Booker T. Jones
in conversation with Scott Timberg
discussing his memoir,
Time Is Tight: My Life, Note by Note
The Bootleg Theatre
2220 Beverly Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90057
PURCHASE TICKETS
$45 General Admission seating + Book
$55 Reserved Section seating + Book
$20 General Admission Seating (on sale Oct 4, 10am)
Booker T. Jones is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and arranger. Best known as the front man of the band Booker T. & the M.G.’s, He won a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement and along with the band, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. He continues to record and tour both as a solo artist and as head of the “Booker T’s Stax Revue.
“I think of musicians as a brotherhood with a purpose, and our purpose is being realized right now, so if I have anything to say it’s about that: what music means to people, what we can give people with our work, whether they use it for pleasure or for spiritual events, weddings, or just living day-to-day. It’s about connecting to each other, understanding each other. I think you’re not ever completely alone out here if you’re connecting through music or art.” — Booker T. Jones
From Booker T. Jones’s earliest years in segregated Memphis, music was the driving force in his life. While he worked paper routes and played gigs in local nightclubs to pay for lessons and support his family, Jones, on the side, was also recording sessions in what became the famous Stax Studios-all while still in high school. Not long after, he would form the genre-defining group Booker T. and the MGs, whose recordings went on to sell millions of copies, win a place in Rolling Stone’s list of top 500 songs of all time, and help forge collaborations with some of the era’s most influential artists, including Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and Sam & Dave.
Time is Tight is the deeply moving account of how Jones balanced the brutality of the segregationist South with the loving support of his family and community, all while transforming a burgeoning studio into a musical mecca. He shares about the inner workings of the Stax label, as well as a fascinating portrait of working with many of the era’s most legendary performers-Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Tom Jones, among them.
Scott Timberg is a Los Angeles-based arts and culture writer. A former Los Angeles Times and Salon