Booker T & The MGs, McLemore Avenue

By Matt Keeley

Look, you’re busy, I know that. If you don’t feel like reading this whole thing, just read the next sentence, and you’ll know the truth:

McLemore Avenue by Booker T & The MGs is a fucking amazing album.

That’s all you really need to know. When I first heard about the reissue, I sent Less Lee Moore a one-line email saying exactly that. The email headers were longer than the actual message CONTENT. But it’s a simple truth. If only more people knew it, it wouldn’t even need to be said. It’d be like, “Humans need air to breathe.” Duh.

The Cliff’s Notes version of the album: It’s a cover of just about all of The Beatles’ Abbey Road—four songs are missing, but you don’t notice, even though one of the missing is “Oh! Darling”. The title comes from the street the famed Stax Studio was on, just like EMI’s studios are on Abbey Road. It’s four tracks long—three medleys and one straight-up cover of “Something.” It is fucking amazing.

One other thing that ties this album to the Beatles: Like the Beatles CDs, the only CD version was pretty bare-bones in terms of packaging and a kinda lousy late-80s/early-90s mastering job until very recently. And like the Beatles CD Remasters from 9/9/09, the Stax Remasters series version of McLemore Avenue brings out things I didn’t hear in the previous ninety thousand times I’d listened to this album. It POPS. It’s FULL. It is fucking amazing.

Stax also goes the extra mile: There’re BONUS TRACKS, which the Beatles albums never had. The new CD issue compiles ALL the Beatles covers from Booker T & The MGs, and, of course, they reach the same heights as the other classic Booker T sides. The standouts are the creepy “Eleanor Rigby,””Day Tripper,” and “Lady Madonna.” While the original album is the true classic, it’s great to have all these songs in one package.

. . . in fact? It is fucking amazing.

McLemore Avenue was reissued on May 10 through Concord Music Group.