Artist · chart history
Booker T. & the MG's
Band Memphis United States Active 1962–2012
Booker T. & the MG's formed in 1962 in Memphis, United States and was active until 2012. Booker T. & the MG's has 15 chart appearances on 12 radio countdowns from 5 stations on RockLists, spanning 2001–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Green Onions”, which appears on 11 lists with a best position of #74. The station that charted Booker T. & the MG's most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 5 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2011.
Booker T. & the MG's were the tightest four men in Memphis, and for most of the 1960s you were hearing them whether you knew it or not. They came together in 1962 with Booker T. Jones on organ and piano, Steve Cropper on guitar, Lewie Steinberg on bass and Al Jackson Jr. on drums, and as part of the rotating house crew at Stax they backed Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Albert King and a pile of others.
On their own records they needed no singer at all. "Green Onions" is the blueprint: a greasy organ line, Cropper's guitar stabbing in like a switchblade, and a groove so lean there is nothing to trim. Donald "Duck" Dunn replaced Steinberg on bass in 1965, and the pocket only got deeper, all the way to the taut strut of "Time Is Tight" in 1969. With two white players and two Black players, they were one of the first racially integrated groups in rock, at a time when soul, and the Memphis scene above all, was widely seen as Black music.
Al Jackson Jr. was murdered in 1975. Jones, Cropper and Dunn kept reuniting afterwards with a string of drummers, Willie Hall and Steve Jordan among them, until Dunn's death in 2012. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted them in 1992.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Booker T. & the MG's on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Green Onions | 11 | #74 | – | – | |
| 2 | Time Is Tight | 2 | #280 | – | – | |
| 3 | Representing Memphis | 1 | #71 | – | 2011 |
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 260 | Green Onions | WYEP Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2023 | 122 | Green Onions | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of All Time |
| 2021 | 75 | Green Onions | WYEP 2021 Labor Day Countdown |
| 2020 | 602 | Green Onions | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2020 | 2020 | Time Is Tight | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2016 | 688 | Green Onions | WYEP 913 Countdown 2016 |
| 2014 | 878 | Green Onions | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2014) |
| 2012 | 210 | Green Onions | WYEP Top 500 Songs Countdown |
| 2011 | 71 | Representing Memphis | WRSI Top 93 Songs of 2011 |
| 2010 | 235 | Green Onions | WXPN 885 Ultimate Road Trip Songs (2010) |
| 2009 | 554 | Green Onions | WXPN 885 Desert Island Songs (2009) |
| 2005 | 74 | Green Onions | WFPK Top 100 Party Songs |
| 2001 | 280 | Time Is Tight | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2001 | 1044 | Green Onions | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2001 | 1882 | Time Is Tight | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time |
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