(4) The title is the only verbal touchstone associated with an instrumental. The title is the artist's opportunity to point the audience in a conceptual direction. An evocative title can give the music a conceptual framework upon which to hang its aural story. "Green Onions" was a perfect title for this song because the image it creates is of a tangy, cool, greenish, world. A "green onions" world, not as strong as regular onions, but smaller and sweeter and less demanding. Green onions don't make you cry, they just spice things up a bit.

MG guitarist Steve Cropper wasn't just an MG, he was also a great songwriter, producer and arranger, as well as one of the funkiest white guitar players to ever squeeze a neck. He wrote "In the Midnight Hour" and "(Sittin On) The Dock of the Bay," among many others. He's also the tall, long-haired guitar player in the Blues Brothers band and movie.

The BT&MGs box set shows the full range of the band's inimitable grooves, ranging from very subtle instrumental soul to gutbucket R&B and blues. Dig it.

In addition, Stax has just released two BT&MGs' collections of unreleased material: Stax Instrumentals emphasizes the early band when they were still known as the Mar-Keys, and Soul Men is a collection of their takes on 25 pop and R&B hits from the '60s, including three - Eddie Floyd's "On a Saturday Night," and Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" and "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby" - on which they had backed up the original hit! It's a funny world.