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Fact #33945

When:

Short story:

Memphis-based white r'n'b band The Mar-Keys enter the Billboard Top 40 Singles Chart in the USA with Last Night on Stax Records, which will peak at No3.

Full article:

Steve Cropper (guitarist, The Mar-Keys] : Al Jackson, Booker, Duck and I grew up playing nightclubs in Memphis. Wayne Jackson grew up that way. Playing live, if a vocalist is not there, I'm playing vocal parts. When a vocalist is there I back off and play rhythm and fills.

I don't think there ever was or ever will be a band that had the magnetism that Booker T. And The MG's had. Whether they back somebody or played on their own. In our high school days and upbringing. We had that band mentality thing 'cause we worked as a unit. Because if some guy wants to go out there and ego on stage he's gonna blow it for everybody else. We learned to play as a unit in the studio. We were there not for ourselves but for the artist we were playing behind. In the studio when I was writing songs and starting to record them I always saw it in my head as a finished product. I knew where to go with it. (interview with Harvey Kubernik, 2007)

Steve Cropper (guitarist, The Mar-Keys] : We did Last Night in the summer of 1959 when we'd just graduated. Then we went out and played some black r'n'b clubs. It was a lot of fun but I think we put them in shock. We showed up and they'd give us this weird look, like, "What's this white group doing here?"

But Last Night was in reality a marriage between our band, The Mar-Keys and the Stax staff band at the time, so there were a lot of black musicians on the record who had a really good influence.

At the time of The Mar-Keys we listened to Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Little Richard, Ray Charles, a little Chuck Berry and a lot of Jimmy Reed. My biggest influence was probably a group called the Royales. They played r'n'b, pure dance music, and their guitar player was great. He'd just be doing some little rhythm pattern, when all of a sudden there'd be a space and he'd play these incredible funky fills.

They did Say It, Monkey Hips And Rice and the original version of This Is Dedicated To The One I Love.
(Source : not known)