I don’t remember it being called Funky Onions, but I do remember it being called Onions until I said: “But onions make you cry and give you indigestion.” So it became Green Onions because we had them for Sunday dinner. But it was quickly reissued as the A-side and became a smash. Everyone wanted to know what this record was and where they could get it.Īt that point, Green Onions was being pressed as the B-side to Behave Yourself. He gave it a spin and said: “That’s pretty catchy!” Then he played it again – but this time live on air. I took it to Reuben Washington, the drivetime DJ on the Memphis station WOLK. I called my buddy Scotty Moore over at Sun Records and asked him if he could cut a disc. There was no name for the group, nor even a title for the track, but I knew it was a hit. ![]() On the original master tape, you can actually hear us laughing at the end. ![]() When Jim Stewart said he liked what we were doing and wanted to record us, we were dumbfounded. To get it right, I still have to practise. There’s a magic in there that’s hard to capture. Shortly afterwards, the Who used Green Onions in Quadrophenia, and it became a hit in the UK all over again. I said: “Who was that guy?” It turned out to be Keith Moon from the Who, paying me a form of tribute. Everyone was laughing, then he just took off. Years later, in the 70s, I was sitting in a restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard and this dude jumped up and started dancing on the table, plates flying. Green Onions started the “Memphis soul sound”, that deep organ. We had problems with things like segregated eating, but we survived. One white person and three black people – one of whom looked white! Nobody realised this until we started performing in public. We were a racially integrated band before civil rights.
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