Time Is Tight Read online

  “Green Onions” was originally issued in May 1962 on the Volt label (a subsidiary of Stax Records) as the B side of “Behave Yourself” on Volt 102; it was quickly reissued as the A side of Stax 127.

  Steve Cropper took it to Reuben Washington, the drive-time DJ on the Memphis station WLOK. He gave it a spin and said, “That’s pretty catchy!” Then he played it again—but this time live on air. The phones lit up. Everyone wanted to know what this record was and where they could get it.

  “Green Onions” entered the Billboard Hot 100 the week ending August 11, 1962, and peaked at number three the week ending September 29, 1962. The single also made it to number one on the soul singles chart for four nonconsecutive weeks—an unusual occurrence in that, on the soul singles chart, “Green Onions” fell in and out of the top spot three times. “Green Onions” was ranked number 183 on Rolling Stone’s list of the five hundred greatest songs of all time.

  With the success of “Green Onions,” it was decided we should record Stax’s first ever LP to capitalize on the song’s success. The first attempt was an almost exact cover of Dave Baby Cortez’s “Rinky Dink.” Same key, except I played the organ an octave lower. Al Jackson, probably on his second-only Stax session, replicated the drum fills from Dave’s record exactly. Steve did the same with the rhythm: chink, chink, chink. I guess we just didn’t know any better and should have come up with something more original.

  There was something of a residue that I picked up in the air. I felt a hint of resentment from the MGs and other Stax people that I had walked away from the whole thing just as our record hit number one on the R & B chart in September. I had left in mid-August for Indiana, just after the record was released, and it was enjoying phenomenal success, which I was ignoring. I didn’t want anything to interfere with my obtaining a music education and a college degree like my parents and grandfather wanted. It was my legacy—in stark contrast to the designs of the record company and my bandmates.

  When the Mar-Keys record hit big, they rented a van and traveled the country in support of the record, and Stax fully expected the MGs and me to do the same. Only an idiot or a maverick would even think of doing anything different. But there I was, already out of place, taking music courses at Indiana for four weeks running. Will I quit now? Now that “Green Onions” is number three in the nation? Nobody had the nerve, or the gall, to make that case to me directly, but they managed to make me feel like I was an idiot not to be at least considering it. In spite of the conflict, I left each Sunday session and drove all night back to Bloomington.

  The whole Green Onions album was recorded this way—with a contentious feeling between me and everyone else. But the music got better as we went along. “I Got a Woman,” the Ray Charles song cover, got a drum intro from Al Jackson and a new unique key as well as a little more life in the arrangement. We were starting to get the hang of this song-cover thing.

  But the whole affair seemed rushed to me. I quietly felt, What’s the big hurry here? I was not at all savvy to the music business strategy and didn’t understand that we needed to get the album out soon to capitalize on the hit song because this may never happen again. They must have cursed me. I didn’t quit school. My ears were burning, but I knew I needed the training. Back at the Stax studio, on “I Got a Woman,” I was struggling to keep the tempo. I closed my eyes and saw Ray Charles at his electric piano, shoulders all hunched up to his neck, smiling at the effort it took to play the rhythm to this song in time, not missing a note or a beat, with such precision, every note exactly in place, singing at the same time! And here I was, couldn’t even play it in time. Not only did I not know anything about the music business but I was also no professional organ player. Where are my original ideas when I am soloing? And where are the original songs? Why are we recording other people’s songs? I had a long way to go. And I knew it. Back in the car. Back to school.

  BLOOMINGTON, IN—Fall 1962—3

  Liberal Indiana was a breath of fresh air compared to conservative Memphis. Restaurants and buses were not segregated, and you could sit where you pleased in the classrooms. White people were generally friendly, and there was opportunity. I felt free to regard myself and my fellow blacks as whole people whose liberties weren’t compromised on a daily basis. Not social underlings, undeserving of society’s best. But the line was thin, and blacks ate together and had separate social groups.

  I missed Memphis. My family. The barbeque. Pizza, which I’d never had before, was all over Bloomington and became the substitute. Everyone in Indiana ate pizza. With beer. I gained twenty pounds. These, however, were the least of my problems.

  MEMPHIS—1962—12

  Shortly before and during this period, Isaac Hayes began stopping by the studio. It was after I replaced Joe Hall and Marvell Thomas on piano. Frequently, like a phantom, Isaac would quietly appear, standing behind me when I played. If I didn’t look to the side, I didn’t know he was there. I began to hear my triad placements and chord voicing on songs like “Hold On, I’m Comin’.”

  A man of amazing aptitude, skill, and patience, Isaac took over the piano seat by looking over my shoulder. I started moving to organ when Isaac was around—whichever one he wasn’t playing. We became a keyboard team. On “When Something Is Wrong,” by Sam & Dave, we switched roles, with me playing organ. It was intuitive between us.

  After the Green Onions LP, we decided to start recording originals. I was excited and thrilled, and we knew this would take more time than Green Onions. At this time, the pattern was set where I would bring in the core, original idea of the song, and the other band members would add their contributions.

  The chords to “Soul Dressing” came to me on the highway while driving back to Memphis from Bloomington. The melody came just as I sat down to the M-3 organ and played the chords. Because Satellite Studios had not yet obtained a Hammond B-3, the tone was very basic and thin. Al played an intriguing but complex and elusive rhythm throughout.

  “We need a break somewhere, Jones,” Al insisted.

  “Let’s just play the song through from the head,” I replied.

  Just before Steve’s solo, it became apparent Al was right. A four-bar break introduced Steve’s solo.

  Steve played like his heart had been broken, and sweet “Soul Dressing” became an instrumental blues over jazz changes.

  When time came for my break, I tried to do the same thing Steve had done. I went for broke—having no idea what I would play or how it would turn out. It was a relief to get through those four bars and arrive at the gentler C section, where the chords were smoother and just skated along. We returned to the original theme to take the song home, and it was quite the emotional roller-coaster ride for me.

  After first hearing the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on a jukebox at the IU Commons, I monopolized the box, encircling it and draping my arms over it, and played the song until I ran out of money. It was the first time I heard the Beatles, and I would never approach music the same again. I had also just heard Philip Upchurch’s “You Can’t Sit Down,” and it too had mesmerized me.

  I rushed back to Memphis.

  “Can’t Be Still” was the first time Cropper and I played a melody together. Then we turned around and played the rhythm together—just the reverse of what we always had done. We became a little two-man rhythm machine on this hectic little tune. Just like the title, it was really hard to stay still when we played it, and we had to hold back physically just listening to Al’s beat and Duck’s bass line.

  A guitar song in the true sense of the word, “Plum Nellie” (which foreshadowed “Melting Pot” with its organ swells) was our first excursion into sound experimentation. The elements of our other songs were there: distinguishable bass line, solid groove, and twelve-bar blues. However, “Plum Nellie” was built on the old Bill Justis guitar tradition, made to make you get out on the dance floor and strut your stuff. Steve played the melody on the low strings.

  We used standard song form: two verses,
solos, with a horn ensemble/breakdown, go home. My solo was very percussive; I tapped the organ like a drum—bouncing and dancing. The horn ensemble (I overdubbed trombone with Wayne Jackson on trumpet) featured long, unison E notes that segued into guitar trills.

  Then, like lightning, the last guitar trill exploded! A fleet, acrobatic, musical stunt you have to hear to believe. Listen closely. As if the notes left the fretboard, past Steve’s hands, up into the air, in a blinding flash. A tour de force. Not to be repeated. Steve was never able to replicate that lick. This is how Steve Cropper became Steve Cropper. We were lucky the tape was rolling. After the take, Al Jackson said he “plumb nearly fell over his dick” when Steve played that lick. Hence the title “Plum Nellie.”

  KNOXVILLE, TN—1963—10

  Lewie Steinberg’s brand-new white 1962 Cadillac El Dorado with the pointed tail fins was teeter-tottering on the landing three-fourths of the way up the steps leading to the Knoxville Coliseum, itself brand-new. Passing concertgoers gawked at the car, laughing and gesturing. Maybe they thought it was a promotion gimmick for the show.

  Lewie, ignoring warnings from the stage crew to back out the way he had headed in, had surged the big car forward to exit the loading ramp, plunging into the entrance area where the audience enters the building. I was speechless, frozen.

  The massive steps, built in groups of landings, imposed a rude halt on the long car at the second landing, and it balanced there in the middle of its gut with the engine still running and the lights on.

  Lewie was arrested and taken to the Knoxville jail for being abrasive with the police, booked on reckless driving and driving under the influence. With less than an hour before the show, there was no time to go downtown to bail him out.

  Looking down from the equipment landing stage, I grimaced, wondering how I would get through the show without a bass player. I had backed my own car down the ramp after unloading, and the events of the next few minutes were shocking.

  We played the show for the dubious crowd, with only three pieces, me playing the bass parts on the lower keyboard of the organ. It was a natural swap out because at each song’s inception, my left-hand notes were the indication to the bass player of what he should be playing. No one mentioned we were missing the bass player, but the dangling Cadillac they saw on the way in to the show alerted the large, wary crowd.

  It was our last performance with Lewie Steinberg. Steve Cropper had wanted to introduce his friend and bass player Duck Dunn from the Mar-Keys into the band for quite some time, and this last-straw blunder by Lewie was the perfect chance.

  And so, as luck would have it, the fate of the man who played the great, rock-solid bass line on “Green Onions” would be left dangling, like his car, at the inception of our career. Unfortunately, Lewie was left to his own devices that night in Knoxville, and Duck Dunn took over as bass player with Booker T. & the MGs.

  None of us went downtown to bail Lewie out or discussed it.

  Still, the guilt for not getting Lewie out of jail ate at me. I should have driven straight to the police station and made bail for him with the money from the gig. The next morning, however, I drove back to Memphis, leaving Lewie in Knoxville.

  Chapter 8

  Higher and Higher

  CHICAGO, IL—Spring 1965—9

  In the spring of 1963, the current formation of Booker T. & the MGs—Lewie Steinberg (bass), Steve Cropper (guitar), Howard Grimes (drums), and myself (organ)—piled into a rented station wagon and drove to Chicago to play a show for E. Rodney Jones, a disc jockey for WVON. The compensation? Airplay for “Green Onions.” Howard, filling in for Al Jackson, received road pay.

  The Regal Theater, on the south side, with its velvet drapes and plush carpet, was the city’s most important venue for blacks and a sight to behold. Booker T. & the MGs opened the show. The main attraction was Jackie Wilson. I was among the many who were excited for his show. His songs, “Doggin’ Around” and “Lonely Teardrops” and his stage energy were legendary, and I was going to be within a few feet of the singer who had replaced Clyde McPhatter of the Drifters. The spectacle I saw that night forever changed my perception of what a live R & B show could or should be.

  From the moment Jackie Wilson faced the stage, he became the definition of electricity. He lit up, both literally and figuratively. You could feel the energy coming from him. Not Sammy Davis Jr., not James Brown, not Prince, not even Elvis Presley could have held the stage with him. And the women. The women went crazy. The ample crew was ready for the onslaught. But it was to no avail. They were going to get their hands on Jackie Wilson, and they did. When he spinned, split, and dropped effortlessly to his knees, a throng, a gaggle of females swarmed the stage, ripping what sweat-drenched clothes were still on his back. It was a melee. He left the stage with only his pants and shoes.

  And the music. The music was captivating, hypnotic. The dynamic band and horn section was seriously kickin’. When he broke into “Baby Workout” at the end of the show, I had to dance. Backstage. Even the laconic Howard Grimes had a big smile on his face and moved his feet a little. I became even more of a fan. I was a freshman at Indiana, and the guys drove back through Indiana to drop me off at school.

  Four years later, Jackie made “Higher and Higher,” and it was perfect in every way, but my imagination presented me with another vision of the song. Slower, a loping bass line, straight eighths instead of triplets, with melody and lyrics the same. In California, I bought some cheap studio time for a demo session and hired John Robinson, Paul Jackson Jr., and Chris Ethridge to record my version of the song. My wife, Priscilla, and her sister, Rita, came with me and sang background parts to my vocal.

  LOS ANGELES, CA—1974—8

  A few years later, the arrangement on this demo of “Higher and Higher” prompted Rita to ask me to do an arrangement of the song for her debut A&M Records album, and the record got extensive airplay and sales. Rita’s vocal rendition, as well as the arrangement, was an exact copy of my demo.

  Rita’s producer, David Anderle, made use of the laissez-faire approach to record producing. He called the musicians and put the other elements together. I directed the musicians and vocalists, chose the keys, set the tempos, and wrote out the arrangements on the score for the strings and horns. I arranged the background vocals and wrote the chord charts and played piano and organ.

  The arrangements had to be on the copyists’ desks by 7:00 a.m. for a 10:00 a.m. session, so I was on the road from Malibu by six. There was a boy standing in the alley behind Wallach’s Music City at Sunset and Vine to receive scores from arrangers and rush them upstairs to the waiting teams of copyists. You couldn’t leave your car in the alley and go into Wallach’s because it didn’t open until ten. The music was delivered to the studio. I waited the hours out in the lounge, consuming inhumane amounts of coffee and doughnuts.

  I wasn’t offered producer’s credits, but as a compromise, I received two deal points and label credit for my arrangements.

  NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, Highway 101—1974—5

  In the fall of ’74, in our orange Datsun station wagon, traveling north on 101 past Santa Rosa, eight hours into the drive from Malibu to Mendocino, Priscilla, who was driving, turned to me. “I can sing circles around Rita. I’ve been singing since I was twelve. Why haven’t you cut a song like that on me?”

  “It’s not about who’s the better singer,” I said.

  “Then, what is it about? I can hit notes she can’t even hear.”

  “David is Rita’s producer, not me.”

  “Why don’t I have a deal?”

  “Priscilla, please.”

  “Who are you f—ing?”

  “Please, Priscilla.”

  “You’re f—ing Rita, aren’t you? You’re f—ing her at the studio.”

  “Priscilla!”

  “Who else are you f—ing?”

  I thought, Maybe she thinks I’m being unfaithful because I met her by cheating on Gigi with her. Or worse, Maybe she’s projec
ting guilt from some infidelity of her own.

  The argument escalated beyond the point of no return. Driving in the dark on our way back from Malibu to our Northern California ranch, I was quiet, riding in the passenger seat during a lull in the fighting. I noticed that Priscilla missed the turn to go northwest on 128 at Cloverdale and continued north on 101. I sat up in my seat.

  In silence, we drove another thirty minutes. This type of thing had happened before, when she would do something outrageous to ruffle my feathers and upset me, but this seemed different. After Ukiah, the road began steep grades and long descents. Where are we going? When we reached a straightaway, Priscilla glared at me, pressing the accelerator to the floor. “I could kill us right now and no one would know.”

  I put my hand on the door handle, not knowing what I would do. She looked at me again, with hatred and disgust on her face. She’s going to kill us tonight.

  With my hand on the door, I couldn’t do anything. It was an intense, scary situation. I certainly couldn’t jump out at that speed, and I couldn’t say anything to her to inflame the situation any more. I had to just sit there and wait it out or suffer the consequences.

  I won the standoff. At Willits, Priscilla took the exit west on Highway 20, a full two and a half hours out of our way to get home, but not before scaring me out of my wits one more time on a straight stretch of Highway 101 before Willits. When we made it off the winding road from Willits back to the Pacific Coast Highway at Fort Bragg, she pulled over and let me take the wheel. I was never so relieved. I drove the rest of the way on Highway 1 south, dreaming of having a new, different life someday. I dreamed that dream for five more years until that fateful night in Malibu when Priscilla piled her things in a limo to go live in New York with Ed Bradley.