POTATO HOLE - Booker T

Personnel: Booker T. Jones (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, organ); John Neff (guitar, pedal steel guitar); Neil Young, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley (guitar); Shonna Tucker (bass guitar); Brad Morgan (drums); Lenny Castro (percussion).
Audio Mixer: Rob Schnapf.
Photographer: Jason Thrasher.
Though 21 years separate POTATO HOLE from R&B organ master Booker T.'s last album without his beloved M.G.'s, he wasn't exactly sitting on his hands in the interim, and his keyboard work here is full of the visceral charge that's made him a soul legend since his 1960s Stax days. The Drive-By Truckers and Neil Young stand in for Booker T.'s longtime bandmates, but they wisely avoid aping that band's classic sound. Instead, there's a harder, rock-edged, guitar-based (even Mr. T. plays a little six-string) approach here. Booker T. wrote most of this all-instrumental album's tracks himself, but there are a couple of left-field cover tunes, including new labelmate Tom Waits's bluesy "Get Behind the Mule" and Outkast's pop/hip-hop crossover smash, "Hey Ya." But whatever material he's working with, Booker T. knows how to put his Hammond to work, delivering tasty licks with nary a single note wasted, while leaving room for his sonic sparring partners to have their say too.

• Released: 04/21/2009
• Released: 04/21/2009
• Genre: R&B
• Genre: R&B
• Format: CD
• Format: CD