BOOKER T. JONES

It can be argued that it was Booker T. Jones who set the cast for modern soul music and is largely responsible for its rise and enduring popularity. On classic Stax hits like “Green Onions,” “Hang ‘Em High,” “Time Is Tight,” and “Melting Pot” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Musicians Hall of Fame inductee and GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award recipient pushed the music’s boundaries, refined it to its essence and then injected it into the nation’s bloodstream. Sound the Alarm, the new album from Booker T, finds the Hammond B3 organ master looking ahead yet again, laying down his distinctive bedrock grooves amid a succession of sparkling collaborations with some of contemporary R&B’s most gifted young voices.

Sound the Alarm also marks Booker T’s historic return to Stax Records, the Memphis soul label the instrumentalist, bandleader, producer, and songwriter helped put on the map during the 1960s, along with his brilliant band, the MGs.

Creatively, it’s another bold new step in a career that has witnessed a striking resurgence in recent years. Booker T took home Best Pop Instrumental Album GRAMMY Awards for both 2010’s Potato Hole, his head-turning collaboration with The Drive-By Truckers and 2012’s The Road From Memphis, his critically acclaimed album with The Roots.

He is not resting on those laurels. For Sound the Alarm, Booker T shares production chores with brothers Bobby Ross Avila and Issiah “IZ” Avila, who co-wrote eight songs and serve as the rhythm section on most of the album’s 12 tracks. The highly sought after siblings have worked with such top acts as Usher, Janet Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliot, Chaka Khan and Earth, Wind & Fire.