Booker T. & The MG's
Green Onions

I have always thought that the greatest tool that brought redemption to black Americans was music. When the groove starts, even the most bigoted and foolish American with a comb-over like in Full Metal Jacket can't help but do one simple thing: move the wooden heel of their leather shoe on the dance floor, smile, wink, and maybe meet a beautiful girl. It was 1962, and in America, something had been happening for a few years already. Blacks had taken the music scene in many states, making the hearts of thousands of kids, black and white, beat together for the first time. You may wonder: how was this possible in a militaristic, conservative country on the verge of starting one of the most tragic military campaigns in its history against a small faraway village in the East? The answer seems obvious to me: listen to "Green Onions" by Booker T & The MG's. Indeed, in 1962, this album was released by Stax Records, in a southern state, and was hugely welcomed by the public. When it crossed the English Channel, it could only kill the ears and drop the jaws of the British R&B rookies like the Yardbirds, Bluesbreakers, and the Rolling Stones with Keith Richards, who used to listen to this album from the armchairs of the best avant-garde salons of swinging London in the mid-sixties, accompanied by the first doses of opioids in his long career. As I said, something was happening in America, something new, the black singing was no longer of repression, of slavery, of agony, it was no longer BLUE. From Booker T's organ comes something that doesn't keep you still, it brings joy, it brings freedom, it brings redemption! On the guitar, Steve Cropper plays in the footsteps of his idol Chuck Berry, combined with a true and pure sound rooted in American tradition. When "Green Onions" starts, you imagine yourself in a convertible with the wind in your hair, ready for a long journey that doesn't go on the road but on the bass line of Donald 'Duck' Dunn, in my opinion, one of the best blues/rock and R&B bassists on this planet, contending with John McVie, Jack Bruce, Andy Fraser, and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat. The album moves forward, and with ballads like "Stranger on the Shore," you can't help but invite a beautiful girl to dance with you. "Lonely Avenue" recalls the revolutionary and new atmosphere of John Mayall in the suite "Nature Disappearing" (new???? Booker T laid down the piece almost a decade earlier, at 18). This Stax Records jewel gathers everything that is Soul, R&B, blues, and rock 'n' roll from the early sixties in the United States. "Green Onions" has a long pedigree starting from the blues of Muddy Waters, passing through Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and reaching James Brown, Funkadelic, and Parliament, even helping the Blues Brothers raise money for the orphanage (just joking); remember, though, that Steve Cropper and Donald Dunn also played with the giants featured in the film Blues Brothers. Today the sun is out, and to start the day with the right groove and a smile on my face, I, in doubt, play this record.