This is a beautifully re-mastered re-release from the Stax vaults that takes Booker T & The MGs wonderful homage of respect for the Beatles’ Abby Road album. This version has 6 additional Beatles tunes, with the band’s funky takes on them as bonus material.  This one clocks in at 59 + minutes and the original was in the 39 or 40-minute range.  Their renditions took the Beatles pop music masterpieces and completely rearranged them and turned them funky, a la Booker T.  They thoroughly redid the order of the songs to suit their taste as a band, and it gives the disc a whole different flavor, they put their spin on the music in both the playing and the order of the songs.   Booker T & The MGs were the house band for Stax records specializing in that funky mixture of soul, gospel, and jazz, they often were often recording backing up the likes of Sam & Dave and Otis Redding.  They were an extremely tight biracial amalgamation known for the soulful riffs of Booker T. Jones organ and keyboards, Steve Cropper’s tight, greasy, and cutting guitar leads, Al Jackson’s drum assaults that stayed on the leaner side of the spectrum and Donald “Duck” Dunn’s rhythmic bass.

There is some thoughtful and careful rearranging of not only the order of these tunes to fit this band, but of the music itself; the songs are done in 3 different long medleys except for George Harrison’s Something,” which was set apart as a single.  They even went so far as to make the cover mimic the “Abby Road” cover by doing the same positioning on McLemore Avenue which is where the Stax studios were located.  Yes homage to the Beatles however, definitely not in the playing which is characterized by the tight, economical and exceedingly funky soulful playing this group was known for.  This disc is Booker T Jones’ way of saying thanks to the Beatles for making such a remarkable album and in itself deserves to be recognized as one of the true classics of Southern Soul.