When Booker T and the MGs covered The Beatles
The Beatles are one of the most covered bands in history. With such a hefty back catalogue, it’s no wonder. Sometimes, it feels like they have a song for every occasion, feeling, or citation. Specifically, their track ‘Yesterday’ is one of the most heavily covered songs, racking up over 2,200 new versions since its release in 1966. But one band’s take on The Beatles was certainly unexpected.
The Beatles’ music seems to have been tackled by artists across every possible genre. There are classical music renditions of their hits, gospel takes, country versions and beyond. But you probably wouldn’t naturally connect the funk group Booker T and the MGs with the Scouse boys.
But it seems even Booker T Jones and his instrumental quartet couldn’t resist the allure of The Beatles songs. In April 1970, only a mere seven months after the Beatles released Abbey Road, Booker T and his group released their own instrumental take on the album.
Abbey Road is an incredible, flowing record with songs that run into one another. This format seems to naturally lend itself to instrumental covers, allowing bands to indulge in an extended jam. That’s exactly what Booker T and the MGs did, with the opening medley of ‘Golden Slumbers’, ‘Carry That Weight’, ‘The End’, ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and ‘Come Together’ extending beyond the 15-minute mark.
The majority of the album is a direct cover of Abbey Road. For this reason, the band called their version McLemore Avenue, following the Beatles’ lead and titling it after the street the studio they recorded it in sat on. Recreating the iconic cover photo, Booker T and the MGs posed on the road outside Stax Studio in Memphis.
Delivering their own version of the Beatles album, McLemore Avenue is in typical Booker T style, merging flavours of funk, soul and R&B. It maintains some of the Beatles’ best-loved riffs and rhythms but adds in a heavier dose of synth organs, blues guitar and funkier drum beats. Their upbeat and funky take on ‘Something’ especially stands out, reaching number 76 on the US chart when it was released, which is a good number for a fully instrumental track.
In a 2011 rerelease of the album, six new Beatles covers from Booker T and the boys were released, including ‘Day Tripper’, ‘Michelle’ and other earlier tracks from the band.
It seems Booker T couldn’t stop himself, being so inspired by the new Beatles album. “I was in California when I heard Abbey Road, and I thought it was incredibly courageous of The Beatles to drop their format and move out musically like they did,” he said of the album.
He continued: “To push the limit like that and reinvent themselves when they had no need to do that. They were the top band in the world, but they still reinvented themselves.”
So inspired and moved by the record, Booker T immediately called up his band to start working out their own version of Abbey Road, adding, “The music was just incredible, so I felt I needed to pay tribute to it.”
Booker T had been a lifelong fan of the band, telling the Irish Times: “I’d loved them since I’d first heard them as a college freshman, pouring all my quarters into the jukebox to play I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
It seems the admiration was mutual. When Booker T and the MGs label Stax did a revolutionary tour of the UK, bringing black R&B artists across the Atlantic for the first time, The Beatles offered their support. “They’d also been so generous to us on the 1968 Stax tour of the UK,” Booker T said, “They even sent us a limo!”
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