Neil Young and Booker T. and the MGs Tour Poster Sells for $660 on eBay
In memory of the late, great Donald 'Duck' Dunn, the bassist for Booker T. and the MGs who passed away Sunday morning at the age of 70, we decided to pay tribute to him today in our Rock Memorabilia category. We found a poster from the tour when the legendary Stax house band backed up Neil Young in 1993 that recently sold for $660 on eBay.
Young had long been a fan of Booker T. and the MGs. The bridge on his 1967 Buffalo Springfield song 'Mr. Soul' features a musical quote from Otis Redding's 'I Can't Turn You Loose,' on which Booker T. and the MGs play. But he had never worked with them until 1992 when they were the back-up band for the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden. They performed two songs together, 'Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues' and 'All Along the Watchtower,' and Young sang a verse on the all-star finale of 'My Back Pages.'
In mid-1993 Young released the 'Unplugged' album and, rather than go on the road trying to recreate that sound, he, as he famously does, went in another direction and asked Booker T. and the MGs to join him. But there was one difference: At the Garden, Anton Fig of David Letterman's band was the drummer (original MGs drummer Al Jackson, Jr. was murdered in 1975). For this tour, the drum stool was filled by legendary session drummer Jim Keltner.
In 2002, Young worked with Booker T. and the MGs again on 'Are You Passionate?,' which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. Steve Potts played drums on that album.
The poster advertises two dates in the Pacific Northwest on Young's 1993 tour of North America and Europe: Sept. 5 at The Gorge in George, Wash., and another the next day at the Portland Meadows Race Track in Portland, Ore. The opening acts were alternative bands Pearl Jam and Blind Melon, so the concert brought together three generations of musicians of diverse styles.
Watch Neil Young and Booker T. and the MGs Perform 'All Along the Watchtower'