Cropper on Cropper
Back in 2015, the Stax legend chatted to Uncut about six of his finest recorded moments
BOOKER T & THE MG’S
GREEN ONIONS
STAX, 1962
“’Til this day, I don’t know where ‘Green Onions’ came from. It was from some blues line that Booker played at clubs or something – I just doubled his organ. We were all playing together, all at the same time, all live, no headphones. When I hit the single notes for the solo it was really loud. It nearly blew [Stax co-founder] Jim Stewart out of the studio. He grabbed the knob and turned it so far he almost turned it off, then you can hear him just sneaking the guitar back in. I think the released version was about the third take of that song, it happened on the spur of the moment. Had it not been a hit, I don’t know whether we would have stayed around or not.”