Artist:   Booker T. & the M.G.’s
Song:   "Kinda Easy Like"
Album: Melting Pot
Label:   Stax
Year:    1971

The band starts with a lazy lilt right out of their own “Green Onions.” Maybe not as instantly hip, but with enough catch in it to fry your tomatoes. Al Jackson, Jr.’s hi-hat snaps with plenty crunch to give the song kick. Booker T.’s Hammond organ is part church but no yo-yo for the first few measures, as guitarist Steve Cropper’s Telecaster hits some accents that are half Hawaiian and all funky. It goes without saying Donald “Duck” Dunn’s bass is so on the money it could probably make change in between down beats. Then Booker T. edges up the thermostat a bit, laying out some hot ‘cha mama lead lines to get the blood pressure revving. Cropper answers back with actual blues runs, not really his specialty but no embarrassment is involved. The song is only two minutes in and still getting started. That’s okay, because before it’s over almost nine minutes will have flown by. But what’s this? Vocalese? Lambert, Hendricks & Ross? The Swingle Singers? Hell, maybe it’s that damn Flying Nun dropping in. The voices scat along with the Hammond, at first sounding a bit square for Memphis’ McLemore Avenue studio, but with a band as boss as Booker T. & the MGs, nothing stays unround for long. The foursome has been soaking in the grease pit for almost ten years as Stax Records’ house band, so everything is a groove. The music continues with unstoppable momentum, organ swells synced with the singers, and it’s hard to tell if this is the group stretching out or maybe the label hoping to ring the registers. The rest of Melting Pot walks the more familiar side of Soul Street with inescapable élan, even if “Kinda Easy Like” drifts a bit toward easy-listening. No problem. Like James Brown sort of said, “Let a man come in and do the Jiffy Pop.” Or something like that.