The REAL Best of Booker T & The MGs

Artist Song
Booker T & The MGs  Green Onions 
Booker T & The MGs  Harlem Shuffle 
Booker T & The MGs  Soul Dressing 
Booker T & The MGs  No Matter What Shape 
Booker T & The MGs  In The Midnight Hour 
Booker T & The MGs  Working In A Coal Mine 
Booker T & The MGs  Think 
Booker T & The MGs  Red Beans And Rice (Studio version) 
Booker T & The MGs  Gimme Some Lovin' 
Booker T & The MGs  Hip Hug Her 
Booker T & The MGs  Sunny 
Booker T & The MGs  Double Or Nothing 
Booker T & The MGs  Get Ready 
Booker T & The MGs  Carnaby Street 
Booker T & The MGs  Day Tripper 
Booker T & The MGs  On A Saturday Night 
Booker T & The MGs  Expressway To Your Heart 
Booker T & The MGs  You Keep Me Hanging On 
Booker T & The MGs  Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy 
Booker T & The MGs  Soul Limbo 
Booker T & The MGs  Time Is Tight 
Booker T & The MGs  Mrs Robinson 
Booker T & The MGs  Soul Clap '69 
Booker T & The MGs  Say A Little Prayer 
Booker T & The MGs  (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay 

Comment:

I put this CD together for a guy at work because I was frustrated by the Booker T compilations available commercially. They either seem to focus on the early recordings which involve about ten "Green Onions" sound-alikes or they dwell on the the cheesier late Sixties sides which are a little too 'Murph and the Magictones' for my liking! So I wanted to focus on the funkier, more soulful mid-Sixties numbers. Therefore this is a compilation of hit singles (I thought it was important to include those if I wanted to claim it as a 'best of'!) album tracks and soul covers. Quite a lot of these covers were unreleased at the time but have shown up on Stax reissues in recent years - in particular the excellent "Play The Hip Hits" CD.

Feedback:

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Sean Lally
Date: 6/7/2005
killer band, killer comp!
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Nick Falivena
Date: 6/7/2005
Super Soul. I'm with you about the 'lounge band at the Ramada' sound of the later sixties.
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Wildheartedoutsider
Date: 6/7/2005
Yeah, it's very easy for a line-up of hammond organ, guitar, bass and drums to slip into elevator music... for an elevator which invariably seems to go down!
Gotta keep it funky!
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Dom1
Date: 6/7/2005
Damn Fine!
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The Nightcrawler
Date: 6/7/2005
This is fantastic. They should be paying you for this! It's about time someone compiled a best-of mix that's truly representive of Booker T & the MGs.
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lanhamyodel
Date: 6/8/2005
This looks very good. There are a lot of tracks I don't know, though. And I do miss Melting Pot, one of my favorite Booker T tunes.I bought their 1994 "They Way It Should Be" and was quite disappointed. Their output is indeed quite inconsistent. Let me know if you are interested in a trade.
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Wildheartedoutsider
Date: 6/8/2005
I've got nothing against "Melting Pot" but I tried to stick to the Sixties sides, so that was a couple of years too late! The CD is in chronological order as far as is possible - it's difficult to be certain about the dates for the unreleased cover versions but I've placed them inbetween the tracks for which dates are known based on the dates of the original versions and the aural evidence of the recordings. One track i really love which I left off is "Meditation" which features brass so I decided it was a-typical and therefore shouldn't make the mix!

I agree about that later album. I listened to it once and decided not to bother buying it.
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blasikin
Date: 8/6/2005
Fabulous. I'm surprised 'Summertime' didn't make the cut. It's my favorite version of that song...