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On this day, 3 April 1967, soul greats Booker T and the MG’s played Cardiff’s Top Rank. They were part of a soul revue, headlined by Otis Redding and also featured Sam and Dave, Arthur Conley, Eddie Floyd and The Markeys.
Booker T. & the M.G.'s were an American instrumental R&B/funk band that was influential in shaping the sound of Southern soul and Memphis soul. The original members of the group were Booker T. Jones (organ, piano), Steve Cropper (guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass), and Al Jackson Jr. (drums).
In the 1960s, as members of the Mar-Keys, the rotating slate of musicians that served as the house band of Stax Records, they played on hundreds of recordings by artists including Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and Albert King.
They also released instrumental records under their own name, including the 1962 hit single "Green Onions". As originators of the unique Stax sound, the group was one of the most prolific, respected, and imitated of its era.
In 1965, Steinberg was replaced by Donald "Duck" Dunn, who played with the group until his death in 2012.
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee in 2008, the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2012, and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2019.
Having two white members (initially Cropper and Steinberg, later Cropper and Dunn) and two black members (Jones and Jackson Jr.), Booker T. & the M.G.'s was one of the first racially integrated rock groups,[4] at a time when soul music and the Memphis music scene, in particular, were generally considered the preserve of black culture.
