was one of the happiest days of my life. I had just reached age seventy-four, reason enough to be happy, but on this day my daughter Olivia was driving us to Crenshaw with Nan, and my grandchild, Dylan Jones Barber, in the car to meet my older sister, Gwen. We crested the hill at Angeles Vista, and the city revealed the aesthetic glory of its landscape for our eyes—the Hollywood Sign, downtown LA, all the way to Glendale. A view I had seen a thousand times.
Olivia won Dylan’s car seat on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and it was the biggest one in the world. A baby could survive a car bomb in that contraption, and it was hanging behind the passenger side where I sat.
“No, Dad. You can’t move the seat back any more,” Olivia said again, unapologetically. It was the happiest scrunched-up car ride I’d ever taken. I couldn’t see my grandson, as he was facing backward behind me, so I was missing all the baby smiles and cooing Nan was seeing from the back seat.
Olivia has always impressed me with her fierce determination and graceful personality. Now becoming a mother, these qualities are amplified, and any child in the world would benefit from her
care. Continuously giving of herself, the strength she showed during the birth, keeping herself together, the joy she finds in motherhood is what the world needs more of right now.
Gwen was standing on the front porch when we pulled up at 12:40 p.m. I told her we’d be there at noon, and I guess she had been standing there the whole time. She had the biggest grin on her face I had ever seen.
At Gwen’s house, I got in front and lifted the front wheels of the stroller up the steps while Liv pushed from the back. We almost had the stroller on the porch when Gwen reached in, lifted the baby out, and took him into the house. Small and diminutive, Gwen is ninety-two years old, and Dylan weighs nineteen pounds. Gwen’s son, Floyd, started suggesting she might sit down in one of the generous chairs in her living room, but Gwen continued walking, baby-dancing around the room, smiling, and kissing Dylan all over his body.
Olivia tried to follow Gwen around, coat still in hand, periodically reaching out to take the baby, but Gwen never turned him loose, exhibiting the strength of a weightlifter, the happiness of a grand-aunt. Dylan gave Gwen his most beautiful, sincere smile, so finally, we all just sat down to take it all in.
MEMPHIS—1944—2
Gwen was eighteen when I was born. She took care of me so regularly while my mother worked that she was like a mother to me. She gave me the nickname Jun-T because I was Booker T. Junior. I really came to see her as a second mother after her daughter Sandra was born, and Sandra and I were close enough to be sister and brother. Gwen’s husband, Floyd, was among many black Memphis airmen and infantrymen who, upon returning home from the war, had barely doffed their uniforms when they realized the unlikelihood of succeeding in Jim Crow Memphis. Floyd studied photography with Earnest Withers before he and Gwen joined the first throng of young marrieds in a sweeping movement of blacks from Memphis to Los Angeles in the early 1950s. Mama was never quite the same again after Gwen moved 2,500 miles away.
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