Booker T. & the MG’s “Doin’ Our...

Booker T. & the MG’s “Doin’ Our Thing” (1968)

Atlantic/Rhino

The cover photo looks like a dorky ‘60s Pepsi ad, but don’t let that discourage you from picking this album up--”Doin’ Our Thing” is Booker T. & the MG’s at their steaming, soulful best.

None of their familiar hits is here, but that’s OK too. The title cut is a slow-burning blues groove that absolutely drips with Southern-fried funk, as fine a track as the group ever recorded. Strutting versions of such R&B; Classics as “You Don’t Love Me,” “Expressway to Your Heart,” “Let’s Go Get Stoned” and “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” are given the finger-poppin’ Memphis Group treatment; the band even transforms such unlikely pop fare as “Never My Love,” “The Exodus Song” and “The Beat Goes On” into bubbling soul. As always, the transcendent rhythm section of Al Jackson and Duck Dunn provides consummate complement to Steve Cropper’s understated, icy-cool guitar work and Booker T.’s juicy, melodic Hammond.

A stellar effort from the group that defined ‘60s instrumental excellence.