Category: Music

Born Under the Stax Sound

Booker T. Jones at the Natick Center for the Performing Arts, 6/19/26

Last night, Booker T. Jones was a soulful, consummate professional, still at the top of his game musically. As well as performing his well-known Booker T. and the M.G.’s hits, he had tributes to Albert King, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan.

The show opened with the M.G.’s #9 1968 hit, a cover of the theme to Hang ‘Em High*. With those first four notes on the organ I smiled and thought, “Yep, that’s the sound.”

Left to right in the photo were Al Jackson (drums), Steve Cropper (guitar), Booker T. Jones (keyboards), Donald “Duck” Dunn (bass).

A highlight of the show for me was ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’, a song Jones wrote for Albert King.

This is King’s original version.

The best known version of ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ is by Eric Clapton and Cream.

* The leading lady in Hang ‘Em High is Inger Stevens. I’ll take advantage of any excuse to look at Inger Stevens, who died tragically young.

Inger Stevens in Hang ‘Em High

Imitation Cops

My memories of Eighties music are all mashed together, associated with listening to the radios in rental cars from airports on my many, many business trips. A prime example is this 1986 hit, ‘Your Love’ by The Police. No, wait. My mistake. It’s by The Outfield.

1986 was forty years ago?? That’s more depressing than college being fifty years ago!

Beatles Rotator

I recently played my big sister’s original American copy of the 1966 Beatles album Revolver.* It’s in mono, and I was surprised by how good it sounds, considering the damage it endured. Here’s ‘Good Day Sunshine’.

Monitoring the playback with Audacity, I was impressed with how dynamic the sound is. There’s no compression going on here.

For comparison, here is the official online copy of the song.

Looking at the peaks, some loudness compression was apparently added to the recording. The 2009 mono Beatles set reportedly was transferred from the master tapes with dynamic range left intact, so perhaps this is a YouTube effect.

Okay, so let’s find out. What about ‘Good Day Sunshine’ when played from the Beatles 2009 CD mono box set? No loudness compression is confirmed.

* A 60-year-old record on a 50-year-old turntable, with a 30-year-old cartridge and a relatively new stylus.