Booker T. Jones Reflects On His Life in Music

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, editor of the website TV Worth Watching, sitting in for Terry Gross. Today's first guest is author Tom Perrotta, whose recent novel, "Mrs. Fletcher," is being dramatized this Sunday as a new HBO miniseries. Kathryn Hahn stars in the title role.

"Mrs. Fletcher," both the HBO series and the novel, are about major life transitions and the sexual transitions that accompany them. When the novel begins, Eve, a 46-year-old divorced single mother, is saying goodbye to her son, Brendan, who is leaving for college. Brendan expects college to be a big beer and pizza party with plenty of girls. He's unprepared for the way he'll be called out for his sexist behavior. While Eve has been worried about the influence of porn on how her son treats young women, she finds herself turning to porn and is surprised by how much she starts to like it.

Tom Perrotta spoke to Terry Gross in 2017 when "Mrs. Fletcher" was first published. Note to parents - although they talk a little about how the main character becomes drawn to porn, they don't talk explicitly about the porn she watches.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Tom Perrotta, welcome back to FRESH AIR. I want to ask you to start by reading from the very beginning of "Mrs. Fletcher."

TOM PERROTTA: (Reading) It was a long drive. And Eve cried most of the way home because the big day hadn't gone the way she'd hoped - not that big days ever did. Birthdays, holidays, weddings, graduations, funerals - they were all too loaded with expectations. And the important people in her life rarely acted the way they were supposed to. Most of them didn't even seem to be working from the same script as she was, though maybe that said more about the important people in her life than it did about big days in general.

Take today. All she'd wanted from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning was a chance to let Brendan know what was in her heart, to express all the love that had been building up over the summer, swelling to the point where she sometimes thought her chest would explode. It just seemed really important to say it out loud before he left, to share all the gratitude and pride she felt not just for the wonderful person he was right now but for the sweet, little boy he'd been and the strong and decent man he would one day become.

And she wanted to reassure him too, to make it clear that she would be starting a new life just the same as he was and that it would be a great adventure for both of them. Don't worry about me, she wanted to tell him, you just study hard and have fun. I'll take care of myself. But that conversation never happened. Brendan had overslept. He'd been out late partying with his buddies. And when he finally dragged himself out of bed, he was useless, too hungover to help with the last-minute packing or the loading of the van.

It was just so irresponsible, leaving her with her bad back to lug his boxes and suitcases down the stairs in the sticky August heat, sweating through her good shirt, while he sat in his boxers at the kitchen table, struggling with the childproof cap on a bottle of ibuprofen. But she managed to keep her irritation in check. She didn't want to spoil their last morning together with petty nagging, even if he deserved it. Going out on a sour note would have been a disservice to both of them.

GROSS: That's Tom Perrotta reading from his new novel, "Mrs. Fletcher." So I love that you have these two parallel transitions - mother's transition - the single mother's transition when her son is leaving for college and his transition when he is the one who's leaving. And there's so many points in this book where I think he's being so oblivious to her needs. And I thought back to (laughter) myself when I left for college. I wasn't thinking about my parents' needs.

PERROTTA: (Laughter).

GROSS: I didn't ask them, how do you feel now that I'm leaving home? It never would have occurred to me.

PERROTTA: No, you think - you assume they're all right. Their stories are set, and you're the one who's on the adventure.

GROSS: Exactly. And that's part of the point of your book - the mother's story is not set. Like, she's questioning who she is. She's questioning her sexual orientation. She's questioning what kind of life she wants to have, how she should shake up her life. So what got you thinking about these two parallel transitions - the mother's and the son's - and how you could kind of join them together?

PERROTTA: Well, the first part of it is, I think, that I've been kind of tracking my own life in my fiction. So when my kids were little and on the playground, I wrote "Little Children" based on those experiences. And when they were playing sports in junior high and high school, that gave me some of the raw material for "The Abstinence Teacher." And the most recent era of my life has been this transition to the empty nest and to this post-parental moment of reflection - like, OK, this huge project of raising kids is over. What does my life look like now? What - you know, what does my wife - what does her life look like, as well? But I never really write straight autobiography. And it seemed like a much more poignant thing to reflect on what it would be like for a woman whose son was the other person in her family. She really is alone when he goes to school. The empty nest really is empty for her.

GROSS: Another thing that really sets off the story - it's on that day that she's about to drive him to college for his first day there. The girlfriend who her son has broken up with comes over for a visit. So the mother, Eve, goes out to get gas before driving him to college. When she returns, she hears that they're engaged in a sexual act. And he's giving her - her son is giving his girlfriend - really, his ex-girlfriend - these crude sexual commands about what to do to him, calling her the B-word.

And Eve is just, like, appalled. Like, she's an enlightened woman. Like, she hates this language. She hates everything it stands for. And she doesn't know how to have that conversation with him and certainly doesn't want to have it with him on the day that they're parting, that he's going to college. But she wants him to begin college with the understanding that there's a difference between sexual relationships in real life and the soulless encounter he presumably watches on the Internet.

So what made you think about that? Does that come out of your life, too, of wanting to make sure that your children weren't learning crude, condescending ways of speaking to their boyfriend or girlfriend, from - either learning it from friends, from television, from porn, whatever?

PERROTTA: Well, it - I just think it's a really interesting and peculiar moment in American culture because on the one hand, there is this kind of crudeness in the way that we talk. And on the other hand, there's this conflicting urge to really police the way that we speak. And so you see it with, you know, the B-word, as you said. But so it's very common to hear women laughingly refer to their friends with that word.

But then there's a sense that, you know, a guy should never say it to a woman. And you might say, well, that's a clear rule, but it's also a confusing rule. I think it's a shock for Eve to hear her son use this word in a sexual context. And I think she immediately thinks that he learned it from porn, where - because he certainly wouldn't have anybody modeling that kind of language for him in real life.

GROSS: So, you know, she's assuming her son watches porn. And then once he's out of the house, she starts watching a lot of porn. And would you describe the kind of porn she's especially interested in?

PERROTTA: Yeah. Well, she receives an anonymous text that applies a certain label to her, which you and I have agreed to say - she's a sexy mom, a mom who is sexually desirable. People will know the acronym. And she's offended by it. And it's a dirty text. But at the same time, she realizes she's not really sure about what the term means. And she goes to look it up the way we do. And she realizes that it's not quite the old Mrs. Robinson stereotype. It's a more neutral, and possibly even complimentary term suggesting that you may be older, you may be a mom, but you're still desirable.

And in the course of doing this, she's led to a website that basically consists of ordinary women in their 30s and 40s, you know, sending in - or their husbands or their partners sending in videos of them engaged in sex. So it's highly amateur, and it's just about people saying, hey, this is me. Here, you can get a glimpse into my bedroom.

GROSS: And she's surprised to find herself watching lesbian porn.

PERROTTA: Yes. You know, she samples the menu, which is vast. And at a certain point, she settles on this lesbian porn as - you know, she's never thought of herself in this way, but this porn turns her on, and I think it leads her to the sense that there are sexual possibilities in her world that she hasn't investigated yet.

GROSS: In the sexy mother category of lesbian porn, you describe it as often beginning with a reluctant woman grumpily washing dishes or mopping the floor, when the doorbell rings. And then a more confident woman arrives with a bottle of wine and a bit of exposed cleavage, and then the action begins. Did you watch a lot of this before writing the novel?

PERROTTA: (Laughter) I watched enough to write the novel. Yeah, I did. And it was really interesting because, you know, if you - I mean, people have different responses to porn, obviously. And some of it is disturbing, and some of it is just too much. But I did find that I was especially interested by this category of porn that involved a kind of a seduction because it was, I think, very different from, you know, the stereotypical male porn that would just sometimes just launch right in. You know, nobody wants any talking. But there was this sense that, you know - I guess maybe this is the definition of a certain kind of female-friendly porn - that it was about two people connecting and about - it was about seduction, actually, very clearly.

GROSS: And then in contrasting that with her son, he grows up in a boy culture where date rape doesn't seem like it's necessarily wrong to the boys. And if you're a guy who tries to intervene and stop date sexual harassment or date rape, you're going to be bullied for it, and it makes it very confusing for the boys, I think. And I'd like to know what you were thinking about when you were writing this character who is kind of subscribing to that kind of behavior and language and not really understanding what's wrong with it, even though he grows up in a family that wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior.

PERROTTA: Right, and he would say that it was wrong if you asked him about it. And I do think that I was really interested in the fact that we talk way more about consent than we did when I was in college.

GROSS: When were you in college, by the way?

PERROTTA: I graduated in 1983, and, you know, I think that a whole sort of body of knowledge of, you know, or just even the category of sexual harassment didn't fully exist. Like, I think I certainly knew students who'd had affairs with teachers, and that was sort of considered, you know, a little bit risky but not beyond the pale. And, you know, it just hadn't been codified as an offense at that point. It would soon change.

But I will say we didn't speak as much about consent. We didn't speak as much about sexual boundaries. I think we were closer to the sexual revolution. It was right at the moment when AIDS started to really change people's sexual behaviors. But it is interesting to me that, you know, students now have all these workshops and sessions about consent, and yet it does seem like the problem - I don't know if it's getting better. Statistically, it's hard to say, but it does seem that these guys are somewhat immune to all of the teaching, or they arrive at college still expecting to have that party that they've been dreaming about.

BIANCULLI: Author Tom Perrotta speaking with Terry Gross in 2017. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF HERLIN RILEY'S "TWELVE'S IT")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2017 interview with author Tom Perrotta. His novel "Mrs. Fletcher" has been made into an HBO miniseries of the same name, which premieres Sunday.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: So the mother, Eve, wanting some kind of adventure in her life with the new freedom that she has - like, she misses her son. She's alone. So she's both lonely, but she also senses she has this freedom, and she wants to use it. And one of the ways she uses it, as we've discussed, is, like, watching pornography. But when she goes out to dinner with a younger woman who works on her staff at the senior citizens center, she makes a pass at her, which is rejected. And this is the first time she's ever even thought of the possibility of having a relationship with a woman.

And when she's rejected, it's kind of devastating. It's like, OK, I tried freedom. Like, what did I think I was doing? Like, apparently, I can't do that. Apparently, I've made a terrible mistake. Now I'm just really embarrassed. It's inappropriate, too, she thinks, as, like, the boss to have made a pass at someone who works for her. And she says, like, that's sexual harassment. Like, why did I do that? And she's just heartbroken and disappointed in herself and also inhibited by the response that she's gotten. And I thought it was interesting for you as a male writer to try to really get deep into this woman's head while trying out for the first time a lesbian relationship.

PERROTTA: Yeah, and I think it really was coming from that that sense that, once she starts looking at porn, certain things in real life look different to her. So she's watching all this porn where a confident, experienced woman is seducing a woman who is sort of - reluctant, I guess, is the word that's used in the book. There's a confident one and a reluctant one. And she's having this wonderful dinner with her employee, and there's - it's kind of flirtatious. And they're discussing sex, and they're discussing gender, and she keeps feeling, like, the gravity of this porn scenario. It's like, oh, you know, which one of us is the confident one? Which one of us is the reluctant one?

And somehow - I think this is really what the book is about. During this fall that most of the action takes place in, Eve is feeling her life becoming a kind of a porn scenario or a series of porn scenarios, and they do cause her to act in ways that she never would have acted before in ways that go against her principles. And one of the things that she says that I do think is absolutely true is, in porn, there's no such thing as sexual harassment. Any time a kind of illicit situation is set up, it's so that the doctor can have sex with the patient.

And so just for a second, I think Eve mistakes her life for a porn scenario. And then when cold water gets splashed on her, it's like she's waking from a dream. Like, what was I doing? What was I thinking? And I am very interested in those moments when people do things that run contrary to their deepest principles, to their sense of right and wrong. Those are the moments, I think, when we find out who we really are.

GROSS: Are you saying, too, that we sometimes confuse freedom with violating our own principles?

PERROTTA: Yeah, that's really interesting, right? That's certainly how it is when we're kids, right? We're told you can't do this and you can't do that, and the minute you find yourself alone, those are the things you want to do. And so there is something in that kind of youthful rebellion against parental strictures that I think can still affect you when you're an adult.

I remember talking to a friend of mine when our kids had first left for college, and he's a little bit older, and his kids had been gone. And I said, oh, yeah, we're going to have an empty nest, you know, pretty soon. And he just looked at me with his - sort of wearily and said, well, the pressure to have sex is enormous.

GROSS: (Laughter).

PERROTTA: You know, it's like the kids leaving was like before when your parents left. Like, you're suddenly free. There's nothing stopping you. And I do feel like Eve is in this moment when, you know, she's alone. She's on her own, and I think she does want to have a sexual life, and she's trying to figure out how to make that happen.

GROSS: Since you write about turning points in people's lives, what was a big turning point in your life?

PERROTTA: Well, I do have to say that that going to college was - going college at Yale specifically after growing up where I did in New Jersey - at the time, I was really adamant with myself that I was not going to let this snobby Ivy League world change who I was and that I could go there, kind of take what it had to offer and emerge kind of unscathed. And I really tried that. I had a girlfriend at home. I came home a lot on weekends. I always came home for the summers. I always had blue-collar jobs.

But at a certain point in my late 20s, I suddenly realized, you know, I don't eat the same food as my parents anymore. I don't watch the same TV shows as them. I don't read the same books. I feel like there's this distance sometimes between me and older friends. I think that it just - in spite of all of my determination, I had been really transformed by the experience of going to this elite Ivy League college at that particular point in my life.

GROSS: How did your parents and how did your old friends react to the changed version of you? Did your parents say, what happened to you? You're not our son anymore.

PERROTTA: No. You know, my parents were were great about it. I think especially my mom - she was the one who really encouraged my siblings and and me to to go to the best schools we possibly could, and I think she sort of accepted that transformation. I remember occasionally - my father has been dead for the past 15 years, but I do remember a few times when I was sort of just mocking some TV show he was watching. And I thought it was just a dumb show, and I remember that he turned to me with a really - he was both irritated and wounded, I think, by the fact that I was looking down on the show that he was watching.

And, you know, I still actually feel bad about that and don't - that's the part of the transformation in my own life that I'm not crazy about, you know - the sense that the country really is divided by class. And by virtue of going to an Ivy League school, I did, like, sort of jump social classes, and it's real. You know, you - there is a kind of condescension that can come with that that I, you know, have to really fight in myself.

GROSS: Well, Tom Perrotta, thanks so much for talking with us again.

PERROTTA: Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's such a pleasure.

BIANCULLI: Tom Perrotta speaking to Terry Gross in 2017. His novel "Mrs. Fletcher" has been adapted into an HBO miniseries of the same name. It premieres Sunday, starring Kathryn Hahn in the title role. After a break, Booker T. Jones, whom The New York Times just called soul's ultimate sideman. He fronted the band Booker T. and the M.G.'s at the Monterey International Pop Music Festival in 1967, which made stars of such influential music acts as Janis Joplin, The Who and Jimi Hendrix. Booker T. and the M.G.'s was the backing band for another headline-grabbing act, Otis Redding. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'VE BEEN LOVING YOU TOO LONG")

OTIS REDDING: Oh. Oh. Can you do that one more time just like that? Oh. Oh. Do it just one more time - one more. Oh. Oh. Do it just one more time. Oh. Oh.

(Singing) With you, my life has been so wonderful. I can't stop now. You were tired.
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli in for Terry Gross. Our next guest is Booker T. Jones. In the 1960s and '70s, he led the band Booker T. and the M.G.'s, which had several hits, including the popular instrumental known as "Green Onions." He and his M.G.'s also were the house band for the Memphis-based soul label Stax Records, and they eventually received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.

But at age 74, Booker T. Jones isn't through achieving yet. He's still performing and recording, and he's just come out with another release, but this time, it's not a single or an album. It's a book, a memoir named after one of his memorable recordings called "Time Is Tight." It talks of his less-than-privileged childhood in Memphis, his passion for music and songwriting and his career backing up such legendary artists as Sam & Dave, Albert King and Otis Redding.

Terry Gross spoke with Booker T. Jones in 2007, the year he was awarded his Lifetime Achievement Grammy. Let's start with "Green Onions."

(SOUNDBITE OF BOOKER T. AND THE M.G.'S' "GREEN ONIONS")

TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Booker T., welcome to FRESH AIR. It's an honor to have you on our show.

BOOKER T JONES: Thank you, Terry. I'm glad to be here.

GROSS: Would you tell us the story behind the track that we just heard?

JONES: Well, that happened as something of an accident. We were at the studio as session musicians to play a session for an artist who didn't show up. So we used the time to record a blues which we called "Behave Yourself," and I played it on a Hammond M3 organ. And Jim Stewart, the owner, was the engineer, and he really liked it - thought it was great, actually - and wanted to put it out as a record. And so we all agreed on that, and Jim told us that we needed something to record for a B-side because we couldn't have a one-sided record. And one of the tunes that I'd been playing on piano we tried on Hammond organ so that, you know, the record would have organ on both sides, and that turned out to be "Green Onions."

GROSS: Now, you know, Booker T. and the M.G.'s basically became the house band for Stax Records, and you played on a lot of their recordings. How did you become a member of the Stax house band?

JONES: Well, I was in 11th grade, and my friend David Porter knew that Rufus Thomas and his daughter Carla were recording one day. And I guess they had requested a baritone sax part on a song, and David thought of me. David drove over to the high school, came up with some type of hall pass and got me out of class and somehow came up with the band director's car keys and keys to the instrument room. So down we went to get the baritone sax out of the instrument room and into the borrowed car and over to Stax Records and through the door, and there I was.

GROSS: Why don't we hear the recording that you played baritone sax on, which is your first recording for Stax? You want to introduce it for us?

JONES: It's called "'Cause I Love You" by Rufus and Carla Thomas.

GROSS: OK. Let's hear it.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "'CAUSE I LOVE YOU")

RUFUS THOMAS: (Singing) I done take very best girl of mine, yeah. I done take very best girl of mine, yeah. Going to straighten up, baby, stop that cheating and lying.

CARLA THOMAS: (Singing) The way you lied about me, you lied about Louise, too.

THOMAS: (Singing) Oh, no. Oh, no.

THOMAS: (Singing) Yeah. You lied about me. You lied about Louise, too.

THOMAS: (Singing) Oh, no. Oh, no.

THOMAS: (Singing) You got me feeling so bad, I don't know what to do.

THOMAS: (Singing) Let me tell you, woman. Lay down deep inside, baby.

THOMAS: (Singing) Baby.

THOMAS: (Singing) Hold you by my side 'cause I love you.

THOMAS: (Singing) I love you.

THOMAS: (Singing) 'Cause I love you.

THOMAS: (Singing) I love you.

THOMAS: (Singing) 'Cause I love you.

THOMAS: (Singing) 'Cause I love you.

THOMAS: (Singing) 'Cause I love you.

THOMAS: (Singing) Yes, I love you.

THOMAS: (Singing) 'Cause I love you and I never let you go. Come on.

THOMAS: (Singing) Come on.

GROSS: That's Rufus and Carla Thomas, the first recording that was of - that featured Booker T., but he wasn't on keyboards. He was on baritone saxophone. And Booker T. is my guest. So you stayed, obviously. I mean, you were in 11th grade. You made this recording, and you ended up becoming part of the house band. How did they - was it hard to convince you to stay? Did you have to convince them that they needed you?

JONES: Oh, I convinced them. I actually had a paper route. That was my job in the afternoon, and - no, I convinced them to try me out on piano and eventually organ. And I eventually played on a organ on a William Bell song, which - they liked that part of "You Don't Miss Your Water" on one of the sessions. So after I played that part, I had the job.

GROSS: So what was it like going to high school and making records at the same time?

JONES: Oh, it was unreal. I was in a rush to get out of school and get my papers thrown and get over to Stax. That was my thrill every day - to get to go there and play music until, you know, 10 or 11 o'clock every night.

GROSS: Booker T. and the M.G.'s is so associated with the Stax sound, such an essential part of what is described as the Stax sound. But how would you describe the Stax sound?

JONES: I would say it's a simple, earthy sound, you know, just born out of our blues and country and jazz roots and also gospel. It was a sound that, you know, we consciously tried to keep simple and with a lot of feeling.

GROSS: Do you remember the first time you met Otis Redding?

JONES: Otis was a valet for a band from Georgia. He was carrying the clothes and doing the driving and going for the food and coffee and shining shoes or whatever he had to do to keep the band going. And I remember the day he pulled up with - Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers was the name of the group he was working for. They just basically came in, and he sat around and waited, and they did their demo for Stax. And after they did their demo, Otis asked if he could sing a song, which was a little inappropriate, but they - we allowed him. Jim and Steve Cropper and the rest of us allowed him to sing a song with us, and that song was "These Arms Of Mine." And so everyone was moved by that, so at that moment, he became Otis Redding.

GROSS: So let's hear one of the records you made with Otis Redding. How about "Dock Of The Bay?"

JONES: OK. Yeah.

GROSS: Do you have memories of making this record?

JONES: Yes, I do have memories of that. That was a particularly special and hectic time. Otis was getting ready to go out on tour without us. And we had just returned to Memphis from the Monterey Pop Festival in Europe. Otis was disjointed and hurried and anxious and out of sorts, so he wanted to record all the time. He was insisting that we stay, you know, uncommon hours. And we were working late at night. And people were probably sleeping at the studio. And it seemed like we were working around the clock.

GROSS: Well, that's not how it sounds (laughter) on the record. It's not a record that sounds like it was made by people who were tired and overworked. Did the mood change...

JONES: Well, I'm not sure that we were tired.

GROSS: ...Once you started recording?

JONES: I'm not sure that we were tired and overworked when we did this particular one. But the week was one that we recorded, I think, a whole album in just a few days. You know, the music always created its own energy once we started playing. So even if you were tired, you know, playing with Otis and playing with each other - the music just - you know, it just got a life of its own. And so the tiredness didn't matter.

GROSS: Well, let's hear "Dock Of The Bay" (ph) - Otis Redding and my guest Booker T. on keyboards on this recording.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "(SITTIN' ON) THE DOCK OF THE BAY")

OTIS REDDING: (Singing) Sitting in the morning sun - I'll be sitting when the evening comes watching the ships roll in. Then I'll watch them. roll away again. Yeah. Sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away. Just sitting on the dock of the bay wasting time. I left my home in Georgia headed for the Frisco Bay 'cause I've got nothing to live for, looks like nothing's going to come my way. So I'm just going to sit on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away. Sitting on the dock of the bay wasting time. Looks like nothing's going to change, everything still remains the same. I can't do what 10 people tell me to do, so I guess I'll remain the same. Just sitting here resting my bones...

GROSS: That's Otis Redding. And my guest Booker T. played piano and organ on many of the recordings on Stax Records, like the one we just heard.

Were you close with Otis Redding?

JONES: Yes, unfortunately. Yes.

GROSS: Unfortunately because he died in a plane crash.

JONES: Yes, he was a very close friend of mine. Yes.

BIANCULLI: Booker T. Jones speaking to Terry Gross in 2007 - more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's return to Terry's 2007 interview with Booker T. Jones, leader of the landmark soul band Booker T & The M.G.'s. He's just published a new memoir titled "Time Is Tight."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: You wrote a song called "Born Under A Bad Sign" that I always thought was a much older song. I mean, it's such a kind of classic blues song. (Laughter) I figured it was around a whole lot longer. You want to tell us the story behind writing this song?

JONES: Yes. The company had acquired Albert King as an artist. And I was assigned his - to be his producer. And so we needed music for him. At that time, my partner was William Bell, my writing partner. William wrote the words. And I wrote the music in my den that night. That was one of the - one of my greatest moments in the studio as far as being thrilled with a piece of music. I was very, very happy with the way that turned out.

GROSS: What made you so happy about it? What did you particularly like about it?

JONES: The feeling of it - you know, it's the real blues, you know, done by the real people (laughter). It was Albert King from East St. Louis, you know, the lefthanded guitar player, who was just such - one of a kind and so electric and so intense and so serious about his music and involved with the lyrics and with the song. You know, he just lost himself in the music. And he was such a one-of-a-kind character. We had written a song for him. And we were doing it. And it was coming off. And, you know, I was there personally in the middle of it. So it was just exhilarating, you know? It's kind of hard to describe.

GROSS: Well, why don't we hear it? This is Albert King recorded in 1967. And my guest is Booker T., who's featured on this track.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN")

ALBERT KING: (Singing) Born under a bad sign, been down since I began to crawl. If it wasn't for bad luck, you know I wouldn't have no luck at all. Hard luck and trouble been my only friend. I've been on my own ever since I was 10. Born under a bad sign, been down since I began to crawl. If it wasn't for bad luck, you know I wouldn't have no luck at all. I can't read...

GROSS: That's Albert King from 1967. The song was co-written by my guest, pianist and organ player Booker T., who co-wrote that song. Now, when you were playing in - at Stax Records, when you were in Booker T. & the MGs and you were the house band and making your own records, the South was still pretty segregated. But your band was comprised of African American and white musicians. Did tensions from - did racial tensions from the outside world ever affect the band or did you feel pretty well protected by that - from that?

JONES: Well, we were insulated, you know, as most Southern social institutions are. We were insulated because we had our little door there that we locked behind us at Stax. And nobody knew what was going on in there or who we were, so we weren't affected until we became pretty famous. Around '67 or '68, after Dr. King came to the city and Dr. King was murdered in a place that was very close to us - he was murdered at the Lorraine Hotel. And that was our meeting place. And that was a place where we ate very often, so that affected us. But in general, we didn't have big racial issues there.

GROSS: When you say the assassination affected you, did it - I mean, I imagine everybody in the band was pretty upset about it. Did it...

JONES: Mmm hmm.

GROSS: Did it cause any tensions in the band?

JONES: What I mean is...

GROSS: Yeah.

JONES: What I mean is it brought outside attention to us and what we were doing there.

GROSS: Right.

JONES: The fact that we were interracial - I like to call it a not too well-kept secret that we were interracial. I think, you know, when we were playing music, that nobody really cared that we were interracial. I think they cared more about the music. I think whites and blacks both didn't pay too much attention to the racial aspect of it.

GROSS: Did you feel there were times you needed to keep it kind of a secret?

JONES: Absolutely. The logistics of it demanded it. You know, we couldn't travel when we started without having two of us go get food. And sometimes, those two were myself and Al, or sometimes those two were Steve and Duck. But the other two would have to check into hotels and…

GROSS: Right, because two of you were white, two of you were black.

JONES: Exactly. Exactly. So we always had to have - we were always in somebody else's territory no matter where we were. But Steve and Duck and all the white members of Stax began to love soul food. And I think they preferred to hang out at our restaurants. So we just really didn't have a problem as long as the rest of the world didn't have a problem with us.

BIANCULLI: Booker T. Jones speaking to Terry Gross in 2007 - more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's return to Terry's 2007 interview with Booker T. Jones, leader of the landmark soul band Booker T. & the M.G.'s. His new memoir titled, "Time Is Tight," has just been published.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: You left Stax Records in 1969.

JONES: Mmm hmm.

GROSS: Which, I think, was the same year Stax was sold to Gulf and Western.

JONES: Mmm hmm.

GROSS: Did that have any reason - was that part of the reason why you left?

JONES: I left after Stax was sold to Gulf and Western.

GROSS: Because it was sold or...

JONES: Well, not because it was sold but because it changed; because the owners had control, and the owners were able to dictate how this company was run. And so they did that. They had every right to do that. They had big companies, and they knew what they were doing. They had Paramount Pictures. And they were a very successful company. And they decided that they wanted to change things in Memphis, and so they did. And the things they changed made it lose its appeal for me.

GROSS: Well, what were the changes?

JONES: They changed the outlook. They made us feel as though - well, they made us meet a quota as far as how much music we produced. That was the first thing that really affected me, because we were always able to have our down, you know, dry periods when we just couldn't come up with anything and when it just wasn't happening. And so everybody would get tense and, you know, we would argue and we just absolutely had no music. But then, to come out of that, we would come up with something great.

But Gulf and Western sent memos that caused us to change our production techniques to the fact that we had three bands going around the clock. And they wanted a certain number of albums in a certain time period. And so the president and the vice president, you know, the people who were running the company, had to bring other producers in from the other cities. They brought in producers from Los Angeles and Detroit, you know, because they had to meet these quotas. And it became a different company.

GROSS: So when you left, did you leave on your own?

JONES: Yes, I did. I left all by myself. Nobody came with me.

GROSS: What was your life like when you moved to Los Angeles?

JONES: Well, I - my life was uncertain for a while. But then I found friends in California that rescued me, so I was able to survive out there - out here, rather.

GROSS: And how did your musical life change?

JONES: Well, as I said, I found friends who were also somewhat nonconformists who rescued me. I met Clarence Avant, who, at the time, was one of the leading entrepreneurs - African American entrepreneurs in the music industry. And he had a startup label that he was working with in California. And he'd had this guy that was building airplane toilets in Inglewood who had songs that he really loved. His name was Bill Withers. And...

GROSS: (Laughter) Bill Withers was building airplane toilets (laughter)?

JONES: Absolutely. Absolutely. And Clarence called up and sent Bill out to my ranch in Malibu. And Bill came up with - out there with a little tablet full of papers and an old, beat-up guitar and started to sing songs. And he had some great songs in there, so I was able to work with him. And then...

GROSS: So you actually helped discover him.

JONES: My friends - yeah.

GROSS: I didn't realize that. OK.

JONES: I had friends that introduced me to Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. And they were starting a record label. And...

GROSS: That was A&M Records.

JONES: Uh huh. Yeah. So we had a relationship. So I worked with them for a few years and ended up producing and arranging albums on - Rita Coolidge and various people on their label. And I actually ended up doing solo albums on A&M Records during that time. And I was able to survive.

GROSS: And you produced Willie Nelson's, you know, now classic "Stardust" album.

JONES: Yes. That was one of the reasons why I think I made the right decision was because I was able to work in some different genres that I wouldn't have been able to do at Stax Records. Stax wanted to keep it pretty much Memphis soul, which was fine. But Stax was not ever going to be, I don't think, a pop label or a country label. So I don't think I would've been able to take Willie Nelson there or Earl Klugh. I don't think we would've been able to do jazz there.

GROSS: And your tastes are so wide-ranging. You want...

JONES: Yes, yes.

GROSS: You wanted to work in a wide-ranging way.

JONES: Yes. It's one of my greatest disadvantages liking so much - so many different kinds of music.

GROSS: Can I ask you about your name?

JONES: I'm named after my father, who's Booker T. Jones Sr. And he was named after Booker T. Washington. And the name is Booker Taliaferro.

GROSS: And how did you end up, like, dropping the Jones from the professional part of your name? - because it was like Booker T. & The M.G.'s.

JONES: Well, yeah. The band needed a name when we recorded "Green Onions." Al Jackson, the drummer, you know, was, you know - but what will we call it? He said, well, with Booker T. and the - and they just came up with M.G.'s.

There was a little - this guy - this engineer on the song, Chips Moman, was driving a little British Leyland sports car. It's called an M.G. I don't know if you've ever seen those. And he had to park outside. He used to do tricks with it and everything in the snow, you know? And so he looked out the window - Booker T. & the M.G.'s (laughter).

GROSS: It's been great to talk with you. Thank you so much for talking with us.

JONES: Thank you for having me, Terry.

BIANCULLI: Booker T. Jones speaking to Terry Gross in 2007 - he's just published a memoir called "Time Is Tight." On Monday's show...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET'S GO CRAZY")

PRINCE: Dearly, beloved. We are gathered here today to get through this thing called life.

BIANCULLI: Our guest will be Dan Piepenbring whom the singer Prince had selected to help him write his autobiography. But shortly after they began working together, Prince died. Piepenbring's new book "The Beautiful Ones" includes the pages Prince had written about his childhood, adolescence and sexual awakening as well as Piepenbring's personal essay about working with Prince and a collection of Prince's letters, photos and lyric sheets - hope you can join us.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our producer today with Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our associate producer for digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.