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If you are ever lucky enough to visitthe Stax Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, you will get a sense of the importance of Booker T Jones, whosepresence can be felt everywhere throughout the marvellously evocative re-creation of the originalbuilding. It would not be an understatement to say that Jones is one of themost important musicians in the history of popular music over the past fiftyyears.

Born in 1944 within walking distanceof the Stax Studios in Memphis, Jones began his career in music like so manyothers of his generation in that region – singing gospel songs and playing organin his local church (though he also learned oboe, sax, trombone and piano). Heeven took on a newspaper round to earn money for lessons on the Hammond B3 –the instrument to which his reputation has become inextricably linked. His highschool, Booker T Washington, also boasted many of the musicians who were laterto work with him at Stax. It was fertile ground.

In his teenage years Jones wouldnaturally enough hang around at the Satellite Record shop run by Estelle Axton(the ‘ax’ in Stax and her brother Jim Stewart). He was soon recruited to be onstaff and played sax on ‘‘Cause I Love You,’ the first Satellite Records (laterStax) hit by Rufus and Carla Thomas.

In 1962, as leader of the Stax houseband he formed Booker T & The MGs with guitarist Steve Cropper, bassistLewis Steinberg (later replaced by Donald ‘Duck’ Dunne) and drummer Al JacksonJr (tragically murdered in 1975). He was to write the group’s signature tune‘Green Onions’ while still in high school and continued to study classicalcomposition, even entering Indiana University and playing with his band on theweekends.

Eventually, a full-time career at Staxtook over and Jones and his colleagues went on to play on some of the most  ground breaking records of all time and Joneshimself would write a slew of hits: ‘I’ve Never Found A Girl’ (with EddieFloyd), Otis Redding’s ‘I Love You More Than Words Can Say,’ and Albert King’s‘Born Under A Bad Sign’ (with William Bell), to name a few. You can hear theBooker T touch almost everywhere in the Stax catalogue. It is an astonishingachievement.

Along with their hundreds of sessions,the group recorded more than a dozen albums, including the McLemore Avenue albumin 1970, a tribute to The Beatles’ Abbey Road and a nod to the fact thatThe Beatles were ardent fans (at one point they almost recorded Revolver atStax).

In 1970, as the Stax labelstarted to wind down, Jones moved to California and appeared on Stephen Stills’self-titled debut. He went on to produce albums by Rita Coolidge, WillieNelson’s Stardust and, perhaps, most importantly of all, Bill Withers’classic debut album Just As I Am, containing the smash hit ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’.(He could have dined out for the rest of his life on the strength of that onealone!) Jones also continued to record his own solo albums, the last of whichwas Runway in 1989, after which playing for others and occasionalreunions with the MGs took over. He worked with everyone from Bobby Darin andRay Charles to John Lee Hooker.

In 1992, Booker T &The MGs were inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame and, a fewyears later, they were the house band at the opening of the museum inCleveland. Also in 1992 they were asked by Bob Dylan to be his houseband for his 30 ^th anniversary concert. Soon afterwards, they were also asked by NeilYoung (who played at the Dylan gig) to back him on his 1993 tour. Ayear later they recorded their first album since the ‘70s with That’sThe Way It Should Be (with Steve Jordan on drums).

Now, after a twenty-yearbreak from solo recordings, Booker T Jones is back with Potato Hole, awonderful instrumental album that reintroduces the power of his Hammond (andhis occasional guitar playing) backed by the mighty Drive-By Truckers and none otherthan the great Neil Young, also on guitar for most of the tracks.

The album features a mixof new tunes and three covers, all recorded in the space of just one week! Ofcourse, Booker T’s playing is superlative but the surprise here might just behow very powerful it is. Naturally enough, the Drive-By Truckers lend their ineffablesense of groove; while having Neil Young play guitar launches the album intothe musical stratosphere.

The trick when listeningto Potato Hole, like a lot of the recordings with the MGs, is to turn itup really loud from the moment the opening number ‘Pound It Out’ burststhrough the speakers and then leave it that way. As Neil would say,‘More barn!’

Apart from the strongoriginals, Jones has chosen to cover Tom Waits’ ‘Get Behind the Mule,’Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya,’ and the Drive-By Truckers’ own ‘Space City’.

“I’ve been busy doingother things and then sometimes nothing,” says Jones when I suggest that twentyyears might seem like a long break from solo recording. My call is put throughto him at his home in near San Francisco, as he is getting ready to go out on tourbehind the album’s release this month.

“I don’t know what broughtme to this point,” he reflects. “There’s good things and bad things but I’mglad to be at the place where I’m at right now.”

The title of the album, PotatoHole, has a special significance for Jones, having grown up an AfricanAmerican in the South and having lived through the events surrounding theassassination of Dr Martin Luther King. (The Stax musicians would spend a lotof time relaxing between sessions at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, a welcomingplace for all musicians and the spot where Dr King was murdered.)

“ PotatoHole came from the place that the slaves would dig,” he explains, “ahidden place, maybe sometimes under the bed or under the table in their slavequarters that didn’t have wooden floors but had dirt floors. The holes were dugto hide food but they were cool places to keep stores. This album is a potatohole of sorts too because it’s a place where so many of my treats are hidden, Ifeel. I’ve got some good stuff going on down in my own potatohole there.”

I suggest that things havechanged dramatically in America over the past few months, obviously since theelection of Barack Obama.

“They have considerably,they have!” he agrees. “That is almost an understatement, you’re absolutelyright.”

“I wouldn’t have dreamedof it in this point in time,” he says when I ask if ever envisaged a blackPresident. “I won’t say that it’s premature because I believe it’s timelybecause I think we’ve had many qualified people. But it’s just a beautifulthing, especially, like you say, considering what happened just a few years agoat that same spot where I was personally at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis.That’s where we held our meetings at Stax Records and that’s where one of themost atrocious acts happened. So, yes, it’s quite phenomenal and quite good.”

Jones admits that therecruitment of the Drive-By Truckers for his album was the vision of ANTI-Records’ Andy Kaulkin, who also got bandleader Patterson Hood to produce BettyeLavette.

“He wanted me with a prettyheavy rock band,” says Jones. “Then I had sat in with Jason Isbell of theDrive-By Truckers down at South By Southwest and we jammed and we had a goodtime, though he has since left the band. That kind of introduced me to thegroup and I had known that they were fans of Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd, theSouthern rock scene and that they had three guitars.”

Jones was aware that DBTsfounder Patterson Hood was the son of famed Muscle Shoals bass player DavidHood.

“He would have to befamous because his dad played the solo that Duck Dunn got credit for on theStaple Singers’ ‘I’ll Take  You There’,”he laughs. “I got some great stories from Patterson because Jerry Wexler stayedat their house many times during those amazing days that they were working downthere with Spooner [Oldham] and Aretha [Franklin] and all those folks. He knewJerry very well, so I got to enjoy that.”

“They were fantastic,”gushes Jones when I ask him what the band was like to work with. “They gave meeverything they had playing and I’m still moved by it; by the enthusiasm thatthey played with and just the willingness to get into my music and let me be theone running the show. It was just a great experience for me actually.”

Neil Young is a long-timefriend, whom Booker first met at that famous Madison Square Garden bash forDylan.

“We were going over BobDylan songs,” he recalls, “and we were playing back up on stage for Neil andthat’s how we first met. However, I felt like I had known him musically becausehe had played on Deja Vu and all that whole album with Stephen Stills andGraham Nash and David Crosby. I just felt like I had known him through themusic and then his own music took a more heavy rock approach.”

I mention the fact thatwith the MGs he too took a different approach to his music on the McLemoreAvenue album.

“You know when that McLemoreAvenue album got recorded, they were kicking and screaming about thatalbum,” he recalls. “It was too out of our genre. I had to push that onethrough. I’ve always loved rock music, I’ve always loved, like I say, thebeginning when the music started to change in the early ‘70s with The Beatlesand the Stones and Cream and Eric Clapton and Neil Young – they started to dowhat was really basically rock ‘n’ roll blues. Rock was basically blues with arock tempo to it, kind of country built blues and I’ve always loved it andalways played it myself on my own guitar. I’ve just always loved the sound,it’s a revolutionary sound – I still love it!”

PotatoHole is released this month through Shock Records. Booker T Jones & TheDrive By Truckers play Byron Bluesfest on April 13, full dates in the GigGuide.