"Green Onions"

[LHbassist]

One thing is for sure, the song is in F minor. I hear bands playing it in 'E' all the time. I actually heard a local Reno band once play it in E major. It was truly weird to hear, not at all like the original, and as mentioned which we use as the benchmark. The guitar lesson cat above, plays it correctly, and as good as anyone could minus a B-3. He'd be fun to play it with.
Trivia: Donald Duck Dunn, did not play bass on the original recording! That, is something that surprised me when I found out recently.

 

[GMC]

Green Onions is fundamentally just a blues and not a particularly interesting one. Booker T sold it using the timbre of the B3. It's been covered by lots of folks since without having organ as the lead voice.

My fave! You gotta love Roy Buchanan...they don't make 'em like that anymore!

A nice mk 1 wal in that clip

 

[BluesWalker]

Have you ever played this song by Booker T and the MG's?

Was it with or without an organ?

Would you ever perform it live like the original, but minus the organ?
(Guitar, bass, drums only)

Thanks for any feedback.

I have done that, it works

 

[Oddly]

Yes, I've done it, and it worked very well.
I did use my EHX Micro-Pog, sparingly, to fill out the sound a bit while playing the 'organ' melody part, while the guitar covered the bassline.
Great song!

 

[Kun2112]

no: you do not need the original instrumentation of any tune: it's called an arrangement! and if you have kick-a$$ players = the arrangement can be way better than the original!

I've seen a 3-piece KILL a Tower of Power song (Don't Change Horses to be specific).

 

[ezstep]

Yes, played it many, many times both with and without the organ. A good guitarist can do it. What surprised our crowds was that we could play Floyd Cramer's Last Date without a keyboard, and it sounded great.

 

[Phalex]

Back in one of my first bands, Green Onions was sound check. We had a keyboard player, but I think one of the cornerstones of a good band is being able to take a familiar song and perform it in an unfamiliar way.

 

[howlin]

One thing is for sure, the song is in F minor. I hear bands playing it in 'E' all the time.

I would never let the original key of a song limit my choices or decision to play in whatever key I or the band I was playing in wanted to. Obviously, when playing with a singer it can become neccesary to change the key of a song. In this case playing it in E just makes more sense and, to my ears, more funky. In the case of this song I think modulating 3 or 4 times might actually make it more interesting to play and possibly more engaging for the audience FWIW.

 

[Jim Dedrick]

IMHO All songs can(should) be left to the musicians interpretations. Organ really is a big part of this tune and would need some creative changes to pull off....

 

[bassdude51]

Umm, there's a guitar pedal that does the Hammond organ sound.

Here, you can listen to a guitar doing the Green Onions organ riff @ 2:15 mins in.

Video is linked to this MusiciansFriend ad for the pedal.

Truly amazing what guitar pedals can do these days!

Electro-Harmonix B9 Organ Machine Guitar Effects Pedal

 

[ArtechnikA]

Check out Sonny Boy Williamson's song " Help me " for another very similar take on that tune - not sure who did which first ....

Green Onions came first, if Wikipedia is to be believed.
But yeah - we play Help Me a lot...

Always struck me as some of the lamest lyrics...

"If you don't help me, I'll have to do it all by myself."

That's your big sales pitch?
Wash your own damn clothes - see if I care...

 

[barebones]

A good song is a good song no matter what it's played on. Play it on a jaw harp, theremin, and washtub bass. People who know the song will still recognize it and will probably be amused and entertained by the format change. We're entertainers, too, right?

 

[Holdsg]

I've played a bluegrass version of Green Onions, and nobody lost a kidney in the process.

 

[Kelly robinson]

Hey ArtechnikA-
Thanks for the head's up about authorship etc - I always thought the line " if you don't help me - I'll have to do it by myself " referred more to a much more private pursuit than laundry ! LOL ... as does the line _ " I don't feel like sleeping but I feel like lying down " ... At any rate - a favorite song of mine ...

 

[Kevorargh]

I was in a college band and we played it with 2 guitars, bass, and drums and it awakes went over well, even though we didn't do the organ part.

 

[jamro217]

If you have the rhythm guitar run through an MXR flanger (set up to sound like a Leslie cab) you can mimic the B3 part. We used to do a decent version of "Soulful Strut" with that technique. You'd be surprised how many people ask about the ghost organist.

 

[BusyFingers]

I'm sorry, the correct answer is "carrots." Thanks for playing, try again sometime.

 

[Richland123]

My last band did a 3 piece guitar, bass, and drums version of Time Is Tight and it always got people up and dancing. We kept is similar to The Ventures version.